A day after Germany defended Israel from charges of genocide in Gaza, Namibia’s president denounced Germany for hypocrisy, citing a genocide that the Germans committed in the African nation more than a century ago when it was a German colony.
“On Namibian soil, #Germany committed the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions,” Namibian President Hage Geingob said in a press release posted Jan. 13 on X, formerly Twitter. “The German Government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil.”
Geingob wrote that he was shocked by Germany’s decision, announced a day earlier, to intervene as a third party in defense of Israel after South Africa brought a case against Israel in the International Court of Justice. South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, where thousands of civilians have been killed after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
“Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza,” Geingob said.
But Geingob said Germany had not completely reckoned with the first genocide it committed last century, which its government finally acknowledged in 2021. That massacre, in what was then known as German South West Africa, is sometimes called “the forgotten genocide.”
More than 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were slain by German troops between 1904 and 1908, according to the Namibian Parliament.
In 2006, a member of Namibia’s Parliament presented a motion demanding reparations from Germany. The member read a statement written in the early 1900s by a German soldier who witnessed the Germans chasing the Herero to Botswana.
Germany, the statement said, “apologizes and bows before the descendants of the victims. Today, more than 100 years later, Germany asks for forgiveness for the sins of their forefathers. It is not possible to undo what has been done. But the suffering, inhumanity and pain inflicted on the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children by Germany during the war in what is today Namibia must not be forgotten. It must serve as a warning against racism and genocide.”
posted by f.sheikh