Germany Acknowledges Colonial-Era 'Genocide' In Namibia And Offers $1.3B In Atonement

The German government has acknowledged it committed genocide against the people in Namibia more than a century ago during its colonial occupation of the southern African nation and has offered a $1.3 reparations package. However, many people have been skeptical of the German efforts to right a historical tragedy.

A Tragic Past: Europeans first arrived in Namibia with the Portuguese explorations of Diogo Cão and Bartolomeu Dias in 1485 and 1486, respectively, but the territory remained free of foreign intervention until Germany annexed it as a colony in 1884, at a time when the European powers began to recreate the map of Africa to reflect their imperialist expansionism.

While human rights abuses were common throughout the European colonial era – most egregiously in the Belgian Congo – German forces killed up to 80,000 members of the indigenous Herero and Nama people between 1904 and 1908. In a forerunner of German crimes during World War II, the Namibian population was placed in concentration camps and subjected to slave labor and sadistic medical experiments. Those who survived the concentration camps were put into slave labor on Germany properties.

Germany lost the colony during World War I when South African troops launched an invasion. Namibia gained its independence in 1990 after decades of South African occupation.

An Attempt At Atonement: German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced the reparations effort, stating his country’s goal “was and is to find a common path to genuine reconciliation in memory of the victims.”

Namibian presidential press secretary Alfredo Hengari told CNN that German’s use of the word “genocide” in acknowledgment of its colonial-era history came about “in light of a very long process that has been accelerated over the past five years.”

However, Vekuii Rukoro, the Paramount Chief of Herero people who is also a former Namibian attorney general and member of parliament, rejected the German atonement and his nation’s willingness for reconciliation with its former colonial rulers.

“Is this the kind of reparation that we are supposed to be excited about?” he told CNN “This is just public relations. This is a sellout job by the Namibian government. The government has betrayed the cause of my people.”

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is planning to attend a ceremony at the Namibian parliament as part of the reconciliation effort. But Rukoro also rejected this outreach, adding the German leader “isn't welcome here as far as victim communities are concerned – he is persona non grata.”

Social Media Skepticism: Reaction to Germany’s new efforts at facing its past was met with incredulity by several Namibian-focused Twitter TWTR users.

Howard Rechavia-Taylor, a PhD candidate at Columbia University’s Department of Anthropology, tweeted, “The elephant in the room: white people still live on huge swathes of Herero and Nama land- they often sit on the graves of ancestors that Herero and Nama people still have to request access to. ‘Reconciliation’ without attention to the land question can only be PR.”

Henning Melber, a German-Namibian and president of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes, observed, “Notably, the amount offered in the German-Namibian bilateral agreement for the compensation fund (1.1 bn Euro over 30 years) roughly amounts to the money Germany put on record as development aid for Namibia the last 30 years. So much about true remorse.

Zoé Samudzi, a Zimbabwean-American writer best known for her 2018 book “As Black as Resistance,” pointed out this was not Germany’s first attempt at atonement, tweeting “I also find it interesting that reporting of this 1.1 billion euro ‘compensation’ has neglected to mention that Germany attempted a 10 MILLION Euro payment last year that even the Namibian government found insulting.”

And the Twitter account African Pride questioned the timing of Germany’s outreach, tweeting, “Didn't some exploration company discover oil reserves in Namibia not so long ago? Just asking for clarification.”

(Herero prisoners in 1904, awaiting deportation to German concentration camps. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)