Contribution to the National Assembly Debate on the Joint Declaration between Germany and Namibia by Bernadus Clinton Swartbooi, MP

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    29 September 2021

    Contribution to the National Assembly Debate on the Joint Declaration between Germany and Namibia on the 1904 - 1908 Genocide
    Grateful to the Lord Jesus Who saved many and left the remnants to complete the struggle for His Glory. Dedicated to the young and the unborn of Namibia, the immaculate hope of a bright, united nation.

    Honourable Speaker, Honourable Members

    Part I

    Historic Repose

    A. Prelude to Government on Joint Declaration: A Warning of History

    1. In April 1883, after chartering the sea for four weeks, a ship anchored at Angra Pequena in South-West Africa. A dubious, scum-of-the-earth businessman by the name of Heinrich Vogelsang located Chief Joseph Fredericks II and treacherously bought land measuring about 1,400 sq. km around Angra Pequena (Alfred Babing et al: 1981).

    2. Twenty two years later, on this land, Shark Island would cement itself in history as the final venue for the brutal and inhumane demise of thousands of the Ovaherero-OvaMbanderu and Nama peoples, as part of the industrial scale genocide upon these groups. This was the first genocide of the twentieth century.

    3. Fredericks obtained 200 rifles out of this deal but was swindled by the unscrupulous German who took more land than agreed. Other parcels of land were later acquired by same. The rest is history. Fredericks saw a commercial deal, a development process, perhaps an opportunity. It didn’t happen at all. Many in the !Aman community opposed this sale. One day, some years past, according to elders, the missionary, Knutzen, had a Sunday church service with men, only. While the service was held, German soldiers forcibly took all the guns in the community from the women including, apparently, some of those 200 rifles. What was the problem? What was the miscalculation? It was trusting the stranger over your own people.

    I am by no means vilifying Chief Joseph Fredericks II, he is my own blood, but he was robbed by the Germans.

    4. Today, the Swapo Party government is marketing and selling the Joint Declaration deal as a major victory for infrastructure development and reconstruction. An opportunity, some proponents of the deal tell far flung communities. The government is so eager to show and argue about how well represented the communities were, how they were consulted. But it doesn’t cut it. They should pause and ask, why? Is this perhaps not the season for this agreement? Why is there so much opposition? Are they trusting themselves and the Germans more than the House or, is there treachery hidden elsewhere?

    5. Honourable Speaker, we are warning that Namibia is being swindled. We state that Polenz is the modern day Heinrich Vogelsang, acting for the imperial German Reich as it were, and that the agreement is not an opportunity for any of the affected communities but at best, a lost opportunity. The Namibian government is, nonetheless, pursuing the matter without halt. From a party political stand point, I will urge Swapo to bulldoze this joint declaration through (parliament), because it will allow us to institute immediate and decisive legal action, in the local jurisdiction, for reasons I shall later amplify. But, from a national interest point of view and from the perspective of decoloniality, they should desist and advance to the rear!

    B. Germany: Reparations for German Economic Development

    6. In 1893, Friedrich Engels visited Germany after a sixteen-year absence. He was astonished at what he found, and wrote: ''One generation ago Germany was an agricultural country with a two-thirds rural population; today, it is an industrial country of first rank, and along the entire length of the Rhine from the Dutch to the Swiss frontiers, I did not find a single spot out of sight of factory chimneys.'' (Alfred Babing et al: 1981).

    7. In a short historical time frame, from 1871 - 1896, Germany caught up and even surpassed its competitors, and banks such as Deutsche Bank, Dresden Bank, Disconto Bank and the Berliner Handelsbank were established and reached the heights of profitability. How did this instant German prosperity come into being? Largely due to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 - 1871 that resulted in France being forced to pay 5,000 million gold Mark as reparations to Germany. Of course, the discovery in the electrical, iron, and steel industries also engineered German economic rise.

    8. Honourable Speaker, honourable members, the point I am canvassing herein is that Germany very well understands the impact of reparations. Her own economic and social transformation from underdevelopment to unmatched economic prosperity around the world today is largely due to reparations from France. These reparations payments by France to Germany, paid off in five years, ensured that the balance of power in Europe changed forever, away from French dominance to German dominance.

