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Namibia condemns former colonial ruler Germany over Gaza response

Namibia has condemned its former colonial ruler Germany's decision this week to reject accusations against Israel by South Africa of "genocide" at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Published: 14 January 2024 09:10 CET
Namibia condemns former colonial ruler Germany over Gaza response
Namibian President Hage Geingob addresses a press conference in 2023. Photo: Tara Mette/AFP.

South Africa launched an emergency case at the ICJ arguing that Israel stands in breach of the UN Genocide Convention, signed in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust, and wants the court to “immediately” stop its military operations in Gaza which were launched after the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Namibia, a southern African country where the first genocide of the 20th century took place under German colonial rule, “rejects Germany’s support of the genocidal intent of the racist Israeli state”, the presidency said in a statement late Saturday.

Lamenting “Germany’s inability to draw lessons from its horrific history”, Namibian President Hage Geingob expressed “deep concern” for the German government’s decision Friday of having “rejected the morally upright indictment brought forward by South Africa”.

READ ALSO: Germany rejects UN ‘genocide’ charge against Israel

Geingob accused Berlin of “ignoring” the “deaths of over 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza” and defending in front of the ICJ “the genocidal and gruesome acts of the Israeli Government”.

The German government on Friday “decisively and expressly” rejected South Africa’s accusations against Israel, calling it a “political instrumentalisation” of the UN Genocide Convention with “no basis in fact”. 

Germany was responsible for the massacres of more than 70,000 Indigenous Herero and Nama people in Namibia between 1904 and 1908, which historians
widely consider the first genocide of the 20th century.

“The German Government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed,” the Namibian presidency said Saturday.

In May 2021, after more than five years of negotiations, Germany said it recognised it committed a “genocide” in the territory it colonised from 1884 and 1915 and pleged more than €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) in development aid over 30 years to benefit the descendents of the two tribes.

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POLITICS

‘Dexit’ would cost Germany ‘€690 billion and millions of jobs’

According to the German Economic Institute (IW), Germany's exit from the EU – the so-called Dexit – would cost millions of jobs and significantly reduce the country's prosperity.

Published: 19 May 2024 18:04 CEST
'Dexit' would cost Germany '€690 billion and millions of jobs'

In a study presented by the Cologne-based institute on Sunday, the authors showed that a Dexit would cause real GDP to drop by 5.6 percent after just five years. This means that Germany would lose 690 billion euros in value creation during this time.

In addition, Germany as an export nation is dependent on trade with other countries, especially with other EU countries, warned the authors. Companies and consumers in Germany would therefore feel the consequences “clearly” and around 2.5 million jobs would be lost.

The study is based on the consequences of Britain’s exit from the EU, such as the loss of trade agreements and European workers.

Taken together, the losses in economic output in Germany in the event of a Dexit would be similar to those seen during Covid-19 and the energy cost crisis in the period from 2020 to 2023, the authors warned.

Brexit is therefore “not an undertaking worth imitating,” warned IW managing director Hubertus Bardt. Rather, Brexit is a “warning for other member states not to carelessly abandon economic integration.”

Leader of the far-right AfD party Alice Weidel described Great Britain’s exit from the European Union at the beginning of the year as a “model for Germany.”

In an interview published in the Financial Times, Weidel outlined her party’s approach in the event her party came to power: First, the AfD would try to resolve its “democratic deficit” by reforming the EU. If this was not successful, a referendum would be called on whether Germany should remain in the EU.

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