Germany announced on January 12 that it would intervene on Israel's behalf in a genocide lawsuit brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the Gaza War.
“The German government categorically and unequivocally rejects the accusation of genocide leveled against Israel at the International Court of Justice. There is no basis for this accusation,” a German government spokesperson said in a statement. accused of being used for “political purposes.''
“In view of Germany's history, crimes against humanity and the Shoah [the genocide of Jewish people under the German Nazi regime during World War II, the Ηolocaust]the government is particularly committed to the United Nations Genocide Convention,” the spokesperson added.
This announcement shockingly suggested that Germany understood the treaty better than any other country, as it was responsible for the genocide that led to its conception, and signaled its desire to end the treaty. It caused widespread anger in many Global South countries that had been tied up. From the Gaza genocide to South Africa's landmark case at the World Court.
The country of Namibia in particular was vocal in expressing its dissatisfaction and disappointment with German intervention.
On January 13, the Namibian president condemned Germany's “shocking decision” to support Israel at the ICJ.
A statement published in “died in brutal circumstances” and never fully died. I paid for this terrible crime.
Given Germany's apparent inability to draw lessons from its horrific history, the President's Office stated that Germany had told the ICJ that it had missed the opportunity to intervene as a third party in defending and supporting Israel's genocide. He said the decision should be reconsidered.
The report concluded that “Germany is morally incapable of expressing its commitment to the UN Convention against Genocide” and that while it “supports the Holocaust and acts amounting to genocide in Gaza,” He concluded that there can be no true atonement for the genocide committed in the United States.
In this short statement, the small South African country of 2.7 million people, which was a German colony from 1884 to 1919, criticized Germany's blatant double standards regarding its brutal colonial past and genocide. The failure of the response was exposed all at once.
From 1904 to 1908, following a popular uprising against illegal land grabs and forced labor in what was then known as German South-West Africa, German settlers captured up to 100,000 Herero and Nama people. were systematically murdered.
On October 2, 1904, Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha, supreme commander of German South West Africa, issued an extermination notice ordering German soldiers to “kill all men.” [Herero]Armed or unarmed,” Herero women and children are forcibly removed (or shot).
Germany rescinded the order on December 8, 1904, but the settlers had already displaced and killed thousands of Herero people.
Von Trotha issued a second extermination order on April 22, 1905. He in turn directed his army to kill the Nama. During a systematic genocide, German colonists systematically raped Nama and Herero women and girls, often with no repercussions.
A 1985 UN report (PDF) by Special Rapporteur Benjamin Whitaker concluded that these massacres in German South West Africa were genocide.
Despite the findings of the United Nations, and despite the Nazis accepting full responsibility for the genocide of European Jews from 1941 to 1945, which claimed approximately 6 million innocent lives, Germany For many years refused to acknowledge that the atrocities committed in Namibia amounted to genocide.
For decades, Germany has treated the genocide of the Nama and Herero peoples, which occurred just 33 years before the Holocaust, as an old, trivial story that does not require an official apology, concrete remorse, or meaningful financial compensation. It has been treated as a common atrocity.
For successive German governments, the lives of the 100,000 African men, women and children brutally murdered by the German state in what is now Namibia were the same as the lives of Jews brutally extinguished in Europe during the Holocaust. It is clear that it has no value.
After six years of vicious negotiations, Germany finally acknowledged the Nama and Herero genocide, offered a formal apology to the Namibian people, and signed a so-called “Joint Declaration” with Namibia in May 2021.
In the document, Germany apologized and acknowledged that it had a “moral, historical and political obligation” to “provide the necessary means for reconciliation and reconstruction.”
However, they did not agree to pay compensation.
In return, Germany will provide Namibia with €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) over 30 years for a development assistance program focused on a range of initiatives, including land reform, rural infrastructure, and energy and water supplies. promised to provide financial assistance.
According to the Joint Declaration, the pledge aims to “resolve all financial aspects of issues related to the past”, leaving reparations off the table.
Namibia has raised several objections to the structure and size of the proposed 30-year subsidy but has not yet signed the agreement.
Of course, rather than “resolving” the economic and other aspects of senseless colonial-era violence in Namibia, Germany's less-than-satisfactory promises meant that Germany would not be able to help the various victims of genocidal violence. exposing the racist hierarchies that assigned them.
In 1951, Germany agreed to consult directly with the German Jewish Personal Claims Council (Claims Council), a nonprofit organization that negotiates and disburses funds to victims of Nazi persecution.
The German government subsequently paid around $90 billion through the Claims Council. In March 2022, it agreed to provide an additional $720 million to the Claims Council to fund home care, food, and medicine for 120,000 indigent Holocaust survivors.
In stark contrast, Germany unequivocally refuses to pay a penny in reparations to the Nama and Herero peoples. And the 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in financial aid it ultimately promised to give Namibia over 30 years was only a fraction of the amount it paid directly to Holocaust victims.
In addition, several organizations representing descendants of the 1904-1908 genocide, including the Namibia Genocide Association, the Nama Genocide Technical Committee, the Nama Traditional Leaders Association, and the Ovaherero Traditional Authority, announced that the much-criticized 2021 ” was excluded from the negotiations that culminated in declaration”.
To this day, most Herero and Nama In Namibia, white Namibians, descendants of German and South African settlers, own 70 percent of the best land, but the majority are poor and landless.
While they are forced to endure the multifaceted socio-economic consequences of the 1904-1908 genocide, Germany has responded appropriately and directly to the atrocities it committed that led to their marginalization and poverty. refuses to provide compensation.
It is the same Germany that declares itself the supreme authority on what constitutes genocide and vigorously defends the genocide clearly committed by Israel in Palestine in every way possible.
Germany said it was defending Israel's indefensible acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip, bearing in mind past “crimes against humanity and the Shoah.”
Of course, if Israel had actually learned something from its horrific history and the Holocaust, it would be able to properly atone for the countless crimes committed by its short-lived colonial empire in Africa and stop the genocide it is currently committing. will take meaningful action. If you commit a crime against Palestinians, you don't go to court to defend it.
Namibia is right. Germany must “immediately reconsider its ill-timed decision to intervene as a third party in the defense and support of Israel's genocide before the International Court of Justice.”
The inability to reverse this indefensible position becomes irrefutable evidence that Germany has learned nothing from its past, and that it has learned nothing from its long history of genocidal violence against Nama, Herero, and Jews alike. would be an insult to the victims of
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.