South Africa vs. Israel at ICJ: A precedent for Namibia to emulate
The Government of the Republic of South Africa has rung the bell and awakened the whole world to the issue of the genocide perpetrated by the government and State of Israel against the Palestinian people of Gaza and beyond.
One would hope that our own Namibian government would be one of those for whom the bell has rung, and that after listening to the lucid arguments on points of fact and law by the learned Advocates of South Africa, government would engage in a very serious and sincere re-thinking and engage the bona fide victims, to wit, the Ovaherero and Nama, to work out the modalities for fresh negotiations with the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany.
At the risk of being accused of arrogance, I am hereby volunteering myself to produce such a DRAFT of the modalities – free of charge.
Germany has all along deployed all her lies and denialist gimmicks to evade coming to terms with the fact that she committed the international crime of genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama people during her brutal colonial rule in what used to be “HEREROLAND” and “NAMA-QUA-LAND”, and did so by INTENT and ACTION.
After a protracted process of wasteful so-called negotiations, Germany imposed on the Namibian negotiators a cunningly written document called 'United in Remembrance of Our Colonial Past, United in Our Will to Reconcile, United in Our Vision of the Future'.
When one looks at the words in that title, the issue of genocide is not mentioned, nor is reparation; the colonial past is not unpacked to indicate what it entails. To reconcile implies that there was a cordial, good relationship that, somehow, must have been broken down and that now must be reconciled. And for that, what cordial good relationship has existed between the Ovaherero and Nama people ever since the Germans came here? The reference to our vision of the future is only another way of saying, forget the bad past and concentrate on the project gimmicks.
Given that abbreviated analysis, meant to deceive the politically uninitiated, in order for Germany to evade and avoid criminal liability by not categorically admitting to the commission of genocide as defined in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (9 December 1948), is why I have alluded above to the fact that our government must emulate the precedent set by South Africa and take the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany to the ICJ at the Hague for an unequivocal legal opinion.
Rejected
The issues to be presented to the World Court for its opinion, in my opinion, should address the following: (1) whether or not Germany, during her colonial rule in 'German South West Africa', committed genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama people; (2) whether or not she should pay reparations to them as victims; (3) whether or not, and in terms of international law, the victims have a right of self-representation on matters of reparations negotiations to determine the quantum of the damage they have suffered; (4) that the ICJ should opine that the 'joint declaration' (JD) be repealed in its entirety, and fresh negotiations be started and (5) that such negotiations be strictly on the basis of the Namibian National Assembly Resolution of 26th October 2006 and all the relevant international conventions.
To continue with even the latest sham attempt under the aegis of a so-called 'addendum' would not solve this vexatious issue because the JD, in its original form, has been rejected by the Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), the Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA), and all the political parties in our parliament, including Swapo.
I dare say so because, in my opinion, the latter would not have come up with the addendum and gone back to Germany to beg for an improvement on the 1.1 billion euros it now deems insufficient. That is why, by so doing, Swapo has technically joined those who have rejected it.
The initialled JD and its envisaged addendum would be nothing else but sugar-coated camouflages, of which the core will have the same effect as the poison that General Von Trotha used to poison the waterpoints at Ozombuzovindimba for the Ovaherero and their livestock to drink and perish. To go back to Germany to beg for more is tantamount to going back to ask for more poison for your own destruction. Doing so would be tinkering and not seeking a permanent solution at all.
Political indictment
I should add at this point in the discourse that the futility of this addendum attempt lies in what one member of the German parliament (MP Sevim Dagdelen) recently revealed (12 January 2024) when she criticised the German government for “blocking” negotiations on compensation for German colonial crimes in present-day Namibia.
She said: “It is a political indictment that even 120 years after the German genocide in Namibia, the reconciliation agreement still cannot come into force because the German government continues to block the necessary negotiations." She continued to say: “The reason for this is that the German government refuses to negotiate directly with the descendants of the victims of that time about personal compensation.”
This should be no wonder because so many months have now lapsed since the addendum committee announced its trip to Berlin, and so far we haven’t heard any such announcement on its achievement, as it did for its departure to Berlin.
It is not only the German government that refuses to negotiate directly with the Ovaherero and Nama descendant victims but also the Namibian government, and then it blames us that we “are refusing to participate, for reasons known only to themselves” - as if our government does not know our reasons.
Start talking
I don’t think that it is wrong for our government to support the South African government for taking Israel to the ICJ per se, because all peoples and countries of the world of conscience have done the same; however, it would have been better if Namibia should emulate what South Africa did and institute its own case against Germany for the genocide she committed and euphemistically accepted but continues to deny legal liability.
I rest my case by urging our government to engage the OTA and the NTLA leadership to start a quiet dialogue on the modalities for fresh negotiations and, at the same time, also engage the German government, as blocking such an approach would not solve any problem.
The OTA and NTLA, unlike the other clan-based traditional authorities, are statutory entities that represent a much more universal representative status, and engaging them would be better and less costly than collecting endless groupings from the streets, as it were, and equally endless trips to Berlin and Windhoek by German negotiators.
One would hope that our own Namibian government would be one of those for whom the bell has rung, and that after listening to the lucid arguments on points of fact and law by the learned Advocates of South Africa, government would engage in a very serious and sincere re-thinking and engage the bona fide victims, to wit, the Ovaherero and Nama, to work out the modalities for fresh negotiations with the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany.
At the risk of being accused of arrogance, I am hereby volunteering myself to produce such a DRAFT of the modalities – free of charge.
Germany has all along deployed all her lies and denialist gimmicks to evade coming to terms with the fact that she committed the international crime of genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama people during her brutal colonial rule in what used to be “HEREROLAND” and “NAMA-QUA-LAND”, and did so by INTENT and ACTION.
After a protracted process of wasteful so-called negotiations, Germany imposed on the Namibian negotiators a cunningly written document called 'United in Remembrance of Our Colonial Past, United in Our Will to Reconcile, United in Our Vision of the Future'.
When one looks at the words in that title, the issue of genocide is not mentioned, nor is reparation; the colonial past is not unpacked to indicate what it entails. To reconcile implies that there was a cordial, good relationship that, somehow, must have been broken down and that now must be reconciled. And for that, what cordial good relationship has existed between the Ovaherero and Nama people ever since the Germans came here? The reference to our vision of the future is only another way of saying, forget the bad past and concentrate on the project gimmicks.
Given that abbreviated analysis, meant to deceive the politically uninitiated, in order for Germany to evade and avoid criminal liability by not categorically admitting to the commission of genocide as defined in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (9 December 1948), is why I have alluded above to the fact that our government must emulate the precedent set by South Africa and take the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany to the ICJ at the Hague for an unequivocal legal opinion.
Rejected
The issues to be presented to the World Court for its opinion, in my opinion, should address the following: (1) whether or not Germany, during her colonial rule in 'German South West Africa', committed genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama people; (2) whether or not she should pay reparations to them as victims; (3) whether or not, and in terms of international law, the victims have a right of self-representation on matters of reparations negotiations to determine the quantum of the damage they have suffered; (4) that the ICJ should opine that the 'joint declaration' (JD) be repealed in its entirety, and fresh negotiations be started and (5) that such negotiations be strictly on the basis of the Namibian National Assembly Resolution of 26th October 2006 and all the relevant international conventions.
To continue with even the latest sham attempt under the aegis of a so-called 'addendum' would not solve this vexatious issue because the JD, in its original form, has been rejected by the Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), the Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA), and all the political parties in our parliament, including Swapo.
I dare say so because, in my opinion, the latter would not have come up with the addendum and gone back to Germany to beg for an improvement on the 1.1 billion euros it now deems insufficient. That is why, by so doing, Swapo has technically joined those who have rejected it.
The initialled JD and its envisaged addendum would be nothing else but sugar-coated camouflages, of which the core will have the same effect as the poison that General Von Trotha used to poison the waterpoints at Ozombuzovindimba for the Ovaherero and their livestock to drink and perish. To go back to Germany to beg for more is tantamount to going back to ask for more poison for your own destruction. Doing so would be tinkering and not seeking a permanent solution at all.
Political indictment
I should add at this point in the discourse that the futility of this addendum attempt lies in what one member of the German parliament (MP Sevim Dagdelen) recently revealed (12 January 2024) when she criticised the German government for “blocking” negotiations on compensation for German colonial crimes in present-day Namibia.
She said: “It is a political indictment that even 120 years after the German genocide in Namibia, the reconciliation agreement still cannot come into force because the German government continues to block the necessary negotiations." She continued to say: “The reason for this is that the German government refuses to negotiate directly with the descendants of the victims of that time about personal compensation.”
This should be no wonder because so many months have now lapsed since the addendum committee announced its trip to Berlin, and so far we haven’t heard any such announcement on its achievement, as it did for its departure to Berlin.
It is not only the German government that refuses to negotiate directly with the Ovaherero and Nama descendant victims but also the Namibian government, and then it blames us that we “are refusing to participate, for reasons known only to themselves” - as if our government does not know our reasons.
Start talking
I don’t think that it is wrong for our government to support the South African government for taking Israel to the ICJ per se, because all peoples and countries of the world of conscience have done the same; however, it would have been better if Namibia should emulate what South Africa did and institute its own case against Germany for the genocide she committed and euphemistically accepted but continues to deny legal liability.
I rest my case by urging our government to engage the OTA and the NTLA leadership to start a quiet dialogue on the modalities for fresh negotiations and, at the same time, also engage the German government, as blocking such an approach would not solve any problem.
The OTA and NTLA, unlike the other clan-based traditional authorities, are statutory entities that represent a much more universal representative status, and engaging them would be better and less costly than collecting endless groupings from the streets, as it were, and equally endless trips to Berlin and Windhoek by German negotiators.
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