Known as the “German Forgotten Genocide” and described by historians as the first genocide of the 20th century, systematically murdering more than 70,000 Africans, the first time Namibia has marked a national anniversary.
German officials have been used in Holocausts, concentration camps and pseudoscience experiments for nearly 40 years and suffered torture and killing people among people then known as Southwestern Africa.
The victims came primarily from the Ovaherero and NAMA communities because they refused to let colonists occupy their own land and cattle.
Namibia's genocide anniversary was putting pressure on compensation in Germany on Wednesday.
According to the government, the new national holiday will be marked as part of Namibia’s “rehabilitation trip” every year, including a minute of silence and candlelight vigil outside Windhoek parliament.
It said it chose the May 28 date because on the day in 1907, German officials announced the closure of concentration camps after international criticism.
Control over Southwestern Africa – and now Cameroon, Togo and other colonial territories – was stripped of competitive forces after World War I from Germany.
For years, Germany has not publicly recognized the mass murders between 1904 and 1908.
But four years ago, it formally recognized that German colonists had committed genocide and provided 1.1 billion euros (£940 million; $1.34 billion) in development assistance that could be paid within 30 years – no mention of “indemnification” or “compensation” in the legal wording.
Namibia rejected the proposal, calling it a “first step in the right direction”, and nonetheless, it did not include formal apology and “indemnification.”
Many Namibians are not impressed by what they see.
“That’s a joke of the century,” Uahimisa Kaapehi told the BBC at the time. “We want our land. Money is nothing.”
He was a member of Ovaherero ethnic and town councillor of Swakopmund, where many atrocities occurred and said “our wealth was taken away, farm, cattle”.
A group representing families of victims of genocide is also harsh about the deal reached in 2021, calling it “a racist way of thinking in Germany and the racist way of thinking in the new colonial class in the Namibia region.”
Since then, a draft agreement has been reached between the two countries, including a formal apology from Germany, which is reportedly added to the sum of €50 million.
But many Ovaherero and NAMA campaigners say the deal is an insult to the memory of ancestors who were unfairly excluded from the negotiating table. Some people have met with news of a national anniversary, and community activists say restorative justice is still a long way to go.
Many campaigners want to see the German government now buy back the land of their ancestors from the German-speaking communities and send them back to descendants of Ovaherero and Nama.
Historians point out that Germany’s irony so far is that before the genocide, Germany itself extracted its so-called compensation from the people of Ovaherero and Nama, who fought against the colonists.
This is paid in the form of livestock, totaling 12,000 cattle – German historian Thomas Craemer estimates that today's money ranges from $1.2 million to $8.8 million, which he believes should be added to the compensation bill.
Those colonial plunder and fighting were followed by genocide, which began in 1904, when an extermination order by a German official named Lothar von Trotha.
“This extinction order shows that they will no longer take over any prisoners – women, men, anyone with or without cattle – they will be executed,” Namibian historian Martha Akawa-Shikufa told the national broadcaster NBC.
She added that the introduction of concentration camps was followed.
“People die, many die in concentration camps due to fatigue. In fact, there are pre-printed death certificates [saying] “Tired Death”, waiting for those people to die because they know they will die. ”
The remains of some of the murdered men were then transported to Germany for the now-granted study to demonstrate the racial superiority of white Europeans. Now, many bones have been repatriated.
Last year, Namibia offered to defend Israel’s defense to prevent it from criticizing genocide in the UN Supreme Court and criticizing Germany’s defense.
“The German government has not yet fully compensated for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil,” said then-President Hage Geingob.
Other reports by Samantha Granville
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