German Government must apologise for genocide of the Herero (Namibia)

Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker / Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV/STP) called on the German Parliament and the Federal Government on the occasion of the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa (31.8-7.9.2001), to apologise for the 1904 genocide of the Herero people perpetrated by German troops in the country's former colony of South-West Africa. Until now the German Foreign Ministry has routinely avoided using the term "genocide" in dismissing the Herero's claim for compensation, resorting instead to vague formulae such as "Germany's historic responsibility with respect to Namibia", according to Andreas Selmeci, who will be representing GfbV/STP in Durban. Publications issued by the Foreign Ministry and the Bundestag's Petitions Committee (Document No. 14/4844) which maintain that the term of genocide was first defined in 1948 by the United Nations and cannot therefore be applied to the atrocities inflicted on the Herero are open to the charge of implicit racism. "Judged by all historic criteria the Herero's claim is the same claim as that of the Jews: the German government must refer to the crimes committed against the Herero people by their proper name", stated Andreas Selmeci.

In August 1904 the Herero were defeated in battle at Waterberg by a German expeditionary force before being driven eastward into the Omaheke desert. Thousands of Herero died a terrible death from thirst. On 2 October 1904 the force's commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha, issued a proclamation announcing that any Herero attempting to return - including women and children - would be shot. Von Trotha justified his order to shoot the Herero to his superiors on the grounds that "the [Herero] nation must perish".

This order was subsequently rescinded but the surviving Herero were interned in concentration camps and forced into service as farm labour. Many died of malnutrition and disease. This policy of systematic extermination cost the lives of up to 80 per cent of the Herero people who before the rebellion numbered approximately 80,000.