Namibia is first celebrated in German colonial genocide with Memorial Day

Named “forgotten genocide of Germany”, and historians called the first genocide of the 20th century, systematic murder of more than 70,000 Africans is first celebrated in Namibia.

Almost 40 years before their use in Holocaust, concentration camps and pseudoscientific experiments were used by German officials for torture and killing people in what they were called south -western Africa.

The victims, primarily from the Ovaherro and Nama communities, were aimed because they refused to let the colonialists who accept the land and cattle.

During the memory of the genocide in Namibia, on Wednesday, it follows from the year of pressure on Germany to pay reparations.

According to the government, the new national holiday will be celebrated every year as part of the “Namibia” travel “travel”, including a moment of silence and candle vigilance outside the Windhuk Parliament.

It states that she chose the date on May 28, because it was on this day in 1907 that German officials announced the closure of concentration camps after international criticism.

Control over Southern Western Africa – together with modern Cameroon, then and other colonial territories – was deprived of competing powers from Germany after the First World War.

For many years, Germany has not publicly recognized the mass murder that occurred from 1904 to 1908.

But four years ago, he officially admitted that German colonizers committed genocide and offered 1.1 billion euros (940 million pounds; 1.34 billion) in the development paid for 30 years – without mentioning “reparation” or “compensation” in a legal editorial office.

Namibia refused this proposal, calling it “the first step in the right direction”, which nevertheless did not include the official forgiveness and “reparation” he sought.

Many Namibians were not impressed with what they saw.

“It was a joke of a century,” “” UAHIMISA KAAPEHI told BBC at the time. “We want our land. Money is nothing.”

He is an ethnic descendant of Avarera and the City Council in Swakopmund, where many atrocities took place, and said that “our wealth is accepted, farm, cattle.”

A group representing the victims of genocide also confused about the transaction proposed in 2021, calling it a testimony of “racist thinking by Germany and non -colonial subordination by Namibia” in a joint statement.

Since then Between the two countries was reached the transaction project This would include an official apology that Germany gave and which It is reported to increase the total amount by an additional 50 million euros.

But many Ovaherro and Nama companies say the deal is a ancestral memory icon and that they were unfairly off from the negotiating table. News about the National Memory Day were met with cynicism from some, with Community activists say the restoration is still far away.

Many companies would like the German government to redeem earthen lands in the hands of the German -speaking community, and return them to the offspring of Ovaherro and Nama.

Historians note the irony of Germany still refusing to pay reparations because to genocide, Germany itself gained its own so -called reparations from people Ovaherro and Nama which was reflected against the colonizers.

This was paid in the form of a pet and amounted to 12,000 cows – the German -American historian Thomas Kremer, who is from $ 1.2 to $ 8.8 million today, and which he claims to be added to the repair bill.

These colonial robberies and battles were accompanied by a genocide, which began in 1904 with an order to destroy a German official named Lothar von.

“This destruction order showed that they are no longer going to take on The history of Namibia Marta was a death that told NBC national broadcasting.

Then she followed the introduction of concentration camps, she added.

“People worked to death, many people were killed in concentration camps because of exhaustion. In fact, they were pre-printed on death (speaking)” death from exhaustion “, waiting for people to die because they knew they would die.”

Then the remnants of some of those who died were sent to Germany for already discriminated examination to prove the racial advantage of white Europeans. Many of the bones were repatriated.

Last year, Namibia criticized Germany after she offered to come in defense of Israel to stop the answer to the crime of genocide in Genocide in UN Supreme Court.

“The German government is not yet fully redeemed the genocide, which it has performed on the Namibian soil,” said then President Hage Gingab.

Additional Samantha Granville Report