Tracking the blunders of the Swapo Government (Part 2)

LAZARUS KAIRABEB WRITES:

Prof. Bernadette Atuahene argues that a comprehensive remedy involves more than providing compensation for things taken, because the wrong involved the denial of the dispossessed individual or community’s dignity and their subjugation within the polity. Dignity restoration is a remedy that seeks to provide dispossessed individuals and communities with material compensation through processes that affirms their humanity and reinforce their agency.

The Namibian and German negotiators are bidding to make us believe that the principles of restorative justice have no place in their negotiations because of the retrospective nature of the claims by the Nama and the Ovaherero. However, their conclusion is interspersed with half-truth and a whole lot of deceitful accounts.

International legal remedies for past property seizures have focused on reparations rather than dignity restoration. Reparation is ‘the right to have restored to the dispossessed their property of which they were deprived in the course of the conflict and to be compensated appropriately for any such property that cannot be restored to them'.

While reparations involve compensation, dignity restoration is based on principles of restorative justice and seeks to rehabilitate the dispossessed.

In the words of Braithwaite, restorative justice is interested in ‘restoring property loss, restoring injury, restoring a sense of security, restoring dignity, restoring a sense of empowerment, restoring deliberate democracy, restoring harmony based on a feeling that justice has been done, and restoring social support’.

When reparations and restorative justice are married, dignity restoration is the offspring of this formidable union.

It is not at all true that the negotiations between Namibia and Germany could not be determined based on the legal principles of restorative justice.

The contribution of Prof. Atuahene is a perspective that takes into account the distinct situations and circumstances within which the Imperialist machination play out in Africa. Equally, would the Nama and the Ovaherero leaders, living among their communities and dealing daily with the conditions prevailing in their communities, not be best suited to interpret the veracity of the real circumstances of their communities?

And why should their demand for self-representation be an issue to be determined by the German government and be conceded to by the Namibian government? Why would they be expected to agree and remain acquiesce while the purpose of the secrecy of the process and its outcome is based on hearsay?

We mean to designate all of the elements of life that determine people's economic, social, and physical situation. Can you blindly accept the account of a person with the background of an European inclination as full and correct and therefore agreeable?

Given the scope of all that it takes to generate a comprehensive response to the many historical anomalies, would it be wrong for traditional leaders demanding to represent their people themselves at the negotiation table? Moreover, for a deal negotiated in secrecy, is it proper that stakeholder interest is second-rated?

Recent attempts by government Parliamentarians to coach traditional councilors and community leaders to engender trust in the process and support the endorsement of the reparations greement by the Namibian Parliament is nothing short of reprimanding the people for not having faith and trust in Government.

Democracy, generally is perceived be a laissez-faire affair, its success depends hugely on the vigilance of the citizens and their ability to reinforce its pillars to resist potential obliteration that may come with persistent erosion of its pillars. Namibians need to become more vigilant because the discerning desperation in the ruling party spells nothing good for democracy.