    9. The German troops remained in France until the last payment was effected. However, Africans do not qualify for a decent package of reparations because imperial Germany cannot fathom nor permit such action. The Joint Declaration is an epitaph of superiority of the colonial master. Today, Namibia is proudly parading a thirty-year payment period of German financial peanuts. How odd. How sad. How scandalous.

    C. Who is Von Trotha and what were Germany's Intentions in bringing Him to GSWA?

    10. Firstly, Honourable Speaker, honourable members, the greatest misconception held by many is that dispossession and wanton killing and programmes of impoverishment by Germany began in 1904 and ceased in 1908. Nothing could be further from the truth. To illustrate, an Imperial Decree Pertaining to the Expropriation of Land and Livestock was promulgated on 10 April, 1898. Specific groups were highlighted, including the Ovaharero and OvaMbanderu, followed by the Swartboois of Fransfontein, the Fredericks of Bethanie, the Bondelswarts of Warmbad, and so on. Abraham Morris and Jakob Morenga took up arms against the Germans on 25 October, 1903, when the Germans were decapitated and fled the fighting until reinforcements arrived. In 1913, Simon Kooper and his people were chased into the Kalahari and ended up in Betschuanaland (now Botswana). In 1911, an Extermination Order was issued against the Saan Hai||om community who were hunted for leisure even up to 1919* by white farmers. So the horror began earlier than 1904, and ''ended'' much later than 1908.

    11. To return to answering the question of the intention of the German Reich: Von Trotha was brought to South-West Africa to expedite and achieve total control of the land and its resources via subjugation of the restive natives. It required a murderous and sick man to execute a major task swiftly by exterminating the natives, mercilessly. He had the record and the experience: Von Trotha exterminated three hundred thousand Wahehe and Mayi Mayi in German East-Africa, present-day Tanzania, between 1894 - 1897. He was posted to China in 1900 to crush the Yi Ho Tuan Movement. He then moved to Togo and eventually to South-West Africa. Later, Von Trotha would be appointed as ''Honorary Fuhrer of the Hitler Youth'' (ibid). He was a celebrated figure.

    12. With 600 million gold Mark for the colonial war in South-West Africa, the German troops numbered 20,000 by 1904. The war machine had to be sizeable. 2,500 never returned home.

    13. Private companies benefitted from the war exercise and the Motion by Chief Riruako demands that private companies also be a centrepiece of the reparations question, as this matter has not even been taken up, at all. For example, the Woermann family made huge profits by transportation of guns, soldiers, horses, camels and other requirements for the war machine to function, optimally. The names of the following ships had family members’ names: Eleanore Woerman, Lucie Woermann, Alexandra Woermann, Erich Woermann, Ernst Woermann, Gertrud Woermann, Eduard Woerman and Anna Woermann (Babing et al: 1981). Tippelskirch corporation made uniforms and equipment for the colonial troops, and was the second largest profiteer of the war, as well as the arms production companies. In brief, the entire German nation was mobilised for this colonial war.

    Part II

    The Joint Declaration

    D. The International Legal Regime

    14. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), as well as the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) are the appropriate tools that exist under which Germany must be held accountable for its genocide on Africans. These rights speak to freedom from discrimination, the right to self-determination and are inalienable rights to participation at both individual and collective levels. Participation rights of the affected communities are well established and respected under International Law, and Namibia and Germany completely ignored these international statutes for their own government-to-government bilateral interests.

    15. Moreover, the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to Remedy and Reparations for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, stresses and amplifies, quite eloquently the right to remedy and reparations. Several UN bodies have expressed displeasure at the exclusion of the affected communities, including the Working Group on the Rights of People of African Descent, in 2017, and the UN High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR) under Michel Bachelet, in a letter dated 2 November, 2018, asking German foreign minister, Maas, to secure the participation of the affected communities. The UN Human Rights Council Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) equally demanded for the inclusion of the affected communities in May, 2018.

