Landless People’s Movement (LPM) leader Bernadus Swartbooi says their just-ended public consultations on the draft genocide agreement between Germany and Namibia were a resounding success.

The party visited seven political regions, 32 towns and villages and addressed at least 5 800 Namibians from affected communities in the process.

On average, each LPM public engagement was attended by at least 180 people, Swartbooi, who is the leader and chief change campaigner announced at a press event on Thursday.

They visited the Ohangwena, //Kharas, Kunene, Hardap, Oshikoto, Omaheke and Erongo regions. On 27 November, LPM will conclude these consultative engagements with a meeting in Windhoek.

He said the communities rejected the joint declaration in its entirety, requested that government revert to the drawing board and come with an inclusive process.

What stood out for LPM during the consultations is the lack of public consultations by Germany and Namibian prior to their arrival at the joint declaration.

“What was very clear from the onset was that the communities were never consulted on the input as well as the final document that was initialled by the government,” he said.

He said: “Nobody consulted them. Nobody asked for their input. Nobody according to them asked them what they wanted and how the genocide agreement’s funding should be channelled to eventually reach them because lives have been affected by the genocide that occurred 125 years ago.”

The composition of the meetings, Swartbooi said, included all demographics, including gender and age.

LPM also picked up that government officials and some pro-joint declaration politicians have been deployed in the regions to spread lies and mislead the public on matters related to genocide.

The lawyer and politician added without Germany committing to a legal obligation for the suffering it has caused Namibians through genocide, the draft agreement between the two governments resolves nothing.

“Such discussions must be held with a clear measure of the losses suffered. It must have a due understanding of the need for Germany’s responsibility and legal obligations that the lives and livelihoods to normalcy,” he said.

Swartbooi said the fact that the majority of genocide descendants are swimming in a pool of poverty is not a coincidence.

“Their landlessness, homelessness, loss of property and poverty that afflict them are not natural events or the design of nature,” he went on.

“These consequences of poverty are the direct consequences of Germany’s perpetrated war of land dispossession, rape and land that was taken.”

One thing is clear from Swartbooi’s vantage point: “What was lost must be returned or the equal value of that loss. When you look at this agreement, it is quite clear that Germany does not even account for how many people it killed, it does not account for how much land it took and it does not account for how many properties it took.”

He then summed up the joint declaration, saying: “Germany is merely given the agreement of its life where it assumes a moral, political and historic responsibility but evades a legal obligation.”

Should the deal go through the National Assembly where it is currently being debated, Swartbooi’s party will be left with no choice but to take the legal route.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency