German-speaking Namibians must stop lying about obtaining large tracts of land legally as their forebears stole and expropriated land without compensation, the National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) has said.

Nudo issued a statement on Tuesday responding to Harry Schneider-Waterberg – a Namibian of German descent – and like-minded counterparts who hold the view that German settlers never stole land.

According to Nudo, such remarks are provocative, insensitive and may trigger an uprising from the Ovaherero and Nama communities, who incurred massive losses at the hands of German imperialists.

“Schneider-Waterberg seems to forget the land and livestock expropriation Ordinance 151 of 1907, which expropriated all land and livestock of the Nama and Ovaherero people and sold it at huge subsidies to the new settler soldiers while the Nama and Ovaherero were kept in concentration camps,” Nudo’s head of communication, Nocky Kaapehi, said.

Schneider-Waterberg’s statement, Nudo says, undermines peace and democracy in Namibia.

Kaapehi went on: “When Shark Island or the Death Camp was closed in 1908, slave labour camps were created to rent out the indigenous Nama and Ovaherero people. When the British arrived in 1915, they closed the slave camps and created reserves from which to pool cheap labour.”

It is an eyesore for Nudo that these reserves [popularly known as reservaat] remain in place to this day.

“That thing we call communal land are native reserves. When Germans unilaterally expropriate land while exterminating the people of the land, they steal for the benefit of the white settler who desperately needs to implement its racist policy of lebensraum,” he said.

Last week, Schneider-Waterberg was quoted as saying: “The people [Germans] who came here, none of them stole any land. The people who came here bought the land under the laws of the government of the day.”

Schneider-Waterberg, a founding member of the Forum of German-speaking Namibians, made the remarks during a Deutsche Welle debate on the draft genocide agreement.

His statements were echoed by Harald Hecht, the forum’s chairperson, during that panel discussion.

“Germany stole land, and this is not the right time to come play with an angry nation. Imagine you [Schneider-Waterberg] own about 40 000 hectares of land in Namibia and you have the guts to post such an insensitive message,” Kaapehi said before asking the Schneider-Waterberg to issue a public apology.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency