MSeveral thousand people said goodbye to Namibian President Hage Geingob, who died on February 4th, in the packed “Independence Stadium” in Windhoek on Saturday. Early in the morning, buses had brought the mourners from different parts of the city to the stadium. Many had Namibian flags with them, and personal farewell greetings to “Omes,” as the president is affectionately known, could be seen on posters.
Representatives of 27 countries, including 18 heads of state, came to Namibia for the memorial service and burial on Sunday, including German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. It is the first trip by a German head of state to Namibia in 26 years.
In a speech, Steinmeier called Geingob a “great statesman” who had shaped the Republic of Namibia “like no other”. At the same time, he emphasized Germany's will to bring the German-Namibian reconciliation agreement about the atrocities during the German colonial period to a conclusion.
Steinmeier wants to apologize
“We are committed to the path of reconciliation,” he said at the memorial service. “Reconciliation does not mean leaving the past behind, but rather taking responsibility for your own past – and reconciliation also means working together for a better future.” He hopes to return to Namibia soon and under different circumstances to the Namibian people to apologize. “My only regret is that our friend, the great President Geingob, will no longer be here to complete the process he initiated.”
Representatives of the German and Namibian governments had been negotiating for six years over reparations for the crimes against the Herero and Nama, which Germany recognized as “genocide in the modern sense”. However, when both states presented a “Joint Declaration” in 2021 as a milestone towards reconciliation, there was loud protest from several organizations from the two ethnic groups. In the meantime, a lawsuit has been filed in a Namibian court. To date, the Joint Declaration has not been signed.
The presence of the Federal President at the state funeral was obviously intended to send a signal, beyond the reconciliation agreement, that Germany is interested in friendly relations with Namibia. Shortly before his death, Geingob criticized German support for Israel in the Gaza conflict in an unexpectedly harsh manner. Germany is “unable to learn lessons from its cruel history,” he wrote on Platform X. He recalled the genocide in Namibia, which the German government “still has not fully atoned for”. There was no further clarifying exchange between the heads of state of the two countries.
Geingob was considered a champion of democracy
Geingob, who died of cancer at the age of 82, led the country with 2.5 million inhabitants in southern Africa from 2015, before which he was prime minister for 14 years with one interruption. In recent days, his achievements as chairman of the Constituent Assembly before the country's independence from apartheid South Africa have been repeatedly emphasized.
He was considered a champion of democracy, even though his party SWAPO – similar to the ANC in South Africa – still dominates politics in Namibia today. The government chose his saying “Integration means harmony, exclusion means conflict” as the theme for the memorial service. Geingob had often compared Namibia to a “house” in which there was room for everyone.
There was no criticism of the president, during whose term of office one of the biggest corruption scandals in Namibian history occurred, during the national mourning period. Even opposition politicians praised Namibia's third president, who was also given the title of “national hero” on the funeral program.
In the previous days, the Namibian newspapers had printed pages of memories from the President's companions and citizens. On Friday, thousands of people had already watched a procession of the deceased's coffin on the streets of the capital. Schools and public institutions were closed.
The funeral service on Saturday will be followed by the burial on Sunday at the “Field of Heroes” just outside Windhoek. This is a modern communist-style memorial built by a North Korean company with 174 graves. Geingob is the first Namibian president to be buried there. His two predecessors, the 88-year-old Hifikepunye Pohamba and the 94-year-old Sam Nujoma, the “founding father of the Namibian nation”, survived him.
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