OvaHerero, Nama head to The Hague

The ongoing tussle between government and the OvaHerero and Nama communities has taken another turn, with the affected tribes planning on dragging the German government to the International Tribunal in The Hague over the genocide issue.
The move comes at the time when the Namibian government and the German government have appointed special envoys for negotiations on the genocide, including reparations, amid accusations that the affected communities have been sidelined.
Since the appointment of highly respected diplomat Dr Zed Ngavirue by President Hage Geingob as Namibia’s special envoy last year, Nama and OvaHerero leaders have taken aim at government, accusing it of hijacking the genocide talks.
Government maintains that it is acting on behalf of the Namibian people, and that tribes other than the OvaHerero and Nama were also victims of the genocide.
The latest move to take the matter to The Hague was announced by Bob Kandetu, the Chief Information Officer of the OvaHerero Traditional Authority yesterday.
The move will likely embarrass the Namibian government on the international front, and follows recent accusations by opposition parties in the German parliament that the Namibian and German governments were sidelining the affected communities affected by the genocide.
In a press statement released yesterday, Kandetu said the OvaHerero and Nama tribes had through lawyers in London and New York implored the German government to respond by 1 May or face litigation through the International Tribunal in The Hague.
With the deadline now passed, the groups have instructed their lawyers to begin with court proceedings.
Asked who is funding the legal costs, Kandetu said they are raising the funds themselves through private and public means.
Kandetu said that in December last year; President Geingob summoned the Nama Technical Committee on Genocide and the OvaHerero/OvaMbanderu Genocide Foundation to State House and informed them of the appointment of Ngavirue as special envoy. He claims that on 22 January, a delegation of the victim communities met Vice President Nickey Iyambo to seek clarity on the government’s envisaged approach.
“Iyambo stood firm that the victim communities were outside the confines of the envisaged negotiations, save for peripheral consultations,’ Kandetu said.
He descried the process as a direct contravention of the resolution of National Assembly in October 2006, which states that what had happened between 1904 and 1908 was a brutal act of genocide sanctioned by the German government, and that the Namibian government will be an interested party to resolve the matter amicably between the German government and the affected communities.
Kandetu further referred to a 2011 statement by then Foreign Affairs Minister Utoni Nujoma in Parliament, who said: “We see the role of the Namibian government as a mediator between the German government and the affected communities and we do wish to facilitate a process of reconciliation.”
Kandetu said contrary to this, the Namibian government has now exclusively entered negotiations with the German government.
“The German government has ignored all peaceful gestures of the OvaHerero and Nama traditional leaders to resolve the genocide and reparations issues through direct talks.
“Germany must now face the real prospect of a long drawn-out arbitration proceeding at international level, with the potential of it being declared an international pariah state, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“To this effect, the Nama and OvaHerero will stop at nothing to prove every element of Germany’s crimes,” the statement reads.