Government makes Germany revisit and re-negotiate genocide reparations

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The Namibian government has made Germany agree to committing itself to re-visit and re-negotiate the N.dollars 18 billion (Euro 1.1 billion) 1904-1908 genocide reparations, saying the entire Namibia is not in agreement with the amount.

Vice President Nangolo Mbumba said while opening the Chiefs Forum meeting here yesterday that the affected communities, Government and all Namibians at large are not in agreement with the Euro 1.1 billion offered by Germany, as a final settlement, compared to the enormous damages caused by the genocide against the affected communities.

After nine rounds of negotiations over a period of seven years between 2015 and 2022, Namibia and Germany had settled on the text of a joint declaration and a sum of Euro 1.1 billion, which will be compensated separately to existing aid programmes over 30 years.

Mbumba said after a lengthy debate in the National Assembly, issues raised in the joint declaration were referred back to the government for further negotiations which included that the German government does not seem to understand and officially recognise the atrocities committed against the Ovaherero and Nama people during 1904-1908.

Equally, the amount of Euro 1.1 billion offered was found insufficient and it was suggested that it be re-visited and improved upon. Further, the implementation period of 30 years for the projects was regarded as very lengthy, whereupon the declaration was also not considering the members of the affected communities in the diaspora, especially in Botswana and South Africa.

“This is the largest meeting the government ever had with traditional leaders to listen to one another and discuss matters pertaining to the reparations negotiations. The aim is to find a solution to this 100-year-old question in unity and take the negotiations to their logical conclusion,” Mbumba said.

(NAMPA)

LD/PS/AS

2 (WINDHOEK, 28 OCT, NAMPA) – Debmarine Namibia was yesterday announced as the sponsor of the Namibia Premier Football League (NPFL) for the 2022/23 season after committing a N.dollars 13 million ‘trial’ sponsorship deal.

The trial sponsorship deal was officially signed in Windhoek by Debmarine Namibia, who were represented by their outgoing Chief Executive Officer, Otto Shikongo, and the Namibia Football Association (NFA), represented by the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) Normalisation Committee Chairperson, Bisey /Uirab.

Speaking at the sponsorship announcement, Shikongo said they are committing a targeted sponsorship towards the NPFL for the 2022/23 football season, which will now be known as the Debmarine Namibia Premiership.

Shikongo appealed to both NFA and Debmarine to execute the agreement to the highest standards of diligence, discipline and accountability, saying his company is totally uncompromising when it comes to adherence to good governance and financial controls.

(NAMPA)

KM/HP/AS

3 (JOHANNESBURG, 28 OCT, AFP) – South Africa’s police yesterday arrested eight people, including a former director of the state energy utility, on corruption charges linked to a multimillion-dollar contract with a Swiss engineering giant, prosecutors said.

The former CEO of struggling energy firm Eskom, Matshela Koko, was arrested alongside his wife and two stepdaughters and four other co-accused on charges of money laundering and fraud, they said.

They later appeared in court in Middleburg, northeast of Johannesburg.

The allegations arise from Eskom’s Kusile power station, east of Johannesburg, awarding $111 million in allegedly irregular contracts to Swiss engineering company Asea Brown Boveri (ABB), the National Prosecuting Authority said in a statement.

Eike Meuter, a spokesman for the Swiss firm, said: ‘ABB continues to cooperate fully with the authorities in South Africa on this matter and is continuing to work on the Kusile project in line with its existing contractual obligations.’

AFP

4 (LONDON, 28 OCT, AFP) – New UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced condemnation after his spokesman announced yesterday he will not attend next month’s COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt due to ‘pressing domestic commitments’.

Britain hosted the last such summit, COP26, when it stressed the importance of global leaders convening to discuss climate change amid growing criticism of their failure to meet vital carbon reduction targets.

Sunak’s decision came on the same day the United Nations warned that countries’ climate pledges leave the world on track to heat by a potentially calamitous 2.6 degrees Celsius this century.

It also follows his moves to stop allowing the government’s COP26 minister Alok Sharma and climate minister Graham Stuart attending cabinet, as they had done under his predecessors.

Sunak was only installed Tuesday as the UK’s third leader in two months, replacing predecessor Liz Truss after she was ousted just seven weeks into her tenure over a disastrous tax-slashing mini-budget unveiled last month that sparked economic turmoil.

AFP

5 (ISTANBUL, 28 OCT, AFP) – Turkish authorities yesterday detained 25 suspects including the director of a state-owned mine in northwest Turkey, after an explosion there this month killed 41 people, local media reported.

The blast ripped through the mine near the small coal town of Amasra on Turkey’s Black Sea coast on 14 October.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged a full inquiry into the blast, saying ‘nobody will be spared’ if the accident report determines who is responsible.

Relatives of the dead told AFP and Turkish media that miners had complained of the smell of gas in the mine for about 10 days before the explosion, while the opposition has accused the government of failing to take the necessary measures to prevent the disaster.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency