Windhoek
The rift between the OvaHerero chief, Advocate Vekuii Rukoro, and President Hage Geingob seems to be a thing of the past, as the two have reconciled their differences and made peace, Rukoro revealed yesterday.
Speaking from Berlin, Germany to NBC Otjiherero radio service’s Keetute programme, Rukoro yesterday said the tension between him Geingob no longer exists, as they have set aside their differences and have embraced each other as brothers.
“We have met to discuss what caused the tense relationship, rectified the way forward and shook hands,” said Rukoro without specifying what caused tension in the relationship.
According to him, the puff on the peace pipe took place at State House before his departure to Berlin last week.
Over 50 Ovaherero and Nama people, including their chiefs, attended a two-day non-governmental congress on restorative justice in Berlin over the past weekend.
The groups were joined by other Ovaherero and Nama people from Botswana, South Africa, America, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Backed by several non-government organisations the group also staged a peaceful march from Kunsthaus Kule, Auguststraße 10 to the Humboldt Forum to demand their inclusion in the ongoing genocide reparation negotiations between the German and Namibian governments.
The group is expected to arrive back in the country tomorrow.
Rukoro said upon their arrival in Namibia the affected communities are to convene a meeting at Okahandja OvaHerero Commando Number 4 to be briefed on what took place in Berlin.
“I call upon all the Ovaherero-speaking people from all the corners of Namibia to convene at Commando Number 4 in Okahandja this Sunday to hear it from the horse’s mouth themselves,” Rukoro said during his interview with NBC’s Otjiherero radio service.
Asked by presenter Uzeraije Tjaverua whether they will be allowed to convene a meeting at the said Commando since there is an ongoing dispute, Rukoro said: “That Commando belongs to the OvaHerero community and I am the paramount chief of the OvaHerero, so let’s meet there and see what will happen.”
Germany and Namibia are in the advanced stages of negotiations on officially recognising as “genocide” the colonial-era campaign of massacres more than a century ago, in which more than 110 000 Herero and Nama people were killed.
The systematic extermination of Herero and Nama people by German colonial troops is widely regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Tens of thousands of Herero and Nama were also driven into the Omaheke Desert to die of starvation and dehydration.