    16. Then, there is the well-established International Law principle of Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC). Briefly, in a simplified way, the principle asserts that communities must freely, without manipulation or coercion, be recognised on matters pertaining to their well-being and must be consulted prior to any decision to be taken that affects them. They must consent to such decisions. In this alleged ''negotiations'' process, there was no application of FPIC regarding the affected communities. The consultations must be genuine, sincere and inclusive. At best, the Namibian government's approach to the affected communities was sectarian, factional and party politically based. It is important to keep in mind that Namibia had signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), in 2007. Germany has also acceded to the ILO Convention, No. 169, agreeing to respect indigenous and tribal peoples' rights by ratifying the ILO Convention, recently. Crucially, the convention applies to foreign relations and states are bound by it externally, too.

    17. The Maartens Clause is an important international treaty arrangement. The General Act of the Berlin Conference (1884), states that indigenous people be treated well in articles 6 and 9. In addition, Conventions II and IV with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 1899, stipulated in Article 4 that prisoners of war be treated humanely, and in Article 7, that food, quarters, and clothing be provided on the same footing as the soldiers of the government that captured them. Further, Article 23 prohibits killing and wounding of a defenceless enemy or an enemy that has surrendered. These were international instruments of ''civil nations'' that bound Germany, legally, regarding its conduct of war. If it did not abide by these principles, as was the case with the Ovahereroo-OvaMbanderu and Nama genocide, it was clearly breaking established rules with the knowledge that human rights, from that early perspective, was violated.

    E. The Riruako Parliamentary Motion: The Demise of the Separation of Powers

    18. As a constitutional democracy, or so intended by legal design, the principle of separation of powers between the arms of State is sacrosanct to the administration of the affairs of the State. Article 44 enjoins the National Assembly as the principle law-making institution. This is because in Article 45 the National Assembly is tasked as the representative of all the people of Namibia. To this extent, we are required to act within the framework of the Constitution of the Republic of Namibia.

    19. The National Assembly passed the Motion of Riruako unanimously, and the executive branch of the State usurped the legislature by amending and tweaking the resolution of National Assembly, as it pleased. Therefore, the Executive is in breach of the spirit and tenor of the Resolution, but also engages in a supreme misdemeanour of misleading this august House in the extreme. The government of Namibia was never asked to lead and redefine the principle purpose and intent of the Resolution hewn from the Motion, but it did. The Motion dealt with Reparations.

    20. The Government altered the application of the Motion into its own basic tool for Bilateral Development Aid (I have the documents here). This is gross misconduct, Honourable Speaker, for which the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister and all Cabinet ministers and officials must be held accountable. We intend to vigorously litigate on this matter in the High Court as well as in the Supreme Court, if we have to go to that length. It is wrong and unacceptable that the interested party becomes the lead party by its own devices, outside the law. I shall highlight in particular the misconduct of Honourable Kapofi, Honourable Ndaitwah and Honourable Kuugongelwa-Amadhila later in the passages herein. It is gross misconduct that requires the Privileges and Immunities Committee to institute action, without delay.

    Part III

    F. The Context and Text of the Declaration

    21. Jan Grofe, in analysing and contextualising the likelihood of success of the Ovaherero in her claims against the Deutsche Bank for its complicity in genocide, suggested the following: ''...At independence in 1990... The Namibian government for its part agreed that continuing German development aid, together with the German Democratic Republic’s support for the South-West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO) during the struggle for independence, against South Africa, made reparations payments void.'' In others words, the Swapo Party already unscrupulously sold out the affected communities on the historic question of genocide, and had agreed, in 1989, to these terms, and moved toward re-affirming those terms immediately after, at independence. SWAPO was serrated on genocide!

    22. It is for this reason, among others, that Honourable Kapofi asserted in this House that negotiating with the Germans ''wasn’t easy'' because the Germans were asking them why they are even entertaining this matter!

