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Following years of negotiations between the German and Namibian governments, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas officially acknowledged last week that Germany had committed genocide against Namibia’s Herero and Nama people at the start of the 20th century. As part of the agreement, Berlin pledged $1.35 billion in development aid for infrastructure, health care and training projects, to be distributed over 30 years. The two governments also agreed to an initiative to reach a common understanding of what happened during the genocide ahead of a formal apology from Germany.
But leaders of Herero and Nama communities are rejecting the agreement, with one descendant of victims of the genocide dismissing the deal as a “slap in the face.”