Windhoek, Namibia โ The news left Laidlaw Peringanda angry and disappointed.
โIf the German government wants to reconcile, they need to give us our dignity back,โ said the 47-year-old. โBut that canโt happen as long as they are excluding us.โ
Peringanda, the chairperson of the Namibian Genocide Association, was referring to Germanyโs announcement last week that it would acknowledge the colonial era massacres against the Ovaherero and Nama people in modern-day Namibia as genocide.
Historians typically accept that up to 65,000 of the 80,000 Ovaherero and at least 10,000 of the 20,000 Nama were killed by German settlers between 1904 and 1908 after members of the groups rebelled against colonial rule in what was then known as German South West Africa.
After years of negotiations with the Namibian government, Germany on Friday also pledged $1.3bn in financial aid over a 30-year period, with the funds to go to development projects, including rural infrastructure and energy and water supply.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said his country was asking for โforgivenessโ from Namibia and the victimsโ descendants, while the Namibian government welcomed Germanyโs acceptance of the atrocities as genocide as a vital step in the process towards reconciliation and reparation
But descendants of the affected communities rejected the text of a โjoint declarationโ, which omitted the word โreparationโ, and they said true reconciliation could not be achieved without their inclusion in the negotiations.
โWe are also worried that the social projects proposed by the German government wonโt actually benefit us,โ Peringanda, a descendant himself, told Al Jazeera. โIf they are not including us in the negotiations, how will they suddenly involve us when it comes to these projects?โ he asked, emphasising the ongoing suffering of his community.
โWe have lost our ancestral land. A lot of us, of our community, live in poverty today. Some of us live in shacks and have to go without eating for a week. A lot of us inherited transgenerational trauma.โ
โThey donโt see usโ
The Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, the Ovaherero Traditional Authority and the Nama Traditional Leaders Association, meanwhile, started an onlineย petition, demanding that reparations be paid to the descendants of the victim communities directly.
โWe demand that Germany accepts its responsibility towards the genocide also according to international law,โ read the petition, rejecting the โreconciliation agreementโ as โa Public Relations coup by Germany and an act of betrayal by the Namibian Governmentโ.
The Council of Chiefs, a body representing the Ovaherero and Nama people, also called for the renegotiation of the agreement with a focus on increasing the financial amount offered by Germany.
Sima Luipert, a Nama activist and descendant of a genocide survivor, feels as though โthe lack of respect continues the dehumanising of the Nama peopleโ.
For her, the exclusion of the affected communities reinforced colonial tropes of not seeing Ovaherero and Nama as equals.
โThe German government is objectifying people that they committed a genocide against because they donโt see us,โ the 52-year-old said.
โIt is because they donโt see us, that they donโt want to talk to us. So what kind of reconciliation are you expecting when you donโt actually see these people as human beings, who have the right to speak for themselves?โ
โA stepping stoneโ
The declaration is expected to be signed by Maas in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, during a visit later this month before being ratified by parliaments in both countries.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is then expected to officially apologise during a speech in the Namibian Parliament, but some members of the Herero and Nama communities have announced their unwillingness to attend the event if the reconciliation agreement is not reviewed.
Ottmar von Holtz, a German politician who was born in Namibia himself, said he believed the agreement between the two governments is a โfirst step in a long reconciliation processโ.
โWhile Germany recognising the genocide and finally calling it as such is a big stepping stone, true reconciliation can only be realised when the criticism of the Ovaherero and Nama people is taking seriously,โ said the Green politician.
Despite this, von Holtz still deemed the agreement to be โa historical step towards the reckoning of Germany with its colonial pastโ.
Historian Jurgen Zimmerer shared a similar view: โThis is a fundamental step for all of Europe, permanently inscribing the structural-racist system of colonialism into the official culture of remembrance of Germany and Europe.โ
But, it could be an โirreparable loss of reputationโ if demonstrations were held and Ovaherero and Nama deputies were to leave the room during Steinmeierโs apology speech.
Henning Melber, a senior research associate with the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala who immigrated to Namibia at a young age with his parents, pointed out that the promise of $1.3bn in development projects โis about the same amount Germany had spent the last 30 years on development cooperation with Namibiaโ.
He said: โWhile this development cooperation will continue and the compensation fund is added, it is putting in perspective indeed a โgesture of recognitionโ, meaning rather tokenism than a sign of true remorse.โ