Reiterdenkmal replica referred to PG
Swakopmund community activist Laidlaw Peringanda has opened a case with the Swakopmund police against the owners of the Alstad restaurant for erecting a replica of the controversial Reiterdenkmal statue.
The owner of the restaurant, Norbert Sadlowski, said he was unaware that a police case had been opened against them. He declined further comment.
On 9 December, Peringanda posted on Facebook that the police at Swakopmund had declined to open a case against Alstadt.
“The descendants of the survivors of the 1904-1908 genocide are traumatised by that statue at the German restaurant,” Peringanda posted.
Chief Inspector Kauna Shikwambi last week confirmed that a case had indeed been opened on 31 December.
“The matter has been referred to the prosecutor-general, Martha Imalwa, who must decide whether the it will be taken further,” she said.
According to the police spokesperson, Peringanda claimed in his affidavit that the erection of the statue was a contravention of the Racial Discrimination Prohibition Amendment Act, as well as Articles 23 and 8 of the Namibian constitution.
Article 23 states that “The practice of racial discrimination and the practice and ideology of apartheid from which the majority of the people of Namibia have suffered for so long shall be prohibited and by Act of parliament such practices, and the propagation of such practices, may be rendered criminally punishable by the ordinary courts by means of such punishment as parliament deems necessary for the purposes of expressing the revulsion of the Namibian people at such practices.”
Peringanda, who is the chairman of the Namibian Genocide Association, had started the fight against the Alstadt statue in April 2019 already.
The original Reiterdenkmal statue that stood at the former Windhoek concentration camp near the Alte Feste in Windhoek was removed in 2013.
The monument honours the German soldiers and civilians that died in the Herero and Nama war of 1904–1907.
In 2013, former President Hifikepunye Pohamba declared the statue an obstacle to the healing of the nation from past colonial oppression by the Germans and ordered its removal.
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JEMIMA BEUKES
The owner of the restaurant, Norbert Sadlowski, said he was unaware that a police case had been opened against them. He declined further comment.
On 9 December, Peringanda posted on Facebook that the police at Swakopmund had declined to open a case against Alstadt.
“The descendants of the survivors of the 1904-1908 genocide are traumatised by that statue at the German restaurant,” Peringanda posted.
Chief Inspector Kauna Shikwambi last week confirmed that a case had indeed been opened on 31 December.
“The matter has been referred to the prosecutor-general, Martha Imalwa, who must decide whether the it will be taken further,” she said.
According to the police spokesperson, Peringanda claimed in his affidavit that the erection of the statue was a contravention of the Racial Discrimination Prohibition Amendment Act, as well as Articles 23 and 8 of the Namibian constitution.
Article 23 states that “The practice of racial discrimination and the practice and ideology of apartheid from which the majority of the people of Namibia have suffered for so long shall be prohibited and by Act of parliament such practices, and the propagation of such practices, may be rendered criminally punishable by the ordinary courts by means of such punishment as parliament deems necessary for the purposes of expressing the revulsion of the Namibian people at such practices.”
Peringanda, who is the chairman of the Namibian Genocide Association, had started the fight against the Alstadt statue in April 2019 already.
The original Reiterdenkmal statue that stood at the former Windhoek concentration camp near the Alte Feste in Windhoek was removed in 2013.
The monument honours the German soldiers and civilians that died in the Herero and Nama war of 1904–1907.
In 2013, former President Hifikepunye Pohamba declared the statue an obstacle to the healing of the nation from past colonial oppression by the Germans and ordered its removal.
[email protected]
JEMIMA BEUKES
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