Namibians Push for New German Genocide Compensation Negotiations

The Ovaherero Traditional Authority and the Nama Traditional Leaders Association have approached the new German government on the 1904 to 1908 genocide agreement that is currently on the table between Namibia and Germany. Their petition regarding the genocide agreement discussed in May, 2021 calls on the new German government, now led by chancellor Olaf Scholz, to dismantle the proposed agreement and to negotiate with the surviving descendants of the Herero and Nama genocide victims directly while the Namibian government facilitates the process.

In June 2021, Germany recognised for the first time that it committed genocide in Namibia during its colonial rule more than a century ago and promised financial support worth more than one billion euros (U.S.$1.2 billion) to fund infrastructure projects in the southern African country. The traditional leaders feel that what is being offered is too little, an insult to their community and totally different to what they, the chiefs, had agreed on.

In the early 1900s, colonial troops killed tens of thousands of protesting Nama and Herero in the Omaheke desert region, in what was then known as German South West Africa.