I was fired by thieves - Swartbooi

Former deputy land reform minister Bernadus Swartbooi, who is now the leader of the Landless People's Movement (LPM), has told South Africans he was fired because he urged his then Swapo colleagues to stop stealing and return land to the dispossessed. He also urged South Africans and Namibians to regroup for the sake of their children, while adding they can no longer trust the leaders they thought would lead the transformation of their countries. He called these leaders “traitors”. Swartbooi was speaking at a land expropriation without compensation rally in Johannesburg on Wednesday, as South Africans celebrated Human Rights Day and Namibia had its eyes fixed on an Independence Day commemoration in Tsumeb. He said southern Africa is characterised by stealing and the failure of governments and their leaders to do what they were elected to do. He told the South African crowd the struggles they are waging in is precisely the struggles Namibians are battling with. Swartbooi shared the Beyers Naudé Square spotlight with Zwelinzima Vavi, who is the general secretary of the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu). “Those traitors we can no longer trust, we can no longer treat them as human, because while you are celebrating Human Rights Day we recognise the many wrongs that was done by these governments that we have elected ourselves,” he said. Swartbooi told the audience that the fact that he was fired from his job as deputy minister was a blessing. “[I] was in politics in the ruling party and appointed as governor, your equivalent of premier, and I said 'stop stealing; stop stealing in the evening, stop stealing in the toilet, stop stealing in parliament, stop stealing in government offices and they did not listen. Caucus with Khoisan“Then [I] was elected into parliament and became deputy minister of land reform, and here [I] said return the land to the people that were dispossessed and they did not listen, because the parliamentarians and politicians from the ruling party have become the major beneficiaries of land reform in Namibia, as is the case in South Africa… and then eventually... I was eventually fired.” The South African parliament recently adopted the motion seeking to change the constitution to allow land expropriation without compensation. Swartbooi was also due to caucus with leaders of the Khoisan Movement in South Africa. This comes at a time when ancestral land claims in both Namibia and South Africa are taking centre stage, and as the Khoisan battle for their first nation status in the neighbouring country. Swartbooi, was fired as deputy land reform minister following a heated public spat with his senior at the lands ministry, Utoni Nujoma, and was subsequently removed as an MP before resigning from Swapo, when he failed to apologise as was demanded by President Hage Geingob.JEMIMA BEUKES

I was fired by thieves - Swartbooi

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-14

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I was fired by thieves - Swartbooi

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-14

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