“Under international law, the concept of reparation flows from the breach of an international obligation. However, today’s outlawing and prohibition of genocide under international law did not exist in the years 1904 to 1908. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of genocide of 9 December 1948, which entered into force for the founding signatories in 1951, and for Germany in 1955, does not apply retrospectively.”
Reads the beginning of paragraph 23 of the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations in Geneva issued on 1 June, 2023. This is part of the response of the German government to the issues raised with it, and the Namibian government, by Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council, with respect to how the two governments have been handling the issue of genocide, apology and reparations as it pertains to the Ovaherero and Nama genocide. A response which the Special Rapporteurs have been awaiting answers on since this February when they addressed a Joint Communication to both governments. Does one really need to try to further understand the premise on which the German government entered into the so-called negotiations with the Namibian government, which has been purporting as the sole negotiator as a sovereign on this matter, thus acting and speaking on behalf of the descendants, despite having no locus standi in this matter. Notwithstanding also that its mandate to act and speak on their behalf, highly suspect and dubious if not only inferred and has never been explicit and expressed by the descendants, but instead abrogated and arrogated by the Namibian government to itself. But for those who may think the German government’s position is unambiguous and categorical as it is, still, it is not clear enough, the paragraph does not end here and there.
“The federal government is aware of the voices that argue in favour of a retroactive application of the convention. International law as it stands, however, provides for no such conclusion,” the German hammers home the point. To cut a long story short, if this was the interpretation of the German government of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, it cannot and must not have been surprising for it to eventually come up with the Joint Declaration (JD) of 15 May, 2021, pretending it is a joint product with the Namibian government.
Forget about the descendants because despite claims by both governments the negotiations have never and shall never be about them but a bilateral undertaking between the two governments with the interest of the descendants at best peripheral and at the backburner of such bilateralism.
Unless one wishes to cast aspersions on the integrity of our Namibian government, there’s no way that it can admit that it agreed to the JD, given the specific and clear mandate based on the 2006 National Assembly Resolution, which is categorical about the acknowledgement of the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama, and eventually reparations to them. Which the JD does not even pretend to speak to in any way whatsoever. But by the disposition of the German government as encapsulated in the response of the Permanent Mission to the UN, there’s no way sensibly that since 2015 it could have been negotiating with the Namibian government on its acknowledgement of the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama, and reparations. Because this simply is not what its espousal in the response to its Permanent Mission speaks to. On the contrary, the response speaks to a political and moral approach to the matter rejecting outright responsibility for the crime of genocide because when it was committed from 1904 to 1908, the UN Convention, which came to outlaw it as a crime post factor, was not in existence. So, the two governments, or rather our Namibian government, must or may along the way have changed its position to align it with the German government’s intransigent position, which for that matter has been clear from day one. That is since the beginning of the campaign by the descendants to call the German government to account, and subsequently atone for the crime of genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama. If the Namibian government must have and did along the way change tack and track, it is any wonder why it has been pretending, and still pretends to negotiate for the acknowledgement of genocide and payment of reparations. Despite the JD making no such pretences, let alone making up as if the JD is a reflection of a consensus between the two governments while it is clear that it has been based exclusively on the position of the German government. Because the JD, as is currently, cannot and shall never be a reflection of the expectations of the descendants of the survivors of genocide. On the contrary, it is a complete mockery and travesty of justice as they have been envisioning it based on their immeasurable and undefinable losses, evidenced by their continued traumatisation.
For those few who may have put and still have a little trust remaining in the process in which the two governments have been engaged, and which day by day has increasingly become clear and shown what it, in reality, is, a betrayal of the cause of genocide and reparations. Thus, by now they should have awoken from their self-induced slumber and see for themselves what especially their own government has been taking them for.
Against their own best interest and that of their cause, justiciable and justifiable one for that matter as it may be. Thus, it cannot be more disheartening for the two governments to be continuing with their chicaneries and shenanigans based on their bilateral agenda. One would have thought the intervention by the Special Rapporteurs is offering both governments a golden opportunity for serious rethinking. Ala the two are continuing with their self-serving escapades as the two respective answers to the Special Rapporteurs are testifying.