    23. The Joint Declaration is an awful document, empty of substance and has nothing to do with reparations. In its introduction, the document refers to the 1989 Bundestag Resolution, a sell-out self-moralising resolution that moves conceptually and historically away from reparations and genocide, towards development and a ''special relationship'' that lacks any substantive definition. In 2004 the Bundestag attempted to define that ''special relationship'', but clarity is still absent. Who defined this special relationship? Again, it is the colonial master! The asymmetric power relations are clear. The two parties recognise the 2006 National Assembly resolution which clearly outlines how the genocide reparations process should be executed but ignore it, altogether. The agreement is ''mindful of the strong and cordial relations'' between Germany and Namibia. If this was the case, outside government-to-government relations, Germany would have seen the genuine suffering, and political and economic marginalisation of the affected communities. Some years back, the German government brought in an insult of a programme called the German Special Initiative, which had no impact at all on the lives and livelihoods of people. Does this accord with the 2004 Bundestag Resolution? They provided ten goats and five cattle and those projects did not ''transform'' any lives. Did they not see that, since there are ''close and cordial relations''? This is the German and Swapo histrionic approach, quite reprehensible!

    24. The ''special relationship'' is in the interest of German-speaking Namibians and for their protection. It has nothing to do with genocide survivors. What sort of ''special relationship'' is it that the German government could not even wish to speak directly to the victims? They avoided for them to be at the high table, never stood up for the special relationship's sake? If the local German community was as affected as the black survivors, we would have seen German investment and development programmes loaded on the Namibian landscape. Has the German government directly investigated the livelihoods of the communities upon which the 2004 Bundestag resolution claims a ''special relationship''? Where do these communities go to feel and experience this ''special relationship'' that Germany refers to in the Joint Declaration?

    25. The declaration does not even do the honourable thing to highlight how many Hereros, Mbanderus, Namas, Damaras, and Saan were exterminated: ''large parts, some significant numbers of indigenous people, many thousands'', that’s the language they use. The question is: how did they arrive at a quantum? The size of land taken, the livestock taken, none of it is mentioned in numerical terms. What have they used to arrive at the amount stated in the document?

    26. If you can’t mention the damage, how do you decide how much the cost of repairs will be? Clearly, Honourable Speaker, the number of people and the land lost and the riches taken are not mentioned because the Germans do not want to be confronted by the real figure and the real damages they are just simply not prepared to repair! But there is another reason why they are not specific with the numbers; the negotiations were not a reparations negotiation - it was development project negotiations (show documents: Bilateral A, Polenz' letter B, Ngavirue's reply C, Technical Committee Report D).

    27. Nowhere do they even use the word ''prisoners'', they softly refer to ''internees''. Those Nama fighters banished to Togo and the Cameroon and their families are not even referred to for the repatriation of bodies or any other manner in which the plight of these families will be addressed. Many of these fighters were actually Swartboois, who were forcibly moved to Spitzkoppe, and their surname was changed to Stuurmann to delink the identity of one from the other, and they were then sent to Togo and the Cameroon. Not all returned and were never heard of, at all.

    28. There is no explicit mention of the Ovaherero and Mbanderu and Nama of Botswana and South Africa. Damaras, who were exterminated up to thirty percent of the population were declared as not having any legal right to claim title to any land! They were uprooted but no mention of that, as well. The Saan, hunted for leisure and chased off their land, particularly in the Grootfontein, Tsumeb, Otavi and Outjo areas, are not mentioned in any detail. In section II of paragraph 10, Germany effectively exculpates itself from any wrongdoing with the words ''from today's perspective'' to avoid any legal duty and liability. They avoid an objective standard and only take the moral, historical and political duty, which duty entirely depends on their goodwill to implement. No one is forcing them on moral and political duty, they appropriate this to themselves and thus, the entire declaration depends on the willingness of Germany to do anything. If they do not wish to act upon any matters herein contained, there is no legal obligation and recourse to impose upon them. So, Germany will apologise and decide that they will provide money for reconciliation and reconstruction: no reparations!

    29. In paragraph 14, this agreement ''shall close the painful chapter'' but from whose perspective is that closure made? The villain, the victim, or both, as survivors? In paragraph 20, both governments agree the declaration stands as the settlement of all financial aspects of the issues relating to genocide. Have those proponents of the Joint Declaration read this specific part of the deal? Even the payment of mines Germany only ''commits herself'', the wording should have been ''obliging herself'' and therefore, Germany has signed its best-ever Declaration with its colony through its protégé Swapo. Let ''bygones be bygones'' (Kossler: 2015) is the German approach to this Declaration, as a ''society of privilege'' was laid in the aftermath of the genodical war.

