Germany recognises Armenian genocide, mum on Namibia

The OvaHerero Genocide Foundation has accused the German government of double standards for acknowledging the Armenian genocide (1917-17) but shying away from acknowledging the Nama and OvaHerero Genocide of 1904-08.
According to Ester Muinjangue, of the OvaHerero-OvaMbanderu Genocide Foundation (OGF), the German government is contradicting itself by saying the Namibian genocide took place before the 1948 United Nations convention on genocide.
The Armenian Genocide which saw at least 1.5 million people dying at the hands of the Germans took place 11 years after the Nama and the OvaHerero genocide of 1904.
“How could the German government recognise the Armenian genocide, but hide behind the bush to recognise the same act of genocide that they committed against the Namas and OvaHereros? They are busy with a hide-and-seek game,” Muinjangue said.
Last week, the German parliament approved a resolution declaring the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the World War 1, genocide.
This comes at a critical time when Namibians are demanding that the former coloniser acknowledges the Nama and OvaHerero genocide of 1904-08.
The Namibian government late last year appointed Zed Ngavirue as special envoy on genocide and reparations to head negotiations between Namibian government and its German counterpart.
During an interview with Namibian Sun last month, Ngavirue said the objective is to make Germany acknowledge they committed genocide, seek an apology and pay for the reparations.
German Ambassador to Namibia, Christian Schlaga early this year said the German and Namibian governments have agreed to finalise negotiations over the genocide issue by the end of this year.
However, affected communities, who feel that they are excluded from the negotiating table expressed concerns that the German government wants to dictate the negotiating process.
“The German government should remember that they are the perpetrators. You cannot be the perpetrator and the referee - it is totally wrong. You cannot rape and then you want to decide how the process of judgement should go. That is where we have the problem,” said Muinjangue.
According to her, the negotiating process should not be a complex issue and that there are clear UN resolutions in place to guide the process.
“And now they are saying by December they want to conclude this? So how do you know what the outcome of negotiations would be for you to have a date? That shows you that the environment is totally unjust and people are not honest with themselves,” she said.
According to her, the OvaHerero community still remains largely shut out of the negotiation process.
“Ngavirue sent us an invitation which says ‘please select someone within the community to come and serve on the technical committee’. That someone must be someone special that has some expertise. It is not someone that represents the communities. Now you know our communities are represented by our traditional chiefs. But our chiefs never received an invitation,” she complained.
According to her, the community is not interested in serving on committees because there is no guarantee that their input would see the light of the day.
“Your voice is not there. We want to be part of the negotiations. We want to sit with the Germans to negotiate. The Germans did that with the 23 groups that represented the Jewish people and state of Israel. The model is there,” she said.
JEMIMA BEUKES