When sections of the genocide and reparations movement, which currently are not part of the ongoing negotiations between the Namibian and German governments on the issue at hand, earlier this month made submissions to the visiting German Special Envoy on the reparations negotiations, Ruprecht Polenz, they called for a plebiscite among the affected communities.
This is particularly among the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama, to decide on the vexed question as to who legitimately and genuinely represent their interests when it comes to the question of genocide and reparations, and thus who should negotiate with the German government.
But with the return last Sunday of the Paramount Chief of the Ovaherero, Vekuii Rukoro, from overseas where he engaged, on behalf of the reparations movement, lawyers regarding the ongoing negotiations between the two governments of Namibia and Germany, especially as pertaining to the exclusion of what is believed to be the majority of the affected communities, one wonders if a referendum is necessary anymore?
Rukoro received a hero’s welcome when he arrived back in the country. The bottom line is that this cannot have been anything else but a bold statement of the support which leaders of the affected communities, currently not part of the current negotiations between the two governments, have mustered and continue to enjoy.
And there’s no way that this support can be confined and abrogated to the persona Rukoro – if there are those who, for one reason or another, may have an axe to grind with Rukoro personally, irrespective of where they find themselves on either polar end of the continuum, and notwithstanding if the differences are business, political, traditional or even personal.
Rukoro is doing so with a specific mandate and support of his people, who are part of the affected communities. Thus whatever tiffs all and sundry may have with him, their tiffs cannot be bigger than the cause at hand.
There is a groundswell of support among the affected communities in its broadest scope, definition and imagination. In all their different cultural inclinations, sizes and hues, minus of course one thing – political affiliations. The Red Flag Commando Hall in Katutura was on Sunday a testimony to the groundswell of support for the cause of genocide and reparations, as spearheaded by Rukoro and co.
The Commando Hall was not only a hotchpotch of a cultural potpourri but the first signs of the fortressing trenches of a united and intractable bedrock of firmness and steadfastness, if not resoluteness on the issue of genocide and reparations.
Last week the vanguard of the genocide and reparations movement, as fronted by the technical committees, the Ovaherero-Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation (OGF) and the Nama Technical Committee reiterated at a media briefing in Windhoek the unassailable and uncompromised mission towards reparations.
Any return to the proverbial drawing board needs clarification, if not qualification, as to its essence and meaning lest there’s no misinterpretation.
And misunderstanding that those affected communities, currently not party to the current negotiations, intrinsically and essentially clamour and desire for an unqualified place at the said negotiation table as a section of media has been abuzz with lately, apparently this being the inclination of Germany.
It is not about inclusion per se. Above all not even those currently not part of the ongoing process. It is about who does the cause belong to? And whoever does, must define and craft it consonant with self-defined and perceived interests. Of course in this process, there cannot be any expectation, and as much any thinking that the Namibian government must be a passive onlooker, let alone a passive participant. The Namibian government does not only have a moral and political obligation towards the affected communities in this matter, but a legal one in terms of the international law of succession.
The cardinal, significant and relevant parties to this dispute, undeniably, are the descendants of the victims, thus the aggrieved parties, backed by their government, our Namibian government, and the government of the Federal Republic of Germany as a successor perpetrator. Period! Daco!
It thus behoves the two governments to wake up to the reality of the inalienability of the affected communities’ right to the cause of genocide and reparations, and to give what belongs to Caesar to Caesar. Only then can there be a legitimate, meaningful and lasting solution to the matter. Only then can there be a win-win situation, which should first be a win for the affected communities, between the people of the two respective countries, thus ultimately culminating and giving push and further enhancing Namibian-German bilateralism.