Namibia’s Ovaherero, Nama slam exclusion from Germany deal | Genocide News | Al Jazeera
▻https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/1/ovaherero-nama-descendants-criticise-germanys-reconciliation
“If the German government wants to reconcile, they need to give us our dignity back,” said the 47-year-old. “But that can’t happen as long as they are excluding us.”
Peringanda, the chairperson of the Namibian Genocide Association, was referring to Germany’s announcement last week that it would acknowledge the colonial era massacres against the Ovaherero and Nama people in modern-day Namibia as genocide.
Historians typically accept that up to 65,000 of the 80,000 Ovaherero and at least 10,000 of the 20,000 Nama were killed by German settlers between 1904 and 1908 after members of the groups rebelled against colonial rule in what was then known as German South West Africa.
After years of negotiations with the Namibian government, Germany on Friday also pledged $1.3bn in financial aid over a 30-year period, with the funds to go to development projects, including rural infrastructure and energy and water supply.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his country was asking for “forgiveness” from Namibia and the victims’ descendants, while the Namibian government welcomed Germany’s acceptance of the atrocities as genocide as a vital step in the process towards reconciliation and reparation.