Hereroland was a Bantustan and later a non-geographic ethnic-based second-tier authority, the Representative Authority of the Hereros, in South West Africa (present day Namibia), intended by the apartheid-era government to be a self-governing homeland for the Herero people.
Geography
Hereroland can be found in present-day eastern Namibia and encompassed parts of the Kalahari Desert. The Bantustan was located under Bushmanland and bordered Botswana to the east.
Background
German colonialism
South-West Africa, present day Namibia, became a German protectorate in 1884 by the decree of Otto von Bismarck. In 1904, the Herero, under the leadership of Chief Samuel Maharero, rebelled against the German colonisers. In reaction to this rebellion, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha was sent to end the Herero uprising. After this war, the surviving Herero people were prohibited from practising their religion, were barred from possessing livestock or land, as well as unable to have chiefs as per their traditional customs. Most of the survivors were made up of children and women and they were either conscripted to forced labour or were imprisoned in camps. Because of internal strife among different Herero groups, no unified institutions were established for the Herero people until 1980. Two districts of Hereroland (West and East) were formed in 1970. The chief of Hereroland West, Clemens Kapuuo, claimed to be the paramount chief of all Hereros since 1970, but this claim was not recognized by the other Herero groups.
Representative authority (1980–1989)
Following the Turnhalle Constitutional Conference the system of Bantustans was replaced in 1980 by Representative Authorities which functioned on the basis of ethnicity only and were no longer based on geographically defined areas.
The Representative Authority of the Hereros had executive and legislative competencies, being made up of elected Legislative Assemblies which would appoint Executive Committees led by chairmen.
As second-tier authorities, forming an intermediate tier between central and local government, the representative authorities had responsibility for land tenure, agriculture, education up to primary level, teachers' training, health services, and social welfare and pensions and their Legislative Assemblies had the ability to pass legislation known as Ordinances.
The Turnhalle Constitutional Conference and the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance
The Turnhalle Constitutional Conference was called together on 1 September 1975, supported and sponsored by apartheid South Africa. The target of the Conference was to develop a constitution for South-West Africa, while still being under the control of South Africa. This unique moment in Namibia's history was the first time that leaders and chiefs from different ethnic and tribal groups were allowed to come together and have political discussions about the future of Namibia's constitution. Andre du Pisani, a Namibian political scientist, stated on the involvement of the Herero through the Chief Clemens Kapuuo that: