Namibia’s Reparations Conundrum

The Nama people faced similar atrocities at the hands of the German colonial forces. As resistance grew among the Nama, the Germans launched a campaign of violence and displacement, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Nama people. Nama survivors were also placed in concentration camps, where they endured harsh conditions and mistreatment.

The 1904-1908 German massacres in Namibia resulted in the deaths of an estimated 80,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people, or about 80 percent of the Herero and 50 percent of the Nama.

In addition, the German authorities seized about 80 percent of the land owned by Nama.

Apology and Reparations
In 2004, the German government, for the first time, acknowledged the responsibility of Germany for the systematic killing of the Herero and the Nama, and issued an apology.

The German recognition of Germany’s responsibility for the atrocities led to negotiations between the German and Namibian governments. The negotiations began in 2015 and  resulted in a February 2021 declaration between the governments of Germany and Namibia, which included a pledge by Germany to fund €1.1 billion in development projects in Namibia, paid over 30 years, with 50 million euros set aside for research, remembrance and reconciliation projects.

“Germany asks for forgiveness for the sins of their forefathers,” the Joint Declaration issued by the German and Namibian authorities read, and “the Namibian Government and people accept Germany’s apology.”

The joint declaration was met with anger by leaders of the Herero and Nama communities. They argued that the Herero and Nama, the people most affected by German’s colonial crimes, were never part of the negotiations.

“I think the first response of the community was just total shock – so violent, so cruel, that what it (the declaration) did was re-traumatize us again,” Sima Luipert, an adviser to the Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA), told Al Jazeera. Luipert, like many in the affected communities, says recognized members of the Nama and Herero were not present at the table and that the two governments were forcing the agreement upon them.

“This was not a trilateral process. It was a bilateral process, so the document defeats its purpose and it lacks legitimacy because the legitimate people are not at the table,” Luipert said.

Herero and Nama leaders had long pushed for what they regard as a holistic reparations framework which would include recognition of the massacre as a genocide by Germany, direct compensation for generational economic loss to their communities, land transfers, and full participation in the process.

The leaders of the two communities note that descendants of German settlers today still control thousands of acres of land used to be owned by Herero and Nama, without being able to provide any evidence of the sale of the land by its original owners.

German Namibians make up 2 percent of Namibia’s population of 2.5 million, but they own about 70 percent of the country’s land, most of it used for agriculture.

The German colonial legacy is present not only in land ownership, but in mining and resource extraction as well.

“Many of the property and mining ownership rights drawn up by German colonial authorities are still in place in today’s postcolonial Namibia,” Steven Press, an author and Stanford University history researcher, told Al Jazeera. And contracts, in the past or today, “do not include any mechanism for Nama, in particular, to partake of the wealth that was located on their land”, he adds.

In November 2022, Namibia’s Vice President Nangolo Mbumba demanded further talks with Germany to increase the amount of Germany’s pledge and institute a shorter payment period, but there was no mention of including the Herero and Nama in the negotiations.

In January 2023, the Namibian opposition and representatives of the Herero and Nama peoples brought a suit before the Namibian Supreme Court, asking the court to declare the agreement unlawful and thus, invalid.

German international law expert Karina Theurer, who advises the plaintiffs, told DW that the lawsuit is a milestone: “It is the first time in history that an intergovernmental agreement on the legal processing of colonial crimes is being negotiated and decided before a court of a former colony,” she said.

The European Council on Human Rightsagrees, saying that by sidelining the Herero and Nama, the Namibian and German governments violated international law. “Indigenous people’s rights to adequate participation, and the collective human rights to free, prior and informed consent and to freely choose a group’s representatives have become part of customary international law … enshrined in the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and laid out in core human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD),” a statement from the organization read.

Leaders of the Herero and Nama note that in addressing the Nazi Holocaust, Germany has paid some 80 billion euros ($87.5bn) in reparations to Israel, including 29 billion euros ($31.7bn) directly paid to victims and descendants of Holocaust victims. They compare the potential German payments to the Ovambo-dominated Namibia government as akin to Germany paying Poland – not Israel - for the loss of its Jewish population during the Holocaust.

Herero representatives also complain that “but for” the genocide, Hereros would today be the dominant population group in Namibia.  “Hereros outnumbered Ovambos on the eve of the Herero genocide in German Southwest Africa,” noted Jeremia Kaambo, a New York-based Herero. “My ancestors were the people slaughtered. How is it fair to compensate another ethnic group, who never faced genocide, for our deaths and suffering?”

Germany has so far refused to accept a similar approach towards the Nama and Herero people.

A year after the suit was filed, it is still frozen in “Status Hearing,” which is the legal term for a case suspended so the prosecuting party can gather more documents to develop its arguments.

Germany asserts there is no legal basis for demanding individual or collective reparations for descendants of Herero and Nama people affected by Germany’s colonial genocide. Germany notes that the 2021 declaration did not mention the terms

“reparations” or “compensation.” Rather, Germany says its agreement to fund development projects in Namibia should be seen as d funds as a gesture of reconciliation and reconstruction.

Moreover, Germany insisted on a wording of the agreement which indicates that Germany is giving compensation voluntarily rather than participating in a process of redressing past wrongs.

The German parliament in March also noted in a statement that “in the absence of a legal basis, there would be no individual or collective compensation claims of individual descendants of victim groups such as the Hereros or Namas.”

The appeal to the Namibian Supreme Court is not the first legal case in the matter.

In 2017, in a separate, unsuccessful court case brought Herero and Nama in the United States, Germany’s lawyers argued that the country did not commit genocide, because as of 1908 the Genocide Convention did not exist. Some laws set minimum standards for war in Europe at the time, but the Namas and Hereros were not regarded as needing protection.

The Herero and Nama groups argue that their fight is about much more than money. Their case in front of the Namibian Supreme Court has so far blocked the release of funds from Germany to Namibia, thus giving the groups additional time to draw international attention to their cause. They hope that, eventually, both Namibian and German authorities will have no choice but to agree to a new, more inclusive process.