*Truth and reconciliation commission proposed

*‘Remove colonial statues’

While atrocities committed in 1904/08 are genocide under international law binding at the time, there is no legal avenue to obtain redress in contemporary judicial instruments and institutions.

This is etched in a report by Johns Hopkins University, obtained by this publication.

The report is titled ‘Restitution, Reconciliation and Reparations for Namibia: Does International Law Provide a Right to Restorative Justice?’

The dossier microscopically unpacks all components of the first genocide of the 20th century. The freshly-released report also laments the infamous 2021 Joint Declaration by the German and Namibian governments,

which it says was reached in a manner that is
inconsistent with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The U.N. Declaration provides that “Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters that would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions.”

“Even if it is true that the affected communities were invited to participate in the technical committee, the members of that group were not chosen by the communities themselves, “in accordance with their own procedures” as provided for by the U.N. Declaration,” it argues.

Most importantly, it highlights the continued lack of legal avenues for the affected communities to further bolster their fight for restorative justice, particularly within the international legal
arena. “While the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has made clear that the Genocide Convention of 1948 does not have a retroactive application as a legally-binding treaty, the very issue of whether non-retroactivity is itself inconsistent with international law needs to be explored further, with implications for the Ovaherero-Nama genocide as well as other outrages committed by colonial powers against indigenous peoples. Research into possible avenues of achieving restorative justice—in domestic as well as international forums—should certainly continue, and all opportunities should be thoroughly explored,” adds the report.

It was compiled by the university’s International Human Rights Clinic, in collaboration with the Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies (SAIS).In its 188-page report, researchers and authors from Johns Hopkins University conclude that the killings carried out by German colonial forces between 1904 and 1908 against the Ovaherero and Nama were without question an act of genocide, and outright illegal.

The report’s content, findings  and conclusions are fully supported by both conventional and customary law principles, as the university affirmed in the report’s opening segments.

The Ovaherero and Nama genocide was a campaign of ethnic extermination by the German colonial regime. It was the first genocide of the 20th century, and occurred between 1904 and 1908. Over 100 000 Ovaherero and Namas died in the genocide. The first phase of the genocide was characterised by widespread death
from starvation and dehydration due to the prevention of the Ovaherero from leaving the Kalahari Desert by German forces.

Once defeated, thousands of Ovahereros and Namas were imprisoned in concentration camps, where the majority died from diseases, abuse and exhaustion.

Truth and reconciliation 

The report also recommends that the Namibian government consider setting up a truth and reconciliation commission, which should comprise objective adjudicators and be open to all stakeholders.

“Such institutions have worked well in other places. One has recently been initiated by Belgium with respect to its former African colonies, and Liberia has just announced an attempt to use such a commission to promote healing from its devastating 14-year civil war. The commission could be tasked with determining not only what happened in the early 20th century, but also its continuing impact on contemporary Namibia.

“It is apparent that the Joint Declaration as agreed in 2021 is not acceptable to the vast majority of Ovaherero and Nama. One of their principal objections, as is widely known, is that they did not have what they considered to be the appropriate level of representation at the negotiating table.”

The report further advised that the best way to address concerns about the government’s negotiating position would be to accept suggestions from the Chiefs Assembly and to convene, as soon as possible, a high-level meeting of all stakeholders within the country.

“The goal of the meeting should be the development of a common position to be presented at the next round of discussions with Germany. While we understand both governments’ arguments that discussions must be between representatives of two states, it does seem clear that more must be done to upgrade the engagement of the affected communities in negotiations, if they are ever to accept the outcome as legitimate. 

“While it is understandable that the government does not wish to encourage internal divisions along ethnic lines, it cannot ignore the fact that the genocide did not affect all communities that make up modern Namibia equally. There would be no concession to tribalism for the government to acknowledge the historical records demonstrating that the Ovaherero and Nama suffered disproportionately from the genocide, and that their descendants still bear those scars,” reads another part of the report.

Germans

The report blasted the German government for its continuous referral of the attempted extermination of the Ovaherero and Nama people as “events that, from today’s perspective, would be called genocide.” It calls on the Germans to recognise, accept and refer to the events of
1904/08 as plainly genocide, and to also stop referring to the monetary commitment in the 2021
Joint Declaration as a “reconstruction and development support programme” but to refer to and commit to it as reparations to the affected communities. “There is no reason for that circumlocution, which is perceived as deeply offensive by the affected communities in Namibia. The Holocaust in Europe, perpetrated by the German Third Reich, was a genocide. What happened between 1904 and 1908 in German South West Africa was also a genocide directed at the Ovaherero and Nama peoples and should be described as such, without qualifiers. 

Nations around the world, including Germany, have applied the unmodified term ‘genocide’ to other systematic mass killings that antedated the UN Convention of 1948, and the German Bundestag has itself used the word to describe Turkish atrocities against Armenians, only 10 years after the mass killings in Namibia.”

The German authorities responsible for the education of youth should ensure that the Ovaherero/Nama genocide is part of school curricula in Germany.

Cleanse the past

Furthermore, the report calls for the genocide to be commemorated nationally with the spirit, dedication, glamour and might it deserves.

“For example, the government should lend support to the Genocide Museum in Swakopmund, and should consider the creation of additional memorials elsewhere in the country, including upgrading the genocide-related contents of the National Museum in Windhoek. And there is no reason for there to be monuments in Namibia of German soldiers who carried out the massacres of indigenous peoples,” recommends the report.

-ohembapu@nepc.com.na