By Nurah Tape – The Palestine Chronicle 
“Germany has a responsibility to speak in a manner that shows remorse, that shows regret for what has happened in the past.”
Quoting the former late President of Namibia, the country’s Justice Minister, Yvonne Dausab, has said that Germany has no moral authority to speak in support of anything that has to do with genocide.
“Namibia had suffered atrocities of genocidal acts by Germany, and it started in 1893,” Dausab told The Palestine Chronicle on the sidelines of Day 2 of the Global Anti-Apartheid Conference in Johannesburg on Saturday. “That date is not talked about a lot, but there was a group of Nama people who were brutally killed, women and children, just like it is happening now in Palestine.”
"We have to call it for what it is: A genocide“
Namibian’sJustice Minister Yvonne Dausab speaks at the Global Anti-Apartheid Conference in Johannesburg. pic.twitter.com/UpiYX6ThyN
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) May 11, 2024
She explained, “It is therefore like my late president Dr Hage Geingob said when Germany was associating themselves with what Israel was doing particularly with the South African case (at the ICJ), ‘Germany has no moral authority to speak in support of anything that has to do with Palestine’.”
Namibia Rejects ‘Germany’s Support of Genocidal Intent of Racist State of Israel’
Global Solidarity
In January Germany said it would intervene in the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the UN’s top court.
“Germany has a responsibility to speak in a manner that shows remorse, that shows regret for what has happened in the past,” said Dausab.
She said Namibia supported the anti-apartheid conference “because it is important as children, as a product of international solidarity.”
"Namibia has to be part of every anti-apartheid movement because of the history of apartheid we endured."
Namibian Justice Minister Yvonne Dausab speaks to the Palestine Chronicle. pic.twitter.com/TolWyyV8Z5
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) May 11, 2024
The Justice Minister explained that Namibia’s independence came because “many countries stood with us at that time”.
“Africans united to ensure that between 1957 until 1994 when South Africa transitioned into a democracy, we stand together to ensure that we will not have a colony on our conscience.”
She mentioned :“Today we are aware of what is happening with western Sahara and what is happening with Palestine. We cannot stand idle in the face of the kinds of killing, and ethnic cleansing that we see in Palestine.”
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‘Intellectual Life’ Destroyed
Dausab highlighted the many schools, universities, classrooms and buildings destroyed in Gaza by Israel’s military campaign.
“The intellectual life of Palestinian people has been taken away from them. How can we not call that a genocide?” she asked.
“It’s written all over all the activities on the part of Israel that it wants to obliterate an entire nation. We cannot stand by and watch that.”
She said that since Namibia was “once victims of that kind of activity,” it was “our responsibility now as a country, as a continent, as a sub-region of southern Africa to stand in solidarity with everyone that is a subject of occupation.”
Earlier, in her address to the conference delegates, Dausab said Namibia “commits to interrogate the possible impact of the diamond trade between Namibia and Israeli companies…”
The Palestine Chronicle Editor, Ramzy Baroud wrote in a recent article that “the German genocide of the Nama and Herero people (1904-1907), is known as the ‘first genocide of the 20th century’. The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza is the first genocide of the 21st century. The unity between Palestine and Namibia is now cemented through mutual suffering.”
The three-day anti-apartheid conference aims to set the basis for the mobilisation of a Global Anti-Apartheid Movement “to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people, and to work to dismantle Israeli apartheid,” according to the conference organizers. #palestineafrica2024
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Nurah Tape is a South Africa-based journalist. She is an editor with The Palestine Chronicle.
