Eviction of families from Nkarapamwe black township houses in Rundu, north-east Namibia, 1970
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Date
2022
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Otjivanda Presse.Bochum
Abstract
An interest in a history of colonial eviction of families from Nkarapamwe Black Township houses of Rundu in north-east Namibia, along the Kavango River boundary with Angola in 1970, was inspired by the need to contribute to histories of colonial evictions in Namibia and Southern Africa generally. This paper is originally based on a chapter in a Master’sthesis by Likuwa in 2005 detailing Rundu removals.1Inter alia, as an urban space in north eastern Namibia, Rundu has relatively a recent history. Although the first assistant native commissioner Mr. RenéDickman (aka Kayuruor Shongola) was posted to Kavango at Nkurenkuru in 1922, it was only on 16 September 1936 that an Assistant Natives Affairs Commissioner Harold Eedes (aka Nakare) opened office doors at Rundu where he operated until 1946after which he was replaced by. Mr. Morris (1946-1954). It was however during the tenure of Mr. DaveMaree (1958-January 1970) as a Bantu Affairs Commissionerthat Kavango people in Rundu were first relocated from the riverside villages into Nkarapamwe Bantu Township by 1968.2By 1970, at the times of the Nkarapamwe evictions, Mr. Van Niekerk served as theBantu Affairs Commissionerfor barely a year(February-December 1970). The history of Rundu as an administrative town is thus situated in colonial development and security schemes, such as contract labour supply, Odendaal Commission Plan and the so-called counter-terrorism or surveillance concerns necessitated the removal or evictions of people in Rundu.3Colonial evictions were extensive during the Apartheid period in both South Africa and Namibia and, in the case of South Africa, such history is widely documented.4Uma Mesthrie, for example, focused on the experiences of forced removals by Coloured and Indian residents from Sea-point and she placed the eviction in the broader context of evolving policy, legislation and institutional structures for imple-menting forced resettlement of communities in the name of the Apartheid ideology.5In South Africa, as in Namibia, the eviction of ‘squatters’ from land during apartheid both involved the use of legal procedures and institutions to protect property interests, however, in the period following the abolition of apartheid, this logic was not abandoned and seemingly, liberty was acquired at the price of economic subjugation.6Racial discriminatory laws such as the Groups Areas Act of 1950 and other laws such the Squatters Act were identified as the reasons for the various evictions in the urban areas of South Africa and Namibia during the colonial and apartheid period.7However, these reasons were most often a time disguised by the colonial authorities who instead justified the evictions of the local African residents. 1Kletus Likuwa, “Nkarapamwe, new beginning and endings”, in:idem, Rundu, Kavango: a case study of forced relocations in Namibia, 1954 to 1972, unpul. MA thesis, Cape Town, UWC, 2005:52-72.2Kletus Muhena Likuwa, “Colonial relocations in Northern Namibia: from the Riverside village to Nkarapamwe Black Township in Rundu”,European Scientific Journal, Special edition, 2014: 605-615.3Shampapi Shiremo, Vamama’sHistory and Heritage: ‘Forgotten’ History of Namibia, Windhoek, Meinert, 2020: 1-34.4Alan Baldwin, “Mass removals and separate development”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 1 (2), 1975: 215-227.5Uma Duphelia Mesthrie, “The tramway road removals, 1959-61”, Kronos, 15 (21), 1994: 61-78.6Andries Jacobus Van Der Walt,“Rendition/eviction, apost-apartheid reflection” Law and Critique, 15(3), 2004:321-344.7Cosmos Desmond, The Discarded People: An Account of African Resettlement in South Africa, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971