Namibia’s Herero community on Friday pressed Germany to offer reparations for its extermination campaign against the tribe during colonial rule as its leaders opened a new history museum funded by Berlin.
Herero chief Kuaima Riruako said the German government had merely waged a ”public relations exercise” when it made a formal apology last year for the atrocities and that ”nothing has happened” since.
Riruako spoke at the opening of a new 300 000 euro Herero history museum funded by the German government in this village, about 280 kilometres northeast of
Windhoek.
”What happened to my people then is a major catastrophe in the history of mankind. The Germans should pay for our blood,” said Riruako.
”The German government should prove beyond reasonable doubt that they are a caring people who regret the deeds of their forefathers by engaging us in a serious dialogue,” said Riruako.
German Development and Cooperation Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul issued the apology in August at an event in Okarara commemorating the massacres in 1904 of tens of thousands of Hereros
who had rebelled against their German colonial rulers.
Wieczorek-Zeul last week said that Germany was ready to set up a 20-million-euro reconciliation fund to help the Hereros, and that Berlin was ready to double development aid to Namibia from 12 million euros a year to 24 million euros.
But Riruako said that ”before deciding on those 20 million euros, the German government should have consulted the victims through a process of dialogue”.
President Hifikepunye Pohamba send minister without portfolio Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, an ethnic Herero, to represent him at the opening of the museum that is to house artefacts from the community.
”We hope that this will not just be a token, but that real projects making a meaningful developmental change to the affected communities will come from this,” said Tjiriange.
Between 45 000 and 65 000 Herero died after German officers issued an extermination order against the tribe in 1904 to crush an uprising against colonial rule.
The tragedy is remembered by Namibia’s 120 000 Hereros as genocide perpetrated by Germany, which ruled then German South West Africa from 1884 to 1915. – Sapa-AFP