Rosa Luxemburg Exposed the Colonial Genocide in Namibia
When Germany pledged to oppose South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, the Namibian government reminded German politicians of their state’s genocidal record in Africa. Rosa Luxemburg exposed the crimes of German colonialism while they were happening.
The Namibian government issued one of the most striking expressions of solidarity with Palestinians facing the blows of Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza on January 13, in support of South Africa’s case bringing the charge of genocide against Israel to the International Court of Justice. It issued the following statement in response to the German government’s decision to officially support Israel’s denial of these charges:
Namibia rejects Germany’s support of the genocidal intent of the racist Israeli state against innocent civilians in Gaza. Germany committed the first genocide of the twentieth century in 1904–1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions . . . President [Hage] Geingob appeals to the German Government to reconsider its untimely decision to intervene as a third-party in defense and support of the genocidal acts of Israel before the International Court of Justice.
It is surely a remarkable act of bad faith for Germany to defend Israel’s actions when it has yet to fully account for its own genocidal acts against the Nama and Herero peoples of what is now Namibia. The German state has never agreed to provide financial compensation or reparations for the descendants of its victims.
