Dust won't settle at Vaalgras

NATIVE WATCHDOG WRITES:As much as I deplore the current state of affairs within Vaalgras traditional community, it is mind-boggling for me to see what we all are witnessing in Vaalgras as a once prosperous community.Leaders were elected democratically before Independence that has brought us democracy, but the now deposed chief has decided during February 2009 to appoint seven (7) additional Councillors, contrary to the provisions of the Customary Law, which led to his removal in terms of Section 8 of the Traditional Authorities Act No. 25 of 2000.People were divided before that, but there was no Concerned Group at Vaalgras. However, the deposed chief and his Councillors lived in denial all along and could not separate the truth and the reality. The other oil in the fire was the recent removal of the Vredefontein's community ram camp, which was unwarranted.There were only two factions, but room was eventually created for a third force, if not a faction. You can be how powerful as a chief or as long-serving a ruling party loyal Comrade, but you must at least respect, honor and uphold the supremacy of the Namibian Constitution.In terms of the Traditional Authorities Act No. 17 of 1995, the principal law, you must have a certain number of subjects to qualify to be a chief. In the case of our deposed chief, he had been removed in the 1st place and secondly, he doesn't have the necessary number of community members to qualify to be a chief, meaning that he should peacefully and in dignity relinquish power to those enjoying majority support.These are things that some of us in the Interim Committee were very well aware of and we warned him against it. However, this is the price to pay for stubbornness and myopia.In my personal view to procrastinate a meeting due to poor turnout is not the solution, without examining what went wrong and where. There is no way that you can disenfranchise the subjects of their incontrovertible and intransigent basic fundamental human rights. One should always strive to find common grounds to stop the frivolous infighting within the community.I use to put it unambiguously that you cannot disregard and undermine your subjects like that on whose grace you are a chief. If there there were no community, there should not have been any chief. To do what?All this could have been circumvented if the deposed chief had listened to the community's warnings on the day that he was appointing those additional Traditional Councillors. That was the day of the start of calamity and division within the Vaalgras traditional community. This is obnoxious, vexatious and should have been avoided at all costs to keep the small community united.Against this backdrop, my advice to the deposed chief is to approach the Vaalgras Concerned Group, now the Interim Community, through their Chief Designate to negotiate a peace deal.The very first thing he should be doing is to apologize for taking the children of Vaalgras to Court, something against which the late elders warned his late father when he was handing over the reigns, although the whole process was preceded by a democratic election during Apartheid Colonial Rule. So, all in all, if you have no one to lead, handover the leadership to those who have subjects to lead.The revolt of the Interim Committee will go parallel with the new state of affairs within the deposed leaderships' circles, heading to the High Court.

Dust won't settle at Vaalgras

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Republikein 2025-05-29

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Dust won't settle at Vaalgras

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