Amnesty International has urged the German government to assume full legal responsibility for the genocide and other colonial-era atrocities it committed in Namibia, calling for reparations that extend beyond symbolic gestures and development aid.
The organisation’s call coincided with the 121st anniversary of General Lothar von Trotha’s 1904 “extermination order”, which authorised the mass killing of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples during Germany’s colonial rule in South West Africa. Historians estimate that approximately 100,000 men, women, and children were killed between 1904 and 1908, in what scholars recognise as the first genocide of the twentieth century.
In a statement issued last week, Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s regional director for East and Southern Africa, criticised Germany’s failure to meaningfully engage with affected communities or to offer reparations that reflect justice.
“It is shameful that, more than a century after German colonial forces waged genocide against the Nama and Ovaherero peoples, Germany has failed to engage in meaningful consultations with these communities or provide reparations,” Chagutah said.
“Victims and affected communities should be at the centre of any processes to redress colonial legacies.”
Germany formally acknowledged the genocide in a 2021 joint declaration with the Namibian government, pledging €1.1 billion (approximately N$22 billion) over 30 years for “reconstruction and development programmes”. However, Amnesty International argues that the arrangement does not constitute true reparations, as it is framed as development assistance rather than legal compensation for state-perpetrated crimes.
According to Chagutah, such frameworks risk reinforcing colonial hierarchies rather than dismantling them.
“Where the former colonial power sets the terms and conditions for the provision of assistance to a former colony, development aid may reinforce and perpetuate colonial legacies and hierarchies of power rather than disrupt them,” he said.
Scholars and community representatives from Herero and Nama traditional authorities have long maintained that reparations must include direct participation from descendants of the victims and formal legal accountability from Germany. Many argue that the 2021 declaration, while historic, remains insufficient because it excludes community voices and sidesteps a formal recognition of state liability under international law.
The genocide, carried out through systematic massacres, concentration camps, and forced displacement, continues to cast a long shadow over Namibian society. Its effects are visible in land ownership inequalities, socio-economic disparities, and collective historical trauma. Calls for reparative justice have therefore become a broader symbol of Africa’s struggle to reframe its colonial past within narratives of dignity and agency.
From a Pan-African perspective, the Namibian case is not an isolated grievance but part of a continental movement demanding restitution, historical truth, and moral accountability. As conversations on colonial reparations gain momentum globally — from the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) reparation claims to ongoing debates in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya — African voices are increasingly insisting that justice be defined on their own terms, not through frameworks imposed by former colonial powers.
Germany’s gesture in 2021 was widely viewed as a diplomatic milestone, yet many observers note that reconciliation without restitution risks entrenching the very asymmetries it seeks to resolve. For descendants of the Herero and Nama, reparations are not solely a financial demand but a moral imperative — a recognition of humanity denied and a restoration of historical truth.
As Amnesty International and African advocates continue to press for genuine dialogue, the central question remains: will Germany’s reckoning with its colonial past evolve from developmental symbolism into transformative justice?
