The prime minister calls for unity during the parliamentary meeting, but opposition MPs accuse the government of neglecting them and the directly affected communities.
Opposition politicians in Namibia have criticized the government’s deal with Germany when Windhoek lawmakers began debating the issue.
a planned reconciliation agreement under which Berlin officially recognized an early twentieth-century genocide by colonial troops and agreed to a $ 1.3 billion deal.
The funds, intended for development projects, will be distributed over a period of 30 years.
Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila opened Tuesday’s tumultuous parliamentary debate detailing the deal.
“This issue is really sensitive,” he said, calling for unity interrupted by the brawl of members of parliament.
“It is important that we are not divided on this issue, but that we remain united as a nation in pursuing it to its logical conclusion,” he said.
But opposition politicians in turn denounced the deal, accusing the government of sidelining them and the communities directly affected by the genocide during negotiations that reached an agreement last month.
“They have excluded communities, Namibian groups … this is the apartheid that the government has practiced,” said Edson Isaacks of the Namibian opposition landless movement (LPM), who described the outcome of the negotiation process as a “insufficient agreement”.
Another LPM lawmaker, Utaara Mootu, told Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, “You betrayed us.”
“You have not allowed equal participation based on human rights policies. You have not given us the opportunity to narrate the economic trauma “caused by the genocide,” he added.
The agreement must be ratified by both the Namibian parliament and the German parliament, after which it will be signed by the foreign ministers of the two countries.
Josef Kauandenge, leader of another opposition party, the Democratic Organization of National Unity (NUDO), declared: “We will not be part of any signatory for things in which we did not participate.”
“This agreement can be signed between Germany and the government of Namibia, but the vast majority of the Nama and Ovaherero people will reject it with the contempt it deserves,” Kauandenge said.
The prime minister insisted that the affected communities were “fully consulted during the negotiations”.
However, the descendants of the affected communities said yes not included in the process. They have demanded that repairs be paid directly to their communities.
Last week, Namibian Vice President Nangolo Mbumba said the development budget offered by Germany as compensation for the genocide “was not enough”, but that it would be revised as the funds were deployed.
The German Empire conquered present-day Namibia and used it as a colony between 1884 and 1915, brutally treating the population.
The government of the South African country began negotiations with its former colonizer Germany in 2015 for the 1904-1908 massacre of the Herero and Nama population to rebel against their rulers.
Historians say that about 65,000 of the 85,000 herero and at least 10,000 of the 20,000 nama who lived there at the time were killed.
After years of back and forth, the parties reached a historic agreement last month by which Germany officially recognized the killings as genocide.
Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said the German government has agreed to “apologize unconditionally to the affected communities” and the country as a whole for the genocide.
The German president will deliver his apologies to the National Assembly on a date yet to be determined.
