Namibia-Coming To Terms

 

NAMIBIA

Coming to Terms

Germany officially acknowledged committing genocide against Namibian ethnic groups during the colonial period more than a century ago, CNN reported.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said over the weekend that Germany will support Namibia and the victims’ descendants with $1.3 billion for reconstruction and development and ask for forgiveness for the “crimes of German colonial rule.”

The reparations are related to the massacre of up to 80,000 ethnic Herero and Nama by German troops during an anti-colonial uprising between 1904 and 1908. Historians say that the conflict began when the Herero people rebelled against colonial troops over land seizures.

Germany had first offered its formal apology for the conflict in 2004.

The Namibian government welcomed the recent announcement, but victim groups rejected the deal as “a sellout job.” Such critics demand that Germany pay reparations to the descendants of those killed and pushed off their land.

Vekuii Rukoro, the Paramount Chief of Herero people and a lawmaker, said they were not part of the discussion between the German and Namibian governments, which began in 2015.

Friday’s announcement comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron publicly acknowledged France’s “overwhelming responsibility” in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

France has been accused of failing to prevent the genocide and of supporting the Hutu regime, even after the massacres had started: Hutu militias – supported by the government – killed around 800,000 ethnic Tutsis.

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