The Pohambas complained that Keirises breached their agreement regarding staying on the farm by erecting unauthorised structures. The Pohambas then accommodated Keirises, her daughter Annelise (60), and grandchildren until this year. In 2002, the Groblers' son sold the farm to the Pohambas, who reportedly did not want to take on the farmworkers, placing the Keirises clan in danger of eviction. She says her employers Riennie and Ben Grobler had promised her security of tenure on the farm, but Grobler died before that could be done. They are unconcerned about the welfare of the poor, who suffer from colonial and other historical dispossession, and now continued marginalisation in an independent Namibia.Īmanda Keirises worked for the owner of farm Guinaspoh 1401 near Otavi. Pohamba's failure as lands minister and then president to secure land tenure for the most vulnerable farmworking communities feeds a perception that the ruling elite, as well as their cronies, put in place land-reform programmes for self-enrichment. He was a Cabinet member when the government expropriated or considered the expropriation of white-owned farms where workers were evicted and dumped by the roadside with their families and livestock. In fact, while minister of lands, Pohamba was an integral part of a process that would have found a solution to accommodate unwanted farmworkers when land ownership changed hands. Pohamba could have been forgiven had he been a private citizen who bought his farm with no state assistance.īut the former head of state was minister of lands, leading reforms, and among those who criticised white landowners who treated farmworkers and their families as dispensable when their labour was no longer useful. FORMER PRESIDENT HIFIKEPUNYE Pohamba seemingly did everything by the book to evict, and dump in the middle of nowhere, 78-year-old Amanda Keirises, her frail 88-year-old husband, Alfred, and their family members.īut the elderly statesman failed abysmally on the level of humanity and leadership, showing just how unmoved members of the ruling elite have become about the plight of the people they promised milk and honey when Namibia became independent.
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