BERLIN, GERMANY - AUGUST 29: Namibian tribal chiefs and guests attend a ceremony at Frenzosische Dom in Berlin held for the victims of Namibian genocide, on August 29, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. Germany on Wednesday handed over the remains of some 20 Herero and Nama people murdered in the early 20th century by German colonial troops in Namibia. (Photo by Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
More than 100 years after the crimes committed by the German colonial power in what is now Namibia, Germany has formally recognized the atrocities committed against the Herero and Nama ethnic groups as genocide.
Germany will support Namibia and the descendants of the victims with €1.1 billion for reconstruction and development and ask for forgiveness for the "crimes of German colonial rule," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement on Friday.
"Our goal was and is to find a common path to genuine reconciliation in memory of the victims. This includes naming the events of the German colonial period in what is now Namibia, and in particular the atrocities in the period from 1904 to 1908, without sparing or glossing over them. We will now also officially call these events what they were from today's perspective: a genocide," Maas said.
The Namibian government saw the formal acceptance of the atrocities as genocide as a key step in the process of reconciliation and reparation, Namibian presidential press secretary Alfredo Hengari told CNN on Friday.
"These are very positive developments in light of a very long process that has been accelerated over the past five years. People will never forget this genocide; they live with it. And this is an important process in terms of healing those wounds," he said.
A bloody conflict
German troops killed up to 80,000 of Herero and Nama people in the southern African country between 1904 and 1908 in response to an anti-colonial uprising, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
According to historians, the bloody conflict happened when the Herero indigenous people revolted against colonial troops over land seizures. Germany, which today gives development aid to Namibia, offered its first formal apology for the conflict in 2004.
Both countries had been in talks since 2015 to negotiate compensation for the massacre by German colonial forces. Maas said in his statement that representatives of the Herero and Nama communities were "closely involved" in the negotiations on the Namibian side.
"The crimes of German colonial rule have long burdened relations with Namibia. There can be no closing of the book on the past. However, the recognition of guilt and our request for apology is an important step towards coming to terms with the crimes and shaping the future together," Maas said.
German media is reporting that an official request for forgiveness will be made by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at a ceremony in the Namibian parliament.
"A decision on a possible trip by the Federal President will be made after the governments have reached a formal agreement and in close consultation with the Namibian side," a spokesperson at the office of the Federal President told CNN.
The announcement comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron publicly acknowledged France's "overwhelming responsibility" in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and said only the survivors could give "the gift of forgiveness."
In 1994, around 800,000 mainly ethnic Tutsis were killed by Hutu militias supported by the Rwandan government. France has been accused of failing to prevent the genocide and of supporting the Hutu regime, even after the massacres had started.
© Jürgen Bätz/picture alliance/Getty ImagesA memorial to the genocide of the Herero and Nama (1904-1907) committed by German colonial troops in the Namibian capital Windhoek. The inscription translates: "Your blood nourishes our freedom."
Germany's colonial-era massacre of Namibia's indigenous tribes
© GIANLUIGI GUERCIA
© GIANLUIGI GUERCIA
Schoolgirls in Windhoek walk past a memorial to victims of Germany's colonial-era massacre in Namibia
Germany on Friday took a historic step by acknowledging that the massacre of Namibia's indigenous Herero and Nama peoples by colonial-era troops was an act of genocide.
Here is background into the event, which some historians describe as the first genocide of the 20th century:
- Rebellion -
Germany ruled what was then called German South West Africa as a colony from 1884 to 1915.
Angered by German settlers stealing their women, land and cattle in their remote desert territory, the Herero tribe launched a revolt in January 1904. Its warriors killed 123 German civilians over several days.
© Thorsten EBERDING Namibia
The smaller Nama tribe joined the uprising in 1905.
- Extermination order -
The Germans responded ruthlessly, defeating the Herero in a decisive battle at Waterberg, northwest of the capital city of Windhoek, on August 11, 1904.
With German troops in pursuit, some 80,000 people fled towards Botswana, including women and children, across what is now called the Kalahari Desert -- one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet. Only 15,000 survived.
In October 1904 German General Lothar von Trotha, under the direct command of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin, signed a notorious "extermination order" against the Herero.
"Within the German boundaries, every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without livestock, will be shot dead," he said.