    30. The point for many of us is not to avenge the dead but to give the living and those to be born a chance to live together as survivors (Mamdani:2021).

    31. I will now quickly turn to a matter I highlighted elsewhere; honourables Kapofi and Ndaitwah and Honourable Saara Amadhila-Kuugongelwa have always maintained that this agreement is a reparations agreement. Where is it stated so? When elected officials pretend to suggest something different than what they know, than what is written, knowingly, with a view to entice others to agree to act in a particular way, that conduct is not only fraudulent misrepresentation, and unethical, but it is grossly illegal, given the oath of office we all took to serve the nation with honesty, dignity, integrity, and to the best of our abilities. Hence their conduct is criminal and must be addressed because it falls short of the requirements of Article 60 of the Namibian Constitution.

    Part IV

    G. The Nation-State: Whose State is it?

    32. At independence, a new political community should have been formed, one that is inclusive. However, post-colonial Africa has not done that, and the first question anew is: Who belongs to the political community of the new nation-state, not how do we distribute wealth, asserts Mahmood Mamdani, in his latest work Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. Politically, Mamdani postulates, decolonisation is seen as a two way process: the external assertion of political independence from the colonial power and the membership to the international comity of nations, and internally, redefining and reimagining the political community.

    33. Therefore, he submits, that the political is intertwined with the epistemological. And this political decolonisation henceforth questions the meaning of citizenship on the basis of various rights, namely the civil, political, and social rights in a nation-state: whose rights are those, is the question. And, is citizenship equal? And, to which nation does the nation-state belong? Mamdani argues that in South Africa the apartheid state belonged to the Afrikaners, and they gave up the state for the formation of the new political community which is non-racial and democratic. In Namibia, the state belonged to the Germans and then the Afrikaners, and today, it’s the northern elites. This latter is what transpired in Sudan, as well, and John Garang died before his vision of ''Sudanism'' could be born.

    34. There are direct consequences for citizenship and he argues that in order to reform the state, citizenship must be on the basis of residency, not identity. The question is: do the victims of the genocide belong to the political community of Namibia, or is their identity a hindrance to their full enjoyment of citizenship? Are the Gam and Eiseb Herero and Mbanderu people full citizens of the political community? Clearly not. The Joint Declaration of projects demonstrates that this nation-state does not belong to all.

    35. It shows that Namibia is a two-state system: for the 1960s war, funds are available for direct payment, land is available. One state, demonstrating who owns the state. Not for those that are not members of the nation who own the state. And therefore, the assertion is correct by Mamdani that some countries have just defeated apartheid, and we have not gotten our liberation at all. Tribal identity will remain an obstacle to full citizenship and toward collective ownership of the State.

    36. Finally, we do not support the Joint Declaration for the reasons stated above. We suggest that this Motion be withdrawn and that real discussions begin with all affected community representatives, so that the Rirurako Motion is correctly implemented. The setting up of a Truth Commission, searching for disappeared persons and bodies, bones and artefacts, officially issuing a juridical decision restoring dignity, reputation, land and all rights of victim communities, and ensuring that direct individual payments are made to people of affected communities. Who told the German and Namibian governments that people can’t handle their money? Who told you that trickle-down policy is what communities want? So that which networks can steal again from genocide resources? Former PLAN combatants are receiving direct payouts monthly, why should whoever dictates against this for the affected communities?

End

    Bernadus Clinton Swartbooi is a Namibian politician who was born on 11 October, 1977, in Tses, ||kharas Region, Namibia. He attended Suiderlig Senior Secondary School in Swartmodder (Keetmanshoop). At the University of Namibia (UNAM), he served first as Secretary-General of the Namibia National Students Union (NANSO) and later, as its president. After graduating, he worked as a prosecutor in Tsumeb and Khorixas until his appointment as a special assistant in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). In 2015, Swartbooi was appointed Deputy Minister of Lands and Resettlement but was forced to resign in 2017. He subsequently formed the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM) to advocate for the equitable redistribution of land and for the distribution of ancestral land to Namibians who were dispossessed by German settlers.

    For background on the formation and rise of the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM) in Namibia, please Google the government farm, Farm Dickbusch, or click on the links below to read:

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