Germany has officially recognized as genocide the “immeasurable suffering” inflicted by its colonial troops in the early 20th century on the Herero and Nama peoples in present-day Namibia.. Five years of negotiations with the Windhoek government and the descendants of the victims have been necessary for the German Executive to assume its responsibility in another of the dark episodes of its past.. It is the third genocide that this country in constant exercise of historical memory assumes, after the Jew in World War II and the Armenian in the First.
“Now we know, with today's perspective and also in our official capacity, that what happened was a genocide,” said the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, in a statement showing his “satisfaction and appreciation for an agreement with Namibia on the darkest chapter of our common history”.
The agreement, indeed, has been with Namibia, that is, between governments, although with the participation of representatives of the traditional Herero and Nama communities, who have been demanding a “mea culpa” from Germany for decades, the payment of reparations and the return of the human remains that the colonial troops took to the empire for study and since then have been deposited in museums, hospitals and universities.
“In light of Germany's historical and moral responsibility, we will apologize to Namibia and the descendants of the victims,” the statement added, in which Maas maintains that the “acknowledgment of guilt” and the “application for forgiveness” is an “important step”, although “true reconciliation cannot be decreed”.
What Germany can do is quantify the “incalculable pain” inflicted in what is considered the first genocide of the 20th century and for this it will create a fund that will be endowed over the next 30 years with 1,100 million euros for development programs , regardless of the compensation that is still on the negotiating table.
“A humiliation” for the communities
Minister Maas assures that the Herero and Nama communities will have a voice and vote in the design of these programs, a gesture that does not satisfy the descendants of the victims, who request, so far without success, direct and individual compensation. For that reason, and unlike the Namibian government, which has called Germany's recognition of the genocide “a step in the right direction”, opposition parties and traditional community leaders consider the agreement a “humiliation”.
“Germany has not negotiated with good will,” said Inna Hengarim, a deputy from the opposition Popular Democratic Movement (SDM).. For the Landless People's Popular Movement (LPM) if Namibia receives money from Germany, the recipients of that money should be the Herero and Nama, and not the Government.”
Because until now, the demands of communities have been of a different nature.
The first was in 2011, when the Berlin Charité hospital returned 20 skulls to Namibia.. This delivery was followed by one from the University of Freiburg, made up of 32 skulls and various skeletons, and a third from Berlin.. In this case, there were 19 skulls, five complete skeletons and skin fragments.. These human remains are part of a batch of almost 5,000. Their objective was to study and demonstrate the superiority of the white race over the black race, something very similar to what was done decades later, in the dark Nazi period, to prove the superiority of the Aryan race.. What happened in Namibia also has certain parallels with what happened throughout the 20th century in other parts of the world.. A plan for the systematic extermination of men, women and children by arms, through abandonment in the desert or internment in concentration camps.
Rwandan Genocide
There are unfortunately many examples on the African continent and one of the most horrendous has been that of Rwanda, in 1994.. French President Emmanuel Macron referred to him a few days ago during a visit to that country. France “was not complicit” but allowed “for too long silence to prevail over examination of the truth,” Macron said during a speech in Kigali on Thursday.. The French president added that “only those who crossed the night can perhaps forgive, give us the gift of forgiveness.”
The German presence in Africa was comparatively less than that of the British, French or Belgian, the great colonial powers. From 1885 to 1918, the Teutonic Empire controlled territories of present-day Cameroon, Togo, Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi.. And he did it with a firm hand. In Namibia alone, in what was then called Deutsch-Südwestafrika, between 1904 and 1908 German soldiers caused the death of 100,000 people of the Herero (80,000 dead) and Nama (20,000) ethnic groups, according to historians.. For anthropologist Felix von Luschan, the genocide was a fluke. He was able to gather thousands of human remains from those who lay on roads and villages, murdered or starved to death, because that is how, at the blow of bullets and machetes, taking away their lands and cattle, it was like the German empire made them pay for an uprising.
The step forward taken by Germany will be covered by an official ceremony. Maas plans to travel to Namibia next month to sign the agreement and the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeir will do so before the end of the year. There, on the spot, he will ask for forgiveness.