Kimal shines a spotlight on the Herero and Nama genocide, and wonders if a landmark case in the US will set a precedent for countries with a colonial past.
On 31 March 2007, the Namibian government constructed a memorial plaque in remembrance of the indigenous OvaHerero and Nama (not specifically included) peoples. The plaque reads that the Herero (and Nama) people, “perished under mysterious circumstances.” The OvaHerero and the Nama, through this plaque, have been barred from the redress they deserve, while the German state has been tacitly acquitted of all culpability for a heinous crime against humanity.
The reality is that the colonial German state, in an act of pre-meditated malice destroyed the majority of the Herero and Nama people. As such the remaining descendants of the Herero and Nama people are a very small minority in Namibia. This small group has taken the German state to court to ensure accountability for their fallen ancestors and to pursue reparations for the ongoing injustices they have suffered as a result of the genocide.
The German state believes that they are not responsible for the damages and had filled a motion to the New York court to get the case thrown out. However on 14 February 2018, the Herero and Nama camp filed an amendment in order to keep the case going.
Back in 1884, following the Berlin conference dubbed ‘the Scramble for Africa’ that carved up the African continent to suit the whims of European colonial powers, Germany declared a portion South West Africa. At this point only a small part of what is now known as Namibia was in the hands of the German colonial state. However by 1903 the colonial state had taken control of 80% of Herero and Nama land.
During this initial period of colonial conquest a culture of usury became common, whereby German settlers lent money at ridiculous interest rates to the indigenous groups so that they could purchase European commodities. As such this resulted in large amounts of debt among the local indigenous population. The German colonists, knowing that these debts would not be monetarily paid, decided to strip them of their cultural and physical wealth. These practices of usury and land expropriation inevitably left these indigenous groups impoverished, dependent on the colonial state and completely dispossessed.
In 1904, a small revolt erupted from the side of the Herero people, later joined by the Nama. The reason behind the frustration was of course land and socio-economic exploitation, but an institutionalised form of European racial discrimination also underpinned it. German colonists believed indigenous black groups were an inferior race, and only ‘useful’ for cheap labour. Faced with their progressive demise as a people, the Herero and Nama chose to fight for their survival.
As a result, a German military commander Lothar von Trotha arrived with an early stage “Nazi” mentality and a “vernichtungsbefehl” (extermination order) in his hand. He would absolutely crush the revolt, as he believed that, “leniency towards blacks is cruelty towards whites.” After Trotha’s war, the surviving Herero and Nama were thrown into death/concentration camps.
The plaque depicted above is a memorial of an infamous death camp on what was known as Shark Island. Concentration/death camps were a common tactic of the colonial state (a tactic that was later adopted by Hitler and the Nazis). However the memorial reads that these indigenous groups, “perished under mysterious circumstances.” This memorial is not only an insidious form of propaganda but also a gross form of injustice, and completely delegitimises the immense struggle that the Herero and Nama people have suffered at the hands of the German colonial state.
In 2015, Herero and Nama descendants, invoked the Alien Tort Statute in the US, and took the German government to court in order to claim for reparations. The German state claims no responsibility for the injustices caused by their colonial predecessors. Furthermore the descendants and representatives of the Herero and Nama have not been consulted or included in ongoing government-to-government negotiations. The Namibian government is to benefit from the developmental aid that Germany would prefer to give.
It is questionable whether any additional “aid” that is provided by the German government will benefit Herero and Nama people, it is more likely that the Namibian government might utilise it for ‘mysterious’ purposes. The fact that Germany is giving aid at all indicates towards some guilt, however aid does not equate to reparations.
On the question of reparations, we know today that Jewish Holocaust victims and their families are still receiving payments for those injustices caused by the Germans during WWII. Through in depth study one can see that the horrific tactics used in Nazi Germany were partly derived from the atrocities committed in ‘German South West Africa’, so then if Jewish victims deserve reparations why do the Herero and Nama not get afforded the same redress?
[Hear the frustration from an actual descendent as he writes a poignant Open Letter to Ambassador Christian Schlaga: https://www.newera.com.na/2018/03/07/open-letter-to-ambassador-christian-schlaga/]
This clear and gross discrimination towards Africa and its people must end; otherwise this will perpetuate the legacy of the multiple crimes against humanity that were committed on the African continent. McCallion & Associates, the legal team representing the plaintiffs, amended the case on the 14th of February, allowing them to keep the pressure on. This prosecutorial effort is also a test case for the injustices caused by the British, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch colonial regimes in the Global South. The New York Court has an important job ahead of them as this brings the whole idea of international human rights law into dispute. As Henning Melber puts it, it would create a precedence that other states with a colonial-imperialist past would certainly not want to see happen.”
“The filing of this Amended Complaint was authorized by Order of United States District Judge Laura Taylor Swain, who has presided over the case since the original Complaint was filed by the Plaintiffs on January 5, 2017. However, Germany refused to appear in the case until shortly before a scheduled court conference on January 25, 2018, despite service of the Complaint on Germany on several occasions, including service on Germany’s Embassy in Washington, D.C. and service through the U.S. State Department and U.S. Embassy in Berlin to the German Foreign Ministry,” said McCallion & Associates in a statement released to the media early Wednesday morning, 14 February 2018.
We hope the German state will be more willing to partake in the future because the Herero and Nama deserve justice, and so does the rest of Africa!
Kimal Daniel Harvey is an intern for the Peacebuilding Interventions Programme at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and this article was first published in the IJR newsletter.
