Genocide Day: Recognising Namibia's darkest human tragedy
Hijaketutu Kapepu
On December, 9th 2020, a Namibian youth group, Youth in Politics (YIP) plans to commemorate the genocide committed against the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama people between 1904 and 1908.
Genocide Day also aims to reiterate the demands for restorative justice in terms of compensation from the German government and educate Namibian youth about genocide perpetrated against Namibians during the colonial era and its subsequent effects on affected communities today.
In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly established 9 December as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. The 9th of December is the anniversary of the adoption of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
YIP also plans to hand over a petition to the German embassy demanding the following during this day; ask the German government to accept Genocide committed against Ovaherero and Nama people, ask written and verbal apology to the affected communities, reparations, ask the German government to stop its delaying tactics and act towards our requests in 24 months or else the youth will take further action.
In addition, the youth group requests UN representatives to be in attendance and observe this day with Namibians. YIP also requests that Namibians observe this day as a day of mourning by lighting candles, wearing black and have a minute of silence to honour the victims of the 1904-08 genocide.
Activities for the day will include politicians, youth activists and key community figures engaging with the community about the atrocities of genocide committed against Namibians and the importance of working towards a peaceful way of life. In addition to student conferences, exhibitions, and other commemorative activities that the youth group is planning to launch.
YIP is aware of the efforts of the existing genocide committees, namely ONCD 1904-1908 that works together with our government through the Namibian Special Envoy as well as the OGF and Nama Genocide Technical Committee that currently have a pending legal case in the US courts in addition to locally lobbying for tripartite negotiations. This initiative seeks to complement the existing efforts and should not be seen as overlapping or suppressing the role of the aforementioned committees.
YIP wants to remind Namibians that since 1952, the German government has paid over $80 billion (€71 billion) in pensions and social welfare payments to Jews who suffered under the Nazi regime. The German government also agreed to give an additional €44 million ($49.7 million) in funding for social welfare services — amounting to a total of €524 million for 2020. Those funds provide financial assistance for some 132 000 Jewish Holocaust survivors around the world, including in-home care for over 78,000 people - source is Deutche Welle, a German news agency dated July 2, 2019.
Why are the Ovaherero and Nama people not compensated to this day? Is it because we are black Africans? YIP reiterates that black lives matter! Ovaherero - Nama lives matter!
Furthermore, the genocide of Armenians 1915 - 1917 committed by Turkey is considered the second genocide of the 20th century. This case was acknowledged and recently accepted as genocide by the international community with Germany being first to ratify, followed by France and other European countries. Why are the crimes against our people between 1904-1908 not recognised as genocide?
We urge the descendants of genocide victims to rise as progressive youth activists, not a complacent youth that waits and observes what the elders are doing on our behalf. The time is now to address this matter and bring justice to our people. YIP applauds President Hage Geingob in rejecting the peanuts offered, which was reported as 10 million Euros. This is undermining to the magnitude of lives, land and livestock lost.
YIP calculations to the affected groups results in nothing less than N$1 trillion taking into consideration loss of land, livestock, rape, torture and mass killings of over 80 000 people. The current status of the affected descendants provides a benchmark for calculations and quantification of the loss occasioned by crimes against humanity.
A harrowing statement was made by then Paramount Chief of the Ovaherero and Member of Parliament, Kuaima Riruako during a parliamentary session in 2006 which was a soldier's account of the vivid gruesome picture.
“Bodies littered the path taken by the Ovaherero in their flight— men dead and dying and staring blackly. A number of babies lay helplessly languishing by mothers whose breasts hung down long and flabby, others were lying alone, still living, with eyes and nose full of flies. All of this life lay scattered there, both men and beast, broken in the knees, helpless, still in agony, or already motionless”.
This was a result from the extermination order of 1904 and 1905 as articulated by Kaiser Wilhelm II's Imperial Germany, where over 65,000 Ovaherero and 10,000 Nama peoples perished in what was the first systematic genocide of the twentieth century.
The Ovaherero and the Nama people had land, cattle, and other property necessary to the maintenance of their way of life taken from them without financial compensation. Furthermore, German colonial authorities, apparently not satisfied with the annihilation of physical life, attempted to eradicate the language and culture of the Ovaherero and the Nama people as well.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government announced in July 2016 that Germany would issue a formal recognition and apology to Namibia, albeit without reparations. This declaration follows a slow-moving evolution by Germany on this issue, from offhand remarks made by a German minister at the centenary of the German war with the Ovaherero in 2004, to political guidelines issued by Social Democrat Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in 2015.
*Hijaketutu Kapepu is a youth activist.
On December, 9th 2020, a Namibian youth group, Youth in Politics (YIP) plans to commemorate the genocide committed against the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama people between 1904 and 1908.
Genocide Day also aims to reiterate the demands for restorative justice in terms of compensation from the German government and educate Namibian youth about genocide perpetrated against Namibians during the colonial era and its subsequent effects on affected communities today.
In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly established 9 December as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime. The 9th of December is the anniversary of the adoption of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
YIP also plans to hand over a petition to the German embassy demanding the following during this day; ask the German government to accept Genocide committed against Ovaherero and Nama people, ask written and verbal apology to the affected communities, reparations, ask the German government to stop its delaying tactics and act towards our requests in 24 months or else the youth will take further action.
In addition, the youth group requests UN representatives to be in attendance and observe this day with Namibians. YIP also requests that Namibians observe this day as a day of mourning by lighting candles, wearing black and have a minute of silence to honour the victims of the 1904-08 genocide.
Activities for the day will include politicians, youth activists and key community figures engaging with the community about the atrocities of genocide committed against Namibians and the importance of working towards a peaceful way of life. In addition to student conferences, exhibitions, and other commemorative activities that the youth group is planning to launch.
YIP is aware of the efforts of the existing genocide committees, namely ONCD 1904-1908 that works together with our government through the Namibian Special Envoy as well as the OGF and Nama Genocide Technical Committee that currently have a pending legal case in the US courts in addition to locally lobbying for tripartite negotiations. This initiative seeks to complement the existing efforts and should not be seen as overlapping or suppressing the role of the aforementioned committees.
YIP wants to remind Namibians that since 1952, the German government has paid over $80 billion (€71 billion) in pensions and social welfare payments to Jews who suffered under the Nazi regime. The German government also agreed to give an additional €44 million ($49.7 million) in funding for social welfare services — amounting to a total of €524 million for 2020. Those funds provide financial assistance for some 132 000 Jewish Holocaust survivors around the world, including in-home care for over 78,000 people - source is Deutche Welle, a German news agency dated July 2, 2019.
Why are the Ovaherero and Nama people not compensated to this day? Is it because we are black Africans? YIP reiterates that black lives matter! Ovaherero - Nama lives matter!
Furthermore, the genocide of Armenians 1915 - 1917 committed by Turkey is considered the second genocide of the 20th century. This case was acknowledged and recently accepted as genocide by the international community with Germany being first to ratify, followed by France and other European countries. Why are the crimes against our people between 1904-1908 not recognised as genocide?
We urge the descendants of genocide victims to rise as progressive youth activists, not a complacent youth that waits and observes what the elders are doing on our behalf. The time is now to address this matter and bring justice to our people. YIP applauds President Hage Geingob in rejecting the peanuts offered, which was reported as 10 million Euros. This is undermining to the magnitude of lives, land and livestock lost.
YIP calculations to the affected groups results in nothing less than N$1 trillion taking into consideration loss of land, livestock, rape, torture and mass killings of over 80 000 people. The current status of the affected descendants provides a benchmark for calculations and quantification of the loss occasioned by crimes against humanity.
A harrowing statement was made by then Paramount Chief of the Ovaherero and Member of Parliament, Kuaima Riruako during a parliamentary session in 2006 which was a soldier's account of the vivid gruesome picture.
“Bodies littered the path taken by the Ovaherero in their flight— men dead and dying and staring blackly. A number of babies lay helplessly languishing by mothers whose breasts hung down long and flabby, others were lying alone, still living, with eyes and nose full of flies. All of this life lay scattered there, both men and beast, broken in the knees, helpless, still in agony, or already motionless”.
This was a result from the extermination order of 1904 and 1905 as articulated by Kaiser Wilhelm II's Imperial Germany, where over 65,000 Ovaherero and 10,000 Nama peoples perished in what was the first systematic genocide of the twentieth century.
The Ovaherero and the Nama people had land, cattle, and other property necessary to the maintenance of their way of life taken from them without financial compensation. Furthermore, German colonial authorities, apparently not satisfied with the annihilation of physical life, attempted to eradicate the language and culture of the Ovaherero and the Nama people as well.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government announced in July 2016 that Germany would issue a formal recognition and apology to Namibia, albeit without reparations. This declaration follows a slow-moving evolution by Germany on this issue, from offhand remarks made by a German minister at the centenary of the German war with the Ovaherero in 2004, to political guidelines issued by Social Democrat Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in 2015.
*Hijaketutu Kapepu is a youth activist.
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