WINDHOEK – Spokesperson of the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation Utjiua Muinjangue says that if they are again excluded from trips to repatriate skulls from Germany they would be compelled to boycott future reception ceremonies for the return of the skulls.
The Nama, Ovambanderu and Ovaherero traditional leaders had called on their followers to snub the arrival of the 35 skulls and two skeletons and the subsequent ceremonies that followed on Friday. They questioned why they should be invited to decorate the local events when they were excluded in the planning to fetch the remains.
Thirty-five skulls and two skeletons of Namibian origin touched down on home soil on Friday but unlike the 2011 episode where thousands flocked to Hosea
Kutako International Airport and Parliament Gardens to receive 20 skulls of Namibian
origin from Germany, only a few hundred people showed up at Parliament Gardens to receive the second repatriation.
“It’s funny that Namibia is being praised as having one of the most democratic constitutions, but we are not practising that here. You have a constitution that you acknowledge respect the rights of people but on the other hand, you are violating the rights of people,” Muinjangue said in an exclusive interview with New Era.
She said genocide was not only about killing people as disrespecting others’ culture was also genocide in itself, adding that what happened on Friday was almost similar to what the Germans did during the colonial era when they made sure various tribal groups lost their culture.
“We will see how things are handled next time, if it’s handled the same way, we will also not go,” she was adamant.
Festus Muundjua, a patron of the Ovaherero Genocide Committee, said that they have never refused to work with government, but were not willing to be swallowed and integrated in the structures of government. He said that they wanted to retain their independent identity.
Muundjua said it was not they who snubbed the return of the skulls but government who snubbed them in not allowing them to participate in the repatriation process and hence their reason for finding it not worthy of super-imposing themselves on an event intended to exclude them.
“We have accepted an exclusion that was intended for us,” he added.
Some sentiments in the community were that the leaders wanted to be included in the trip to benefit from S&T allowance, but Muinjangue dismissed such claims, saying that on the first repatriation trip they only got N$1 000 (about 100 Euro at the time), which to her was just pocket change.
“I work at the University of Namibia. I get paid more than what the government gave us. We feel angry not because about who went, it’s about how the process was dealt with,” she said.
Muundjua further stressed the return of the skulls proved that genocide was indeed committed on Namibian soil and if other tribes could prove that it was committed against them, they should tell the whole world.
“I haven’t heard from the San people. They are being represented by other voices,” he said, adding they did not say “we were the only ones”, but that the Von Trotha extermination order was specific.
“You cannot exterminate the whole nation. Genocide is defined and it talks about a racial group or a religious group or an ethnic group. We fall under that ethnic group,” he added.
He said that they would wait until the dust has settled on the issue and do a post-mortem to decide on the way forward.
By Magreth Nunuhe