The President of Namibia, Hage Geingob, on Saturday unapologetically opposed Germany’s move to back Israel in the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.
“Namibia rejects Germany’s support of the genocidal intent of the racist Israeli State against innocent civilians in Gaza,” the statement said.
The official media release highlighted the plight of Palestinians and drew attention towards the gruesome realities of Israel’s war on Palestinians.
Since the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza, on October 7, Israeli forces have killed more than 23,800 Palestinians and wounded over 60,000 more.
The vast majority of the deceased and injured civilians are children.
Moreover, around 7,000 Palestinians are still missing under the rubble or remaining as unidentified bodies on the streets.
UNRWA reports suggest that 1.9 million of the 2.3 million population of Gaza are now displaced, and the UN says that over 2.2 million are experiencing hunger or starvation.
President Geingob reiterated his earlier call that “no peace loving human being can ignore the carnage waged against Palestinians in Gaza”.
He further said that Germany cannot morally express commitment to the UN’s Genocide Convention, as it has not yet properly confessed or apologised for it’s role in the genocide it carried out in Namibia.
“On Namibian soil, Germany committed the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions. The German Government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil,” the statement added.
He was referring to the atrocities carried out by German colonial forces in Namibia against the Indigenous Herero and Nama peoples, as part of a racist campaign of collective punishment.
Despite the fact that the 1948 Genocide Convention was enacted against the backdrop of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, Germany refuses to acknowledge an even worse case of genocide unfolding in Gaza.
The convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
On Friday, the German government rejected the accusation of genocide that has been made against Israel before the International Court of Justice.
Steffen Hebestreit, a government spokesperson, argued that the claim of South Africa has no basis.
The German position, however, remains consistent with its past behaviour, long before October 7. They have always offered diplomatic assistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
This could be discerned from the words of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz:
“There is only one place for Germany: firmly at the side of Israel. This is what we mean when we say that the security of Israel is and will remain the prime motivation for the actions of the state of Germany”.
Nevertheless, the Namibian Government appealed to Germany to reconsider its decision.
