On German-Namibian negotiations

On German-Namibian negotiations Part I

In this first section of my statement, I provide a critical appraisal of the parliamentary statement on the ‘outcome’ or ‘progress’ on the genocide and reparations negotiations between the Namibian and German governments that Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila recently presented in the Namibian Parliament.

In addition to my critical perspective on the statement, I am also providing a critique on these issues within the broader historical and political context in which the German-Namibian reparations negotiations are taking place.

My inclusion of the largely successful Jewish-German reparations negotiations in this discussion is mainly focused on the effective strategies that the Jewish negotiators used to get Germany to agree to pay reparations for the genocide that it committed against the victims of the Nazi regime within a few months of negotiations in 1952.

Therefore, my disclaimer is that this inclusion of the historical and international precedents of Jewish-German negotiations in my statement has nothing to do with my support or lack thereof for the current Israeli policies towards Palestine and other related issues in the Middle East.

Based on the research data I have collected and analysed on Swapo’s governance of the country over the last 30 years, this parliamentary statement by Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is not surprising.

In the research I have conducted over the last three decades on the Ovaherero and Nama genocide and reparations from the German government, I concluded that, over this long period of Swapo in power, Namibian President Hage Geingob and his predecessors Sam Nujoma and Hifikepunje Pohamba have miserably failed to achieve positive results on genocide and reparations due to the incompetent way they have dealt with the German government and its ‘negotiators’ on this issue.

The Swapo government officials under the country’s first three presidents have engaged in obstructionist manoeuvres regarding the reparations issue since independence in 1990. They have also constantly made misleading statements such as “the genocide in Namibia is a national issue” and because of that, they have made false claims as follows: The German genocide in Namibia did not only involve the Nama and Ovaherero and other people were also killed (Katjavivi); Chief Riruako’s demands for reparations from the German government represents an increase in tribalism in Namibia (Geingob); Paramount Chief Vekuii Rukoro is not the alpha and omega (Ngavirue); and genocide negotiations are only conducted between sovereign states and cannot include the affected communities who are non-state actors (Geingob).

Genocide as a ‘national issue’

Some of the Swapo leaders have claimed that the King Nehale battle with the Schutztruppe at the Namutoni fort on 28 January 1904 was a combined effort of a warrior force from all the Ovambo kingdoms and not just the Ondonga people. Also, some Swapo leaders have tried to use the Nehale incident at Namutoni to ‘prove’ that the German colonial army also committed genocide in Ovamboland.

Further, in their attempts to argue that genocide in Namibia was a ‘national issue’, the Swapo leaders have used divide and conquer tactics to include groups in the German genocide, like those from the northern regions of Namibia who were not targeted by the Germans in the war of genocide and whose lands were not confiscated in the genocide which the German Schutztruppe committed in what is called the Police Zone.

Some of the Swapo leaders and authors like Ngarikutuke Tjiriange have claimed that the northern groups like Ondonga, Ukwanyama, and Ombadja lost land during the German colonialism or genocide when they fell under the northern region that was outside the Police Zone, and that, therefore, did not come under German colonial rule. As usual, and like other Swapo leaders, Tjiriange does not cite sources when making such claims.

The poorly written and contradictory statement by Kuugongelwa-Amadhila shows that Geingob, who has been involved in this issue as Prime Minister since independence in 1990, i.e., before he became the president of the country, will come to the end of his presidency having failed to obtain any meaningful results in genocide and reparations negotiations with the German government officials.

Members of the affected Nama and Ovaherero groups and other Namibians may want to keep hoping that Geingob and his administration will be able to obtain reparations from the German government in the remaining three to four years of his presidency. However, as the Kuukongelwa-Amadhila statement shows and based on Swapo and Geingob’s track record of incompetent handling of the genocide and reparations issue, these hopes will be dashed when his second term as president comes to an end in early 2025.

Contrary to what Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is claiming in her parliamentary statement, the issues we are dealing with in Namibia under Swapo’s rule such as corruption, marginalisation and exclusion of minority groups, and its dereliction of duty to competently demand reparations from Germany for the affected Nama and Ovaherero communities, are not merely negotiations problems of the last five years. These are problems of 30 years of incompetent and corrupt governing of the country by Swapo in many areas of the economy and politics.

Overall, the issues Kuugongelwa-Amadhila discusses in her statement about the German negotiation position are not new.

German denial

Many German officials, especially its ambassadors in Namibia like Christian Matthias Schlaga, Egon Konchanke and Ruprecht Polenz, have already discussed in public these issues, especially their so-called dislike for the use of the word ‘reparations’ on the basis that they did not commit genocide in what they called German South-West Africa for which they have to pay reparations.

