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WINDHOEK. – Opposition politicians in Namibia have slammed the government’s deal with Germany as legislators began debating the planned reconciliation agreement under which Berlin officially acknowledged an early 20th-century genocide by colonial troops and agreed to a €1.1 billion ($1.3 billion) settlement.
The funds – which would go into development projects – are meant to be distributed across a 30-year period.
Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila opened Tuesday’s rowdy parliamentary debate by outlining details of the agreement.
“This issue is indeed a sensitive one,” she said, her calls for unity interrupted by heckling from members of parliament. “It is important that we do not become divided over this issue, but remain united as a nation in pursuing it until its logical conclusion,” she said.
But opposition politicians took turns denouncing the deal, accusing the government of sidelining them and the communities directly affected by the genocide during negotiations that reached an agreement last month.
“They have excluded communities, groups of Namibians … that is apartheid that government has practised,” Edson Isaacks, from the opposition Landless People’s Movement Namibia, describing the result of the dealmaking process as a “substandard agreement”. – Al Jazeera
Online Reporter