Since its independence in 1990, the Namibian government has argued that the redistribution of land in the former German and South African colony is critical to its emergence as an independent nation.

"It will be recalled that the land possession pattern in our nation has been designed by colonialism to benefit a small group of minority settlers, at the expense of the majority," Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab said in February 2004. "Therefore, the problem of land ownership was indeed central to the struggle for national independence."

The roots of reform
As Namibia emerged from its colonial past, it enacted several measures aimed at returning land to poor, displaced farmers. The government also saw the transfer of tracts of land from a few large, mostly white-owned, commercial farms to thousands of smaller farmers as a major weapon in its war against poverty.

"It is the view of our government that acquisition of land is a crucial element in the entire spectrum of poverty alleviation measures, because the one who possesses and owns land has the key to the means to acquire wealth," Hifikepunye Pohamba, minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation and lead official in the expropriation move, explained to the national parliament in March 2004.

In its first constitution, enacted in 1990, officials made land reform a priority by including allowances for the seizure of land, with compensation, when it was deemed to be in the national interest.

Less than five years later, the Agriculture (Commercial) Land Reform Act of 1995 (Act 6 of 1995) laid out a plan for tackling redistribution through an aggressive program aimed at encouraging farmers to sell unused land or multiple farms. It also reserved the right to forcefully expropriate land with compensation.

What emerged was the so-called willing-seller, willing-buyer program, which gave the government the right of first refusal in purchasing farms when the owner was ready to sell. Through this program, the government purchased only 130 farms totaling some 800,000 hectares or about 3,100 square miles and resettled approximately 37,000 people onto those farms. But officials and those waiting to be resettled felt the program was moving too slowly.

The accelerated program
In early 2004, the government of Prime Minister Gurirab announced it would begin using expropriation in addition to the more voluntary approach.

"Over the years, government has come to realize that the willing-seller, willing-buyer approach is cumbersome and as a result, it would not be able to keep up with the high public demand for agricultural land," Gurirab told parliament on Feb. 25, 2004, adding that more than 240,000 Namibians were awaiting resettlement.

Working with an advisory council that would include white farmers, officials and others, the government would select farms that it felt were underutilized or excessively large and would force owners to sell. It would also target multiple farms owned by the same individual.

"Here [in Namibia] you can find one person owning 20 farms," Frans Kayumbu Tsheehama, permanent secretary for the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, told the Online NewsHour.

But some commercial farmers contend the government needs to be more specific.

"It is now equally important that the government clearly indicate to the international [community] what criteria have been used for the identification of farms to be expropriated and set the disturbed minds at ease," J.M. DeWet, president of the Namibia Agriculture Union, said in a statement in late February 2004.

Avoiding Zimbabwe's problems
The role of the law has been critical to Namibia's approach to the expropriation issue. Gurirab and his government officials have all said the program they have proposed would move forward under the auspices of the nation's constitution.

"I ... call upon land owners, the landless and all fellow Namibians to cooperate with government, to exercise patience and not to engage in unlawful actions during the land reform process," Gurirab said during his February address. "It is our desire to complete this exercise in a legal, stable, transparent and peaceful manner."

The comments were seen as a thinly veiled effort to distance their program from that of Zimbabwe, where the government or groups of landless workers have violently seized many farms.

As part of the program, once the government has decided on a farm to seize, it will then send the owner a notice of expropriation. Agents will then assess the property value and order the farmer not to make any changes to the property, such as building new buildings, or tearing down existing infrastructure. Farmers then negotiate the price of the land to be expropriated and the government tenders a final offer. If the farmer objects, he can appeal the settlement to a Land Tribunal to try and garner more money for his land.

But at the end of the appeals process, the farmers will be forced to sell or face the Namibian justice system.

"If [the law] is not being respected there are ways of handling the matter," Tsheehama said. "Once the judiciary has pronounced itself what follows is law enforcement."

The opposition
Despite government efforts to cast this program as something all major parties have embraced, some vocal opponents have been quick to condemn it.

One group, the newly-formed Namibia Farmer's Support Initiative, warned that no solution to the land reform process would be found as long as "politicking, prejudice, radicalism and opportunism replaces sound reasoning in the best interest of Namibia and its people."

Government officials have dismissed many of the opponents as representing those radical remnants of the nation's colonial past.

"We know them and the role they played during apartheid -- to coerce the people into subjugation," the Land Ministry's Tsheehama said of the NFSI. "They are bound to fail. They have got no support from anybody. They are meaningless."

Other, larger farmer groups, such as the NAU, cautioned its members "not to overreact" and to "address the issue with wisdom, calmness and responsibility."

Regardless of the reaction of the 4,000 mostly white land owners who control almost half of the nation's arable land, the government has said the program is ready to move forward aggressively this year, fueled by a budget of 50 million Namibian dollars.

Despite the failure of the willing-seller, willing-buyer program, the government said it would both expropriate and continue to buy farms under both systems until the goal of giving land to the 240,000 farmers is met.

"We are in need of at least 9 million hectares of land (nearly 35,000 square miles) to satisfy the need. Thirty-six million is currently in the hands of the white people in Namibia in the commercial sector," Tsheehama said, "so 130 farms or 800,000 hectares is just a drop in the bucket."

-- By Lee Banville, Online NewsHour