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The current genocide in Namibia lasted from 1904 to 1908
The systematic murder of over 70,000 Africans, dubbed “German Forgotten Genocide” and described by historians as the first genocide of the 20th century, is marked as the National Day of Memory for the first time in Namibia.
Almost forty years before its use in the Holocaust, German officials were used by German officials to torture and kill people who were then known as South West Africa.
Victims, mainly from the Ovajero and Nama communities, were targeted for refusing to bring the land and cattle to the colonists.
The day of Genocide Memory in Namibia on Wednesday follows years of pressure to pay Germany for compensation.
According to the government, the new national holiday is marked annually as part of a “healing journey” in Namibia and a “healing journey” that includes a candlelight vigil outside the Windhoek parliament.
He said he chose the date for May 28th. Because that day in 1907, German officials announced the closure of concentration camps following international criticism.
Southwest Africa’s rule – along with today’s Cameroon, Togo and other colonial territories – was stripped from Germany by its post-World War I competitiveness.
For many years, Germany has not publicly acknowledged the massacres carried out between 1904 and 1908.
However, four years ago, German colonists formally recognized that they had committed genocide and provided 11 billion euros (£940 million, $13.4 billion) to pay for over 30 years.
Namibia rejected the offer, calling it a “first step in the right direction,” and nevertheless failed to include the formal apology and “reparation” it sought.
Many Namibians were not impressed by what they saw.
“That was a joke of the century,” Uhimisa Kapehi told the BBC at the time. “We want land. There’s nothing money.”
He was a descendant of the Swakopmund ethnic Ovaherro, and a councillor of the town, where many atrocities were committed, saying, “Our wealth has been taken away, and the farms, the cows.”
The group representing the families of genocide victims was also poignant about the deal provided in 2021, calling it evidence of a joint statement of “racist ideas on the German side and neocolonial subordination on the Namibian side.”
Since then, drafts have reached between the two countries, including a formal apology from Germany, reportedly adding an extra total to another 50 million euros.
However, many Ovaherero and Nama campaigners say the deal was a shame against the memory of their ancestors and was unfairly eliminated from the negotiation table. The news of National Memory Day has come across irony from some. Community activists say recovery justice is still a long way to go.
Many campaigners hope that the German government will now buy back the land of their ancestors at the hands of German-speaking communities and return them to Ovajero and Namah descendants.
Historians point to the irony of Germany, which had previously refused to pay reparations, as before the genocide, extracted so-called reparations from Nama, which had fought against the colonies.
This was paid in the form of livestock and was equivalent to 12,000 cows. This is estimated by German-American historian Thomas Kramer to be between $1.2 million and $8.8 million in today’s money, which he argues should be added to the iteration bill.
Those colonial plunder and battles were followed by genocide, beginning in 1904 with an extinction order from a German official named Rossard von Torosa.
“This order of extinction showed that no one would be executed, with or without prisoners, women, men, or cows anymore,” Namibian historian Marta Akawa Sikfa told national broadcaster NBC.
This was followed by concentration camps, she added.
“People have died. Many people have died in concentration camps due to fatigue. In fact, they have pre-printed death certificates. [saying] “Death from fatigue”, they knew they would die, so they waited for those people to die. ”
Some of the people killed were shipped to Germany for now-given research to prove the racial superiority of white Europeans. Many of the bones are now being repatriated.
Last year, Namibia criticized Germany after offering to come to Israel’s defense in the UN Supreme Court to stop the UN from answering a lawsuit about the Gaza genocide crime.
“The German government has yet to completely tone the genocide committed in Namibian soil,” then President Hage Jingob said.
Additional Reports by Samantha Granville
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