After concluding a compensation deal to the value of $ 1,3 billion, the German state recognized the colonial-era massacres in Namibia as genocide with all its effects.
In a statement by the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Germany admits his responsibilities in the genocide of the Heroes and Namas. Minister Heiko Maas said: "We will officially qualify these events for what they are: genocide." The massacres committed by German settlers in Namibia are considered by several historians to be the first genocide of the XNUMXth century.
The European country has also announced that it will support “reconstruction and development” in Namibia. A financial program has been granted between the German and Namibian States to the tune of 1,3 billion dollars. Heiko Maas specifies: “It is not compensation on a legal basis”.
The President of the German Republic @ChefSteinmeier goes to Namibia to ask forgiveness for the victims of colonization with regard to 2 ethnic groups (Herero, Nama) more than a hundred years ago.
- Klaus Fuchs (@ goupil334) May 28, 2021
A cycle of horrors committed by the settlers of Germany
The German government had recognized "moral responsibility" for the murders in 2014. However, Berlin has avoided official apologies to dismiss individual compensation claims. In 2015, formal negotiations began between Germany and Namibia. And then, in 2018, the German government returned skulls and other remains of slaughtered civilians to Namibia. During colonial times, the German authorities transferred these corpses to Germany for "scientific experiments", which wanted to assert "European racial superiority".
Between 1904 and 1909, German colonial soldiers carried out mass executions. Many civilians have also been exiled to the desert, where thousands have died of thirst. A concentration camp has also been established at Shark Island. Several atrocities have been committed there, such as experiments on children, using chemicals. Over 2000 people were killed there. These facts had soured relations between Berlin and Windhoek for decades.
Germany ruled Namibia from 1884 until 1918. Its army killed at least 65 Hereros and more than 000 Namas, only between 10 and 000. The settlers targeted these two ethnic groups because they had risen up. first, in 1904. The settlers deprived them of their livestock and land. The German general, Lothar von Trotha, sent to suppress the rebellion, ordered the extermination of the populations.
They had deprived the Héréro Et Namas people of their lands and also prevented their transhumance and when they revolted, they massacred nearly 100 people, and then made concentration camps to kill women and children in the task. https://t.co/mAohU3ZzII pic.twitter.com/FKw2BAXtOs
— Bo_oc@r🇲🇦🇸🇳 (@Bo_ocar) May 28, 2021
Inadequate compensation for the Herero and Nama genocide
German Minister Maas said the agreed payment would not pave the way for any “legal claims for compensation”. In addition, the sum, paid over 30 years, would benefit the descendants of the Heroes and Namas. What looks good at ridiculous compensation, finally.
Namibian presidency spokesman Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari said on Thursday that Germany's official apology was expected. Nevertheless, he clarified that "the modalities of implementation can only begin after the president has spoken to the leaders of the affected communities".
The leader of the Heroes, lawyer and businessman Vekuii Rukoro, has announced his disagreement. According to him, the reported agreement would be a "sale of the suffering of a people". Asked by the press about this reaction of the Herero leader, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs did not comment. According to his administration, a confidentiality agreement regulates the agreement with the Namibian state.
Rukoro, who unsuccessfully sued Germany in the United States, said the irreversible damage to the Herero and Nama peoples cannot be repaired with money. However, sanctions against the German state, an official apology, and the return of Namibian cultural properties would constitute the start of negotiations, he said. However, the suffering of his people and the Namas cannot be sold for the sum offered by Germany. After all, the Heroes and the Nama slain made up 81% and 50% of the total population!