A day after Germany defended Israel from charges of genocide in Gaza, Namibia’s president denounced Germany for hypocrisy, citing a genocide that the Germans committed in the African nation more than a century ago when it was a German colony.

“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,” Namibian President Hage Geingob said in a press release posted Jan. 13 on X, formerly Twitter. “The German Government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil.”

Geingob wrote that he was shocked by Germany’s decision, announced a day earlier, to intervene as a third party in defense of Israel after South Africa brought a case against Israel in the International Court of Justice. South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, where thousands of civilians have been killed after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

“Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza,” Geingob said.

But Geingob said Germany had not completely reckoned with the first genocide it committed last century, which its government finally acknowledged in 2021. That massacre, in what was then known as German South West Africa, is sometimes called “the forgotten genocide.”

More than 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were slain by German troops between 1904 and 1908, according to the Namibian Parliament.

In 2006, a member of Namibia’s Parliament presented a motion demanding reparations from Germany. The member read a statement written in the early 1900s by a German soldier who witnessed the Germans chasing the Herero to Botswana.

Germany, the statement said, “apologizes and bows before the descendants of the victims. Today, more than 100 years later, Germany asks for forgiveness for the sins of their forefathers. It is not possible to undo what has been done. But the suffering, inhumanity and pain inflicted on the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children by Germany during the war in what is today Namibia must not be forgotten. It must serve as a warning against racism and genocide.”

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posted by f.sheikh

There could be no better applicant for these proceedings than this former apartheid and colonised state and one against whom Israeli accusations of libel and anti-Semitism are less likely to stick.

While some argue that it is a matter of shame that no Arab or Muslim state lodged the case, leaving the task to South Africa, I maintain that it is exactly this — that a non-Arab, non-Muslim nation and one which has overcome settler colonialism has brought this case — is what makes it so compelling.

Israel was a military ally of South Africa’s apartheid regime under some of the worst years of white rule. It even offered to sell nuclear weapons to the apartheid regime.

The head of South Africa’s legal team, John Dugard, was UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine in the 2000s and notably said: “I’m a South African who lived through apartheid and I have no hesitation in saying that Israel’s crimes are infinitely worse than those committed by the apartheid regime of South Africa.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1805538/why-south-africa-is-leading-the-legal-and-moral-charge-against-israels-genocidal-actions-in-gaza

posted by f.sheikh

“The administration’s posture of indifference strains credulity. The 84-page case submitted to the court by South Africa is crammed with devastating evidence that Israel has breached its obligations under the 1948 international genocide convention, which defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The document before the court is meticulously footnoted and sourced, and many experts say the legal argument is unusually strong.”

“Top Israeli political and military leaders have themselves helped to bolster the case against their government. The words of Israeli officials are being offered as evidence of intent: from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging Israelis to “remember” the Old Testament account of the carnage of Amalek (“Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings,” reads one passage); to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowing that “Gaza won’t return to what it was before — we will eliminate everything”; to the minister of energy and infrastructure pledging, “They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave this world.” By speaking openly about destroying Gaza and dispersing its residents, Israeli leaders have publicized what has, in other cases of genocide, been hidden or denied.”

“The proceedings are meaningful for the United States, too. The Biden administration has been the indispensable sponsor of this war — arming, funding and diplomatically shielding Israel despite increasingly dire reports of Palestinian death and displacement. If the violence in Gaza is found to be genocide, the United States could be charged with complicity in genocide, a crime in its own right. Given the sheer power of the United States and its track record of international impunity, the odds of any significant consequences may be small — but, nevertheless, Americans should understand that the case is both substantial and serious, and that their own government is implicated.”