Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
We have come a long way to let it go. Never ever, not now. As much as we have reached the Rubicon, this is not the time to push back and retreat, shift sideways, or incline in the slightest towards entertaining the Joint Declaration (JD) bilateral political razzmatazz of our Namibian government and its German counterpart.
In the memory of Dr Freddy Omo Kustaa, and many others, this is the time to push on by any means necessary towards the ultimate victory.
There can be no other option than true and fair restorative justice, as now embodied in the historic United Nations General Assembly Transatlantic Slave Trade resolution, declaring it as the “gravest crime against humanity.”
This is now to be actioned by the Accra Next Steps Commitments on Reparatory Justice following a High-Level Consultative Conference hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama in June 2026, which our President, Her Excellency Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, attended.
Thus, amongst others, committing herself and Namibia to “ensuring that fair and adequate compensation for the people of Africa and People of African Descent, including those affected by the legacies of enslavement, colonialism, genocide and apartheid.
We further affirm that the obligation to compensate exists as a matter of international law and, therefore, commit to support the development of a comprehensive approach to determine the appropriate modalities for compensation in remedying the existing obligations for historical injustices.”
Needless to say, what we are seeing today in these frameworks is a result of the concerted efforts and intellectual resilience of the likes in Namibia of Dr Omo Kustaa, who has been a constant prolific writer on the genocide committed by Imperial Germany against the Ovaherero and Nama in then South West Africa, but as much a resilient intelligentsia in the cause for reparations.
Now that we have reached this juncture, thanks to the efforts of Dr Omo Kustaa and others, we cannot, must not, and should not allow others, least of all our Namibian government, to throw spanners in our hard work.
In the memories of Dr Omo Kustaa and others, the framework for reparations, including for the reparations of the Ovaherero and Nama, in view of the Next Steps as enumerated by Africa, cannot be bolder, more unequivocal, or more uncompromising.
This renders what our Namibian government and its German counterpart have been doing, largely at the behest and dictates of Germany, an absurdity and a nullity, as manifested eventually in the dreaded Joint Declaration.
Namibia can no longer claim lack of headway, as Africa is offering her and the descendants in Namibia of the genocide committed against their forebears the requisite blueprint for the ultimate delivery of a true and just reparatory package.
It goes without saying that it behoves both our Namibian government and its German counterpart to see the winds of change that have started to blow regarding the colonial transatlantic slavery trade and accompanying brutalities and atrocities, including in Namibia the genocide of the Ovaherero and Nama.
Thus, the right and honourable thing for the Namibian government to do now is to stop pretending that the JD is a compensatory framework for reparations.
If it wishes to continue with it, it must simply desist from pretending and showcasing the Joint Declaration as reparations, but show and continue with it for what it actually is: a bilateral development package between Namibia and Germany.
That indeed the two as sovereign countries are entitled to, and which for sure all Namibians stand to benefit from. The African route offers our Namibian government the exit route it must and should have been looking to extract itself from the trappings of the Joint Declaration in which it has been entrapped by Germany.
Thus, it must for once, if it never had the necessary courage and conviction, master such and stop imagining that the Joint Declaration is about the genocide committed by Imperial Germany against the forebears of the current descendants as it would be, thereby putting its bilateral engagement with Germany on the correct trajectory, as much as the reparations cause which cannot but now find a befitting avenue through the African frameworks.
This, all along, since the descendants have come forth with their demand for true and just reparations, close to 22 years now, has been the disposition of the descendants like Dr Omo Kustaa and fellow, and still continues to be. And Dr Omo Kustaa put it succinctly:
“When we are confronted with this kind of racist and condescending distortion of our African history by the local Germans in Namibia, it becomes clear that among these Germans the ideologies of racism and white supremacy that contributed to the 1904-1908 genocide of the Herero and Nama people are still prevalent 114 years later. The letter of Eberhard Hofmann to Dr Ngarikutuke Tjiriange is a case in point.”
“It is sad that the ideologies that German colonial leaders used to justify the colonisation of our people in Namibia and the hate that led to the genocidal annihilation of the Nama and Herero people has hardly dissipated among the racist local Germans.”
This is but only a small bite of the intellectual proclivities of Dr Omo Kustaa from an opinion article in a local English daily in 2020.
