NAMIBIA: Germany rules out reparations but offers aid
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations]
OKAKARARA VILLAGE, 16 August (IRIN) - Germany asked for "forgiveness"
at
the weekend for colonial atrocities committed against
Herero-speaking
Namibians, while promising increased development aid for the
country's
land reform programme.
The acknowledgement follows a long-standing demand for an apology
over the
genocide that followed a 1904 Herero uprising against German rule,
which
led to the destruction of an estimated 75 percent of the Herero
population. Germany is also facing a US $4 billion class action
lawsuit
brought by the descendants of the survivors.
Speaking at Okakarara village, some 280 km northeast of the
capital,
Windhoek, near where Herero resistance was finally crushed,
Economic
Cooperation and Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said:
"I am
painfully aware of the atrocities committed ... We Germans accept
our
historical and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans
at
that time."
Some of the 2,000-strong crowd at the commemoration ceremony on
Saturday
chanted "Payment, payment!" in German, a demand for reparations for
the
extermination and expulsion of the Herero ordered by
Lieutenant-General
Lothar von Trotha a century ago.
"I am personally happy about the apology, but I still have the right
to
take Germany to court for reparations," Paramount Chief off all
Herero-speakers, Kuaima Riruako, declared during the commemoration.
"Now
we can have a dialogue to finish the unfinished business," Riruako
added,
hinting at the demand for reparations.
In September 2001, about 200 Herero under Riruako filed a lawsuit in
the
US court of the District of Columbia demanding US $2 billion from
the
German government for atrocities committed under colonial rule.
Lodged by
the Herero Peoples' Reparation Corporation, it also seeks $2 billion
from
three German companies including Deutsche Bank, mining company
Terex
Corporation, formerly Orenstein-Koppel Co., and the shipping
company
Deutsche Afrika Linie, formerly Woermann Linie.
The district court of Columbia was chosen because a 215-year-old law,
the
Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, allows for such civil action.
Germany has firmly ruled out reparations, but Wieczorek-Zeul said
Berlin
would help Namibia tackle the challenges of development, "in
particular,
assistance for the necessary process of land reform".
"Germany will finance infrastructure development on communal land
in
Namibia, in a bid to boost land reform," Wieczorek-Zeul said after
a
meeting last week with Lands Minister Hifikepunye Pohamba and
President
Sam Nujoma. "We will financially support initiatives on communal land
to
make that land more productive and develop its infrastructure."
Details of the financial support will be discussed next year in a
new
round of inter-governmental cooperation, Wiezcorek-Zeul added.
Asked whether she was concerned that largely white-owned commercial
farms
could be expropriated by the government for redistribution to
landless
Namibians, the minister replied that Pohamba had assured her that
land
reform would "proceed in line with the Namibian constitution and
relevant
laws".
[ENDS]
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