Feature Namibia
(other authorities put it at 50%). Whatever the figure, it is a harrowing situation, in fact it is an indictment not only of the SWAPO government but also of the “owners” of the country – the descendants of the German and South African colonisers whose resist- ance to reform has frustrated any meaning- ful attempt by the government to change the status quo since independence. When Germany officially “lost” the ter-
ritory after the First World War, the League of Nations (the precursor of the United Na- tions) mandated Namibia to South Africa in 1920. Sadly, from 1948, South Africa imposed its obnoxious apartheid policies in Namibia too. So even today, Namibia is a mini South Africa after apartheid. Te “white” section of the population,
who were facilitated by apartheid to enjoy all the privileges in life, still hold on to the fruits of those privileges while the majority black population struggle to make a living. No wonder a good percentage of blacks
still live in shacks in Windhoek’s black suburb of Katutura, created in 1961 by the
42 | June 2011 New African
apartheid government after the forced re- moval of the black population from the Old Location to make way for the creation of Hochland Park, a whites-only affluent sub- urb which, after independence, became a residential area for the upper middle class, both black and white. Katutura in the Herero language means
“Te place where we don’t want to live.” But the black people had nowhere to go, so they still live there. Te shacks are a sorry sight and a heavy indictment of the government and the “owners” of the country. For, in a population of just 2 million people, nobody deserves to live in a shack! Adding insult to this injury is the fact that Namibia is not a “poor” country by the normal definition. However, Namibia’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very small group of people, mainly of European descent. A study done by the Netherlands UNDP
Bureau of Development Policy in Decem- ber 2005, put Namibia’s GNP per capita at the time at an “average US$2,334 in the period 1995-2003 as compared to the Afri-
can average of US$681”. However, “poverty is widespread,” the study found, “and the headcount of the 1999 Namibian standards of living survey concluded that 75.9% of the population lives in poverty. Great inequal- ity is a logical conclusion that follows from being a relatively rich country that contains a large poor population. For example, the richest 5% of the population controls 71% of GDP, with an average income of US$14,000 per year which is comparable with the mid- dle stratum of developed countries in Eu- rope. Te poorest 55% account for merely 3% of GDP, with a per capita income of less than US$100 a year.” How anybody can justify such inequal-
ity in a country with one of the richest uranium deposits in the world, mined by the British multinational company, Rio Tinto, beggars belief. Namibia’s uranium resources (said to be
the second-largest in the world), account for one-eighth of the world’s production. Today, some diamond cutting is done in Windhoek but for decades and decades,
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