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Ovaherero Genocide Foundation

Inclusivity and honesty in all Talks with Germany: “Germany knows who the children of the victims of her murderous policies a century back are and indeed currently where they live, she must therefore soonest cease with her gimmicks of wasting resources on engaging distant and unaffected parties in her so-called genocide negotiations AND in earnest directly engage Ovaherero and Nama leadership to find permanent closure to the horrific chapter of her disastrous colonial expedition South-West Africa which can only be effected through genuine and faithful accession to a legal agreement on reparation settlement, commensurate with her crimes and negotiated only with legitimate Ovaherero and Nama representatives. It is only a fallacy that a settlement for genocide crimes meted out against ethnic groupings in pre-modern southern African states times, can be arrived at without their bonafide voices and settled only with the state of Namibia. Whilst the state of Namibia, as home to the largest share of descendants of victim’s communities remains a key stakeholder in the discussion with the German state, it cannot wholly appropriate the campaign onto itself and preferred splinter Ovaherero and Nama groupings who in the main are extremely under-representative of the broader affected communities and are fully-absorbed into the government structure and as such enjoys no latitude and or leeway to independently speak for the aspirations of our communities. Equally, the “globalization” of descendants of that war principally implies that Ovaherero and Nama people are today global communities transcending territorial boundaries and thus no single state can rationally claim monopoly and full representation over them. Accordingly therefore, only their own leadership can fully and aptly articulate their interests now resident across multiple nation-states and thus any discussion about them is only adequately crafted to the extend it incorporates genuine representative voices from them !!!” Nandiuasora Mazeingo, OGF Chairperson, April, 2021
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Genocide Convention

The dictionary definition for genocide is: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Raphael Lemkin coined the term which comes from the Greek word “genos” (race or tribe) and the Latin word “cide” (to kill).

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which was established in 1948, defines genocide in Article Two as:

Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

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(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or

in part; 

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Today there are over 149 nations that have ratified the Genocide Convention. Both the Republic of Namibia and the Federal Republic of Germany duly ratified this Convention and are bound by it.