Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
The Nama and Ovaherero representatives yesterday petitioned Germany’s new foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, calling her to restart what they termed as “failed German-Namibia intergovernmental negotiations on the genocide of their ancestors”.
“This exclusion of our non-governmental organisations not only contradicts a resolution of the Namibian parliament from 2006, which was introduced by the then paramount chief of the Ovaherero himself,” Nama representative Sima Luipert and Ovaherero activist Israel Kaunatjike said in an online petition.
“Namibia and Germany are also violating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Communities of 2007, which declares in Article 18 that our self-elected representatives are entitled to have a say.”
The petition is seeking 500 signatures and by yesterday afternoon, it had collected 355 signatures. In an interview with the ruling party Swapo’s newsletter late last year, defence minister Frans Kapofi described it as delusional for the descendants of affected communities to think they can directly engage Germany on the genocide matter.
However, his comment was labelled “senseless” by Landless People’s Movement (LPM) deputy spokesperson Joyce Muzengua, saying the minister demonstrated a lack of knowledge and ignorance on the matter when he made the comment.
“This is irresponsible and senseless of this minister. There are legal instruments that clearly outline and protect the participation of victims of the crimes of genocide, and I’m sure that dull Kapofi is not even aware,” Muzengua, a genocide descendant said.
In June last year, the German government has acknowledged the mass killings and agreed that Germany would apologise for the genocide and extend financial assistance of N$18 billion in project funding over 30 years to the descendants of affected communities. However, the majority of the affected communities, including opposition members of parliament, feel that Germany must do more to atone for its sins.
In the petition, Luipert and Kaunatjike said Germany granted rights of self-representation to the victims of the genocide of the Jews of Europe, thus, since the negotiations on the Luxembourg Agreement in 1952, they have been represented not only by the government of Israel, but also by the civil society Claims Conference. “This represents the interests of numerous Jewish non-governmental organisations in Israel and worldwide. Similarly, the government of Namibia cannot speak for us Nama and Ovaherero alone, as we are ethnic minorities in our own country. Moreover, parts of our communities have been displaced to South Africa, Botswana and Angola,” reads yesterday’s petition.
They said Germany boasts of its self-critical culture of remembrance, especially regarding the commemoration of the Holocaust. “German colonialism, however, is too often swept under the rug – in contrast to official lip service.”
Yet, the said Germany’s intended annihilation of the Nama/Ovaherero was a preliminary stage on the road to the Holocaust. They said the first German concentration camps were established in the country. Immediately after the genocide, the anthropologist Eugen Fischer conducted racist studies in the colony of “German Southwest Africa”.
In October 1904, Lothar von Trotha, then commander-in-chief of the German colonial protection force in German South West Africa, in a letter informed the Ovaherero that they were no longer German subjects and, therefore, had to leave the country. Up to 100 000 Ovaherero and Nama are believed to have been killed by German imperial troops in the early 1900s in what was then the German colony of South West Africa.
– ktjitemisa@nepc.com.na