The ongoing impasse between Windhoek and Berlin over compensation for the massacre of more than 90,000 indigenous Namibians by German soldiers between 1904 and 1908 exposes international double standards and the extent of colonial brutality.
The Namibian government last week announced that it had reengaged Germany authorities with a view to review a May 2021 agreement under which Berlin had agreed to compensate for the atrocities through provision of development aid to its former colony.
Under the current agreement, Berlin proposed a financial programme of 1.1 billion Euros over 30 years for land acquisition, road construction or water supply.
The European country has rejected calls by Namibians for reparations for the genocide, with former German foreign minister Heiko Maas telling reporters in June 2021 that the financial assistance offered by his country was voluntary and not based on a legal basis.
Under pressure from the opposition and traditional leaders representing the Herero and Nama tribes, Namibian authorities want reparations of hundreds of millions of dollars per year paid over 40 years.
The Namibians have been irked by the “cheap deal” agreed by their government and the Germans compared to the “75 billion Euros in pensions and social benefits paid to Jews” by the Nazi regime since 1949.
Germany annexed Namibia in 1884 as part of its colonial territory and named it German South-West Africa.
During the early period of colonisation, the Herero people were more economically and socially powerful than the Germans because they owned large herds of cattle and had strong traditional leadership structures.
However, over time the Germans began to institute laws and policies that undermined and oppressed the local population.
In 1904, the Herero people, led by Samuel Maharero, and the Nama people, led by Hendrik Witbooi, rebelled against the German colonial occupation.
A number of factors triggered the uprising, including raids on Herero and Nama communities by German settlers in search of cattle and cheap labour. As cattle was one of the treasured commodities among the Nama and Herero communities, the raids threatened the economic interest of the indigenous people.
Starting in 1896, Germans used forced labour to find workers for their plantations and during construction of roads, railways and public buildings.
The Hereros and Namas were also angered by land alienation, which included grabbing of the best grazing land in the central plateau of Namibia. The Germans reserved the best land for settler settlement, which created hostility between African communities and the colonisers.
Other causes for the uprising included imposition of taxes to be paid by the indigenous people, and destruction of authority of traditional leadership structures.
This rebellion quickly turned into a war, with German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II deploying thousands of troops under the leadership of General Lothar von Trotha.
The Germans issued an extermination order that essentially said the Europeans would kill any Herero on sight.
In August 1904, von Trotha and his troops cornered the Herero at Waterberg where they defeated them in battle, forcing them to flee into the Omaheke Desert – a waterless wasteland, where they were left to die of thirst and starvation.
Thousands of other indigenous people – including women and children – were shipped off to concentration camps as “prisoners of war”.
Prisoners in these concentration camps were used as slave labour to build railways, docks and buildings throughout the country.
The conditions in the camps were so bad that it was estimated that half of all the prisoners in the camps died there.
In the end the German war against the Nama and Herero had claimed between 65,000 and 80,000 Herero lives and around 10,000 Nama lives, almost completely annihilating both peoples.
The genocide of the Herero and the Nama is a brutal part of Namibia’s history and is considered by historians to be the first genocide of the 20th century.
Since Namibia’s independence in 1994, the Herero and Nama people have been pushing to ensure that this brutal crime committed against them is not forgotten.
JN/APA