WINDHOEK: Namibia has condemned its former colonial ruler Germany’s decision this week to reject accusations against Israel by South Africa of “genocide” at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
South Africa launched an emergency case at the ICJ arguing that Israel stands in breach of the UN Genocide Convention, signed in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust, and wants the court to “immediately” stop its military operations in Gaza which were launched after the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Namibia, a southern African country where the first genocide of the 20th century took place under German colonial rule, “rejects Germany’s support of the genocidal intent of the racist Israeli state,” the presidency said in a statement late Saturday.
Lamenting “Germany’s inability to draw lessons from its horrific history,” Namibian President Hage Geingob expressed “deep concern” for the German government’s decision Friday of having “rejected the morally upright indictment brought forward by South Africa.”
Geingob accused Berlin of “ignoring” the “deaths of over 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza” and defending in front of the ICJ “the genocidal and gruesome acts of the Israeli Government.”
The German government on Friday “decisively and expressly” rejected South Africa’s accusations against Israel, calling it a “political instrumentalization” of the UN Genocide Convention with “no basis in fact.”
Germany was responsible for the massacres of more than 70,000 Indigenous Herero and Nama people in Namibia between 1904 and 1908, which historians widely consider the first genocide of the 20th century.
“The German Government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed,” the Namibian presidency said Saturday.
In May 2021, after more than five years of negotiations, Germany said it recognized it committed a “genocide” in the territory it colonized from 1884 and 1915 and pleged more than 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in development aid over 30 years to benefit the descendents of the two tribes.
Namibia condemns former colonial ruler Germany over Gaza response
https://arab.news/bh7nt
Namibia condemns former colonial ruler Germany over Gaza response
- Namibia rejects Germany's support for what it calls the genocidal intent of the Israeli state, citing historical grievances from German colonial rule
Trump says he’s dropping push for National Guard in Chicago, LA and Portland, Oregon, for now
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said he’s dropping — for now — his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks hung up the effort.
Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that he’s removing the Guard troops for now. “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again — Only a question of time!” he wrote.
Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration. They had been sent to Chicago and Portland but were never on the streets as legal challenges played out.
Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.
The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area as part of its crackdown on immigration. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president’s efforts.
In the nation’s capital, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen.
In Oregon, a federal judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there.
California National Guard troops had already been removed from the streets of Los Angeles by Dec. 15 after a court ruling. But an appeals court had paused a separate part of the order that required control of the Guard to return to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order. That paves the way for the California National Guard troops to fully return to state control after Trump federalized the Guard in June.
