(GR) Herero/German genocide news

[Matt Bormet]

Two items...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-namibia-genocide-germany/germany-urges-u-s-court-to-dismiss-lawsuit-over-namibian-genocide-idUSKBN1KL2KH

Germany urges U.S. court to dismiss lawsuit over Namibian genocide
Brendan Pierson


NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawyer for Germany on Tuesday urged a U.S. judge to
dismiss a lawsuit brought against the country on behalf of the Herero and
Nama people of what is now Namibia over genocide and seizure of property
carried out by German colonists more than 100 years ago.

The lawyer, Jeffrey Harris, argued to U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor
Swain in Manhattan that the American court did not have jurisdiction over
the dispute, citing Germany’s status as a sovereign nation and a legal
doctrine that courts should refrain from deciding purely political
questions.

“You should abstain from this case under the political question doctrine
and let the bilateral negotiations proceed between these two sovereigns,”
he said, referring to Germany and Namibia.

Kenneth McCallion, who represents the Herero and Nama leaders and
organizations that brought the lawsuit, said Germany’s sovereignty did not
shield it from the lawsuit because the genocide was a violation of
international law.

The genocide, which Germany has acknowledged, took place from roughly 1904
to 1908, when Namibia was a German colony known as German South-West
Africa, after the Herero and Nama groups rebelled against German rule.

Victims were also subjected to harsh conditions in concentration camps, and
some had their skulls sent to Germany for scientific experiments, according
to historians.

The German government has entered negotiations with the current Namibian
government over possible reparations for the genocide. However, the lawsuit
contends that Germany violated international law on the rights of
indigenous peoples by refusing to negotiate with the Herero and Nama
directly.

The plaintiffs said Germany enriched itself by seizing Herero and Nama land
and by selling the skulls of murdered victims. They have asked Swain to
recognize the case as a class action and award unspecified damages.

Harris argued on Tuesday that the court could only award damages if the
wealth Germany stole from Namibia was present in the United States. While
the plaintiffs pointed in their lawsuit to several New York properties
owned by the German government, Harris said they had failed to link them to
Germany’s activities in Namibia.

McCallion countered that the cash flowing into the German treasury from
Namibia “certainly can be traced, in an economic theory as well as in a
legal theory, to the purchase of buildings in New York.”

Swain did not rule on Germany’s motion to dismiss the case.

***

https://www.france24.com/en/20180829-germany-namibia-human-remains-returns-colonial-era-genocide-herero-nama

Germany returns human remains from colonial-era Namibian genocide

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Berlin will return human remains on Wednesday seized from Namibia a century
ago following the slaughter of indigenous peoples under German colonial
rule. But descendants are still waiting for an apology.

A Namibian <https://www.france24.com/en/tag/namibia/> government delegation
will receive the remains, including 19 skulls, a scalp and bones, during a
solemn church service in Berlin.

“We want to help heal the wounds from the atrocities committed by Germans
at the time,” said Michelle Muentefering, a minister of state for
international cultural policies at the German
<https://www.france24.com/en/tag/germany/> foreign ministry.

But representatives for descendants of the tens of thousands of Herero and
Nama  <http://combatgenocide.org/?page_id=153>people – massacred between
1904 and 1908 after rebelling against their colonial overlords – have
criