This piece examines the racial dichotomy in global approaches to reparations, focusing on Germany’s refusal to recognise and compensate for the Ovaherero and Nama genocide adequately.
By comparing historical cases, such as reparations to Afrikaners, Jewish survivors, German settlers and Mau Mau victims, it highlights the double standards applied to African claims.
Genuine reparations require acknowledgment, apology and systemic transformation to secure justice for the past, present and future.
Recent reports revealed that the German government rejects demands for reparations from its former colonies.
In response to a parliamentary inquiry, Germany argued that “the concept of reparations in international law arises from the violation of an international obligation”, which it claims did not exist at the time of colonial injustices.
Consequently, Germany maintains that reparations do not apply to its colonial past.
This German position clashes with both international opinion and Namibia’s recent stance.
The African Union has declared 2025 the year of “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations”.
In this vein, Cristina Duarte, United Nations Special Adviser on Africa, argues that reparations must go beyond financial redress.
Reparations, therefore, must operate across three dimensions: justice for the past, justice for the present and justice for the future. Focusing only on history without addressing ongoing inequality leaves reparations hollow and incomplete.
Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, has, during the launching of the Genocide Remembrance Day on 28 May 2025, emphasised that negotiations with Germany over genocide, apology and reparations must satisfy the affected communities.
In this respect, she reiterated the reparations’ context as outlined in the African Union declaration for 2025 as cited above.
The contrast between Germany’s refusal and its past record of granting reparations elsewhere reveals a striking racial dichotomy.
The Treaty of Vereeniging, which ended the Anglo-Boer War, included reparations under Clause Ten.
Britain allocated £3 million to help Afrikaner farmers return to their land, rebuild their livelihoods and resume farming after wartime destruction.
In the Luxembourg Agreement of 1952, West Germany agreed to compensate Israel and Jewish survivors for the Holocaust.
Payments supported the resettlement of Jewish refugees and offered restitution for lost property and livelihoods.
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer explicitly acknowledged Germany’s crimes, describing them as “unspeakable” and committed his government to frameworks of indemnification and restitution.
Even before Germany’s genocidal campaign against the Ovaherero and Nama was complete, white settlers demanded reparations for property destroyed during resistance. According to Klaus Dierks, as early as April 1904, a preliminary compensation commission consisting of Attorney Franz Erdmann, Otto Erhard, Moritz Kirsten, Carl Schlettwein and Albert Voigts, travelled to Berlin to seek compensation for war damages suffered by German farmers.
By 1904, the Reichstag had approved 7 million Marks in compensation of settlers and farmers for purported loss to property caused by Ovaherero “aggression”.
In today’s value, it is approximately N$4.70 billion that was to settlers and farmers for loss of almost nothing.
Converting the proposed Euro1.1 billion initialed in the Joint Declaration (JD), back to 1904, Germany would have paid only 33 million Marks for the loss of more than 100 000 Ovaherero and Nama lives, land, dignity, culture, economy, etc.
The speed and willingness with which Germany compensated its settlers contrasts sharply with its present-day denial of reparations to the Ovaherero and Nama, despite acknowledging other genocides such as the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide.
In 2013, after a protracted court process, the British government awarded £19.9 million to Kenyans tortured and murdered during the Mau Mau resistance of the 1950s.
In comparative terms, this was a meagre amount, much of which was consumed by legal costs. It was a pittance compared to what had been paid to other groups elsewhere.
These cases show that reparations have historically been granted to white or European groups, while Africans continue to face discrimination revealing a racialised standard of justice.
Apology and recognition
Apologies, if genuine, can form part of reparations.
Scholars identify six key elements of a meaningful apology: remorse, acceptance of responsibility, admission of injustice, acknowledgment of harm, commitment to change and offers of repair.
For the descendants of the Ovaherero and Nama victims, an apology from Germany must explicitly recognise the genocide.
Without acknowledgment, any apology is meaningless.
While Germany openly used the term “genocide” for Armenians, it continues to avoid the term in relation to Ovaherero and Nama, offering only “development cooperation” in place of reparations.
This selective recognition reinforces unequal power dynamics between Europe and Africa.
Germany’s refusal to recognise and adequately address the Ovaherero and Nama genocide exemplifies a racial double standard in the global and local reparations debate.
Reparatory justice must, therefore, account for history, confront present inequalities and secure a more equitable future.
Unfortunately, the so-called JD falls short of these standards, thus a reset in terms of full participation (including those in the diaspora), the quantum and UN presence is an imperative.
*Usutuaije Maamberua is a descendant of the genocide victims and a veteran of the liberation struggle.