Namibia’s Herero call for reparations

By CHARLIE TJATINDI 
On the chilly morning of August 12, 1904, thousands of Namibia’s Ovaherero (plural for Herero) woke up to the loud thunder of blazing machine guns. There was also the commotion created by the sounds of women and children running helter-skelter in search of cover from the ambushing German colonial forces.

In the subsequent battle that ensued on the day, mothers watched in awe as their sons fell to the ground one after the other at the hands of the more superior German colonial troops who have infiltrated the Herero camps and launched an attack.

Thousand of Herero who gallantly attempted to stand up to the German onslaught lay dead.

Those who braved the pursuing German attacks were cunningly led into the dry and arid plains of the Omaheke (part of modern day Kalahari Desert) in a cynical ploy where the Germans only left open the way into the desert.

The battle plan was that those who escaped the German bullets should die of thirst. Waterholes for 240 km around the desert were either patrolled or poisoned, and those Herero who came crawling out of the Omaheke, desperate for water, were bayoneted.

Reality march to death

This left the Herero with but one option: to cross the desert into Botswana (then called Bechuanaland) - in reality a march to death. This, indeed, is how the majority of the Herero perished

When it was all over, about 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the total Herero population was dead in what was considered the first genocide of the twentieth century.

More than a century later, as they convened on August 12 to pay homage to the dead,.the descendants of those who lost their lives in the most inhumane way possible have vowed to forgive but never to forget what they describe as atrocities committed by the German colonial forces against their ancestors.

Herero paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako, in an exclusive interview with Africa Review last week, swore never to allow his subjects to forget how their ancestors suffered at the hands of their colonial masters despite the many years that had passed since the events.

“A hundred years is nothing. It’s just one small century and it won’t change how we feel about the crimes against humanity committed against our people,” Chief Riruako said.

He said although he does not encourage hate amongst his people towards the Germans, he admittted that it had been difficult cooperating with people who show no signs of remorse.

“I do not preach hate, but I feel the anger, pain and frustration of my people on days like these when they reflect on past events. All we want is for the Germans to own up to their mistakes and pay reparations to the Ovaherero for what they did to us,” he said.

Calls for apology

The chief has continuously called on the German government to officially apologise to the Herero and consequently pay reparation for “…having robbed them off their dignity and humanity.”

Germany offered its first formal apology for the colonial-era massacre in August 2004 - exactly a century after the genocide occurred.

A German minister, Ms Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, told a commemorative ceremony that the brutal suppression of the Herero uprising 100 years ago amounted to genocide. However, the Berlin Government has ruled out compensation for victims' descendants.

"We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility," Ms Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany's Development Aid Minister, told a crowd of some 1,000 at the ceremony in Okakarara, eastern Namibia.

But after the minister's speech, the crowd repeated calls for an apology. "Everything I said in my speech was an apology for crimes committed under German colonial rule," she replied. Ms Wieczorek-Zeul repeated that there would be no compensation, but she promised continued economic aid for Namibia which currently amounts to $14m a year.

Germany argues that international laws to protect civilians were not in force at the time of the conflict. Herero chief Kuaima Riruako said the apology was appreciated but added: "We still have the right to take the German government to court."

In 1985, the United Nations’ Whitaker Report noted Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa as one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the 20th century.

Concentration camps

The battle of Waterberg, or Ohamakari as the event infamously came to be known, was a result of an earlier onslaught by the Herero on German territory earlier in the same year as they stood up against colonial oppression.

It all started on January 12, 1904. The Herero people under Chief Samuel Maharero rose in rebellion against German occupation. Led by Maharero, they killed about 120 Germans and destroyed their farms. The rebels surrounded Okahandja and cut links to Windhoek, the colonial capital.

Berlin responded fast to this rebellion. Kaiser Wilhelm II dispatched 14,000 troops to the region under the command of Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha. Von Trotha was renowned for the ruthless efficiency with which he had helped to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900, and to quash resistance to his nation’s occupation of German East Africa (today’s Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania).

Von Trotha’s written goal was: “I believe that the nation as such should be exterminated. The exercise of violence and crass terrorism and even with gruesomeness was and is my policy. I destroy the African tribes with streams of blood and streams of money. Only following this cleansing can something new emerge, which will remain.”

In August the same year, General Lothar von Trotha overpowered the Herero with modern weapons and war artillery in the Battle of Waterberg.

Due to missionary pressure and a growing shortage of labour in the colony, Von Trotha’s extermination campaign was eventually stopped by Berlin, and the surviving Herero people were put into concentration camps. Put to slavery, hungry and exposed to diseases such as typhoid and smallpox, more Herero men perished in these camps while their women were turned into sex slaves.

The result of this policy was that from 1904 to 1908 the Herero were reduced from a tribe of 80,000 persons to 15,000 starving refugees, something this Namibian tribe is still battling to come to terms with.

http://www.africareview.com/Special%20Reports/-/979182/991416/-/u3obytz/-/index.html

Precursor to "the final Jewish solution" of the Nazis, "the Holocaust" of the WW2. It has been argued that the Germans had good practice!

D first holocaust in history,nobody thinks anything of it because they are africans,just like d transathlantic slavery

EzeUche_:

Didn't the Jews get reparations for their suffering at the hands of Germany? Why shouldn't these people get reparations? They truly deserve it. I don't know how a people can be so cruel to another. The Herero people went through a lot in their history.

Hopefully, things are getting better for them.

The reason why Africans will never get reparations is because they are divided, do not collaborate enough and do not back or support each other, in relation to communities or polities.

You will never get any Jews arguing against their entitlement to reparations for the Holocaust.

EzeUche_:


The reason why they wont get reparations is due to the fact that they are Africans. Point blank. Even if we were united the, Germany would not give this group reparations.

Yes Germany would, if we all banded together and act against her economic interests.

But hey, we agree to disagree, nevertheless, it's kind of obvious by now that lone voices on forums and those of the single community involved
will never yield results because there isn't a level playing field.

Peace!

. . . damn.

Damn.

The mind of the German soldier is something that I cannot understand.

"On January 12, 1904, the Herero people, led by Samuel Maharero, rebelled against German colonial rule. In August, German general Lothar von Trotha defeated the Herero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of thirst. In October, the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans only to suffer a similar fate.

In total, between 24,000 up to 100,000 Herero perished along with 10,000 Nama.[6][7][8][9][10] The genocide was characterized by widespread death by starvation and thirst by preventing the fled Herero from returning from the Namib Desert. Some sources also claim the German colonial army to have systematically poisoned desert wells.[11][12]

In 1985, the United Nations' Whitaker Report classified the aftermath as an attempt to exterminate the Herero and Nama peoples of South-West Africa, and therefore one of the earliest attempts of genocide in the 20th century. The German government recognized and apologized for the events in 2004.[13]"




Reparations should indeed be paid.