Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the rejection is due to the fact that the financial assistance offered by his country on a voluntary basis is not based on a legal basis.
The head of German diplomacy added that the text initialled with the Namibian government does not provide for reparations, but for development aid. “The agreement reached is on an exclusively voluntary basis and there is no legal basis for payment. It is therefore not comparable to reparations,” he said.
Germany acknowledged for the first time last May that it committed genocide against the Herero and Nama indigenous peoples between 1904 and 1908.
As such, Berlin reached an agreement with Namibian negotiators by proposing a financial programme of 1.1 billion Euros over 30 years for land acquisition, road construction or water supply.
But a few days after the announcement of this agreement, the Namibian opposition and a group of traditional leaders representing the Herero and Nama tribes of Namibia denounced a “cheap deal” compared to the “75 billion Euros in pensions and social benefits paid to Jews” by the Nazi regime since 1949 years after the end of World War II.
The Namibian leaders want reparations of at least US$580 million per year paid over 40 years.
CD/lb/abj/APA