Further, German officials have made several public comments over the last three decades that they intend to offer as little funds as possible for so-called projects and not for reparations because, as the so-called highest per capita aid donors to Namibia, up to now, they have contributed millions of development funds to Namibia, and, therefore, payment for reparations is not necessary.

This is indeed strange reasoning on the part of the German leaders because, among all the countries represented in Namibia, Germany should be the highest per capita contributor of foreign aid to Namibia. Germany is the country that committed genocide against the Nama and Ovaherero people in the war of genocide. The people were not only killed in thousands, but their land worth billions of dollars was taken away from them and this has contributed to the landlessness and abject poverty that many people from these communities find themselves in today. In that regard, Germany should not boast about being the highest contributor of foreign aid to Namibia.

The German leaders deliberately overlook the fact that their German colonial government - through its Schutztruppe - did not destroy projects of the Ovaherero and Nama people that they need to repair, but exterminated over half of the Ovaherero and Nama people who lived in Namibia before the war of genocide of 1904 – 1907 began, and also confiscated their land and cattle.

Before and after independence, Geingob has been one of the top leaders of Swapo who has contributed to the misrule and political and economic mess that Namibia finds itself in. Therefore, in this regard, the Kuugongelwa-Amadhila statement reveals the inability of the Geingob administration to engage in reparation negotiations with their German counterparts and achieve positive outcomes over five years of negotiations. But as pointed out above, this is not only the failure of the Geingob administration but also all the previous Swapo administrations over the last three decades since independence in 1990.

What Kuugongelwa-Amadhila discussed in Parliament is nothing other than the inability of Swapo officials in the negotiations due to lack of skills and other factors to demand a reparation payment for the victims of German genocide. It is questionable that the Swapo officials would allegedly negotiate around the main ‘three pillars’ of apology, reparations, and genocide and then, after five years of inconclusive negotiations, come back to Parliament with something different than those ‘pillars’ - that doesn’t make sense.

‘Healing the wounds’

After five years of negotiations, how does the pillar of reparations become a pillar of ‘healing the wounds’? On top of this, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila states that the German government representatives have refused to accept the term reparations, and that the Namibia government negotiators somehow agree with this and plan to discuss further with the Germans ‘alternative terms’ such as reconciliation and reconstruction.

Further, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila indicates that more years of negotiations are needed to reach some agreement on this so-called issue of finding alternative terminology for the word reparations with the German negotiators. This is just preposterous.

Contrary to Kuugongelwa-Amadhila’s explanation, the phrase ‘healing the wounds’ is not inadequate but is a mockery of what Germany with its Schutztruppe did to the Ovaherero and Nama people. This is also a form of denial of Ovaherero and Nama genocide which the German leaders accept for the Ovaherero and Nama people but don’t accept in the case of the Jewish holocaust in Germany itself.

Germany did not only, figuratively or literally, inflict wounds against the Ovaherero and Nama people that now need to be healed as the German ambassador Schlaga and his colleagues have been claiming in public statements in Namibia. The German Schutztruppe committed genocide against these two groups based on the German army’s policies and war practice of annihilation of the enemy - as stated in two extermination orders that the commander of the Schutztruppe, General Lothar von Trotha, issued in 1904 (Ovaherero) and 1905 (Nama), and that resulted in the drastic reduction of the populations of the two groups at the end of the war of genocide of 1904-1907.

About a combined 100 000 Ovaherero and Nama people were exterminated by the end of that genocide war. In that regard, the German term of ‘healing of the wounds’ cannot and should not be considered to be a serious negotiation item concerning restorative justice for the genocide that Germany committed against the Ovaherero and Nama people.

Reconciliation and reconstruction

Geingob and members of his Swapo administration cannot convince us that reconstruction, reconciliation, and colonial atrocities are alternative terms for the genocide that Germany committed against the Nama and Ovaherero people and for which they have to pay the reparations.

If the terms of reconciliation and reconstruction are acceptable replacements for the term reparations, then, what are Germany and Namibia reconciling about and what is the reconstruction for? What did Germany destroy that it is now helping Namibia to reconstruct, wiedergutmachen? This is just sheer madness on the part of both German and Namibian negotiators on this issue.

It seems that Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is implying that the Namibian negotiators will accept the ‘alternative terms’ of reconciliation and reconstruction of the German government if it provides sufficient amount of funds “meaningful for reparations”.

How can the funds be for development projects, and then, at the same time, also be for “meaningful reparations” - especially when the German leaders claim that they did not commit genocide in Namibia?

Dr Freddy Omo Kustaa is a retired professor, historian and political scientist living in St Paul, Minnesota, USA. His areas of study and research are comparative history and politics of the United States and Southern Africa, with a specific emphasis on the colonial history of South Africa and Namibia.