Survivors were sent to concentration camps, decades before those in which Jews, dissidents and gays perished during the Nazi period.
An estimated 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people were killed from 1904 to 1908.
From 40 percent at the start of the 20th century, the Herero now only make up seven percent of the Namibian population.
- Bones for 'experiments' -
Hundreds of Herero and Nama were beheaded after their deaths and their skulls handed to researchers in Berlin for since-discredited "scientific" experiments framed to prove the racial superiority of whites over blacks.
In 1924 a German museum sold some of the bones to an American collector, who donated them to New York's Museum of Natural History.
In 2008 Namibia's ambassador in Berlin demanded that the bones be returned, saying it was a question of reclaiming "our dignity".
Germany has since 2011 formally handed back dozens of the skulls, many of which were stored at universities and clinics.
- Recognition and reparations -
Germany long refused to take the blame for the episode, only accepting responsibility on the 100th anniversary of the massacres in 2004, when a government minister said the "atrocities... would today be called genocide".
Berlin also repeatedly refused to pay reparations to descendants of the Nama and Herero victims.
Negotiations between the two countries to reach an agreement that combined an official apology and development aid began in 2015.
In 2018 Germany returned bones of members of the two tribes, with junior foreign minister Michelle Muentefering asking for "forgiveness from the bottom of my heart".
On Friday, as it recognised it had committed genocide, Berlin also promised financial support worth more than one billion euros to aid projects in the African nation.
The sum will be paid over 30 years, according to sources close to the negotiations, and must primarily benefit the descendants of the Herero and Nama.
ang/eab/fec/ri
Germany on Friday took a historic step by acknowledging that the massacre of Namibia's indigenous Herero and Nama peoples by colonial-era troops was an act of genocide.
Here is background into the event, which some historians describe as the first genocide of the 20th century:
- Rebellion -
Germany ruled what was then called German South West Africa as a colony from 1884 to 1915.
Angered by German settlers stealing their women, land and cattle in their remote desert territory, the Herero tribe launched a revolt in January 1904. Its warriors killed 123 German civilians over several days.
© Thorsten EBERDING Namibia
The smaller Nama tribe joined the uprising in 1905.
- Extermination order -
The Germans responded ruthlessly, defeating the Herero in a decisive battle at Waterberg, northwest of the capital city of Windhoek, on August 11, 1904.
With German troops in pursuit, some 80,000 people fled towards Botswana, including women and children, across what is now called the Kalahari Desert -- one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet. Only 15,000 survived.
In October 1904 German General Lothar von Trotha, under the direct command of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin, signed a notorious "extermination order" against the Herero.
"Within the German boundaries, every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without livestock, will be shot dead," he said.
Survivors were sent to concentration camps, decades before those in which Jews, dissidents and gays perished during the Nazi period.
An estimated 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people were killed from 1904 to 1908.
From 40 percent at the start of the 20th century, the Herero now only make up seven percent of the Namibian population.
- Bones for 'experiments' -
Hundreds of Herero and Nama were beheaded after their deaths and their skulls handed to researchers in Berlin for since-discredited "scientific" experiments framed to prove the racial superiority of whites over blacks.
In 1924 a German museum sold some of the bones to an American collector, who donated them to New York's Museum of Natural History.
In 2008 Namibia's ambassador in Berlin demanded that the bones be returned, saying it was a question of reclaiming "our dignity".
Germany has since 2011 formally handed back dozens of the skulls, many of which were stored at universities and clinics.
- Recognition and reparations -
Germany long refused to take the blame for the episode, only accepting responsibility on the 100th anniversary of the massacres in 2004, when a government minister said the "atrocities... would today be called genocide".
Berlin also repeatedly refused to pay reparations to descendants of the Nama and Herero victims.
Negotiations between the two countries to reach an agreement that combined an official apology and development aid began in 2015.
In 2018 Germany returned bones of members of the two tribes, with junior foreign minister Michelle Muentefering asking for "forgiveness from the bottom of my heart".
On Friday, as it recognised it had committed genocide, Berlin also promised financial support worth more than one billion euros to aid projects in the African nation.
The sum will be paid over 30 years, according to sources close to the negotiations, and must primarily benefit the descendants of the Herero and Nama.
ang/eab/fec/ri
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