BERLIN – Germany has reached an agreement with Namibia that will allow it to officially acknowledge the murders of tens of thousands of colonial eras as genocide and dedicate itself to spending a total of 1. 1 billion euros ($1. 3 billion), basically for progression projects.
The agreement announced on Friday is the result of more than five years of talks with Namibia on occasions from 1904-1908, when Germany was the colonial leader of the southern African country.
Historians say that German General Lothar von Trotha, who was sent to what was then south-west Africa to suppress an uprising of the Herero in 1904, ordered his troops to send the entire tribe. at least 10,000 Nama.
“In honor of Germany’s responsibility and seniority, we will apologize to Namibia and the descendants of the victims,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement.
“Our purpose and is to locate a non-unusual path to true reconciliation in the reminiscence of victims,” he said. “This includes naming the occasions of the German colonial era in present-day Namibia, and in specific atrocities between 1904 and 1908, without ceremonies and without euphemisms.
“Now we will officially call these occasions what from the current point of view: genocide. “
Talks between Germany and Namibia began in 2015, more than a decade after a stopover in Namibia in 2004 in which then-Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul issued Germany’s first apology for the killings, which she said were “what she said today would be genocide. . “”
Reparations: U. S. House Committee approves bill to study remedies against slavery for the first time
“Repairing Evils”: Congressional Reparations for Slavery
Maas said array “in popularity with incalculable suffering,” Germany plans to help Namibia and the descendants of those affected with a 1. 1 billion euro “reconstruction and development” programme whose design and implementation “communities affected by genocide will play a decisive role. “
At the same time, he stated that “legal claims for reimbursement are arising from them. “
This reflects Germany’s position that the 1948 Genocide Convention cannot be implemented retroactively and that its duty is political and ethical without any more than legal.
Projects now funded by Germany are expected to span an era of 30 years and canopy spaces such as land reform, land purchase, agriculture, rural infrastructure, water and vocational training. They will be separated from the continuation of progressive aid in Namibia. .
Germany says representatives of Herero and Nama were involved in the negotiations, Berlin’s direct relations were with the Namibian government.
Germany took the desert country in the 1880s and ceded the territory to South Africa in 1915; Namibia gained independence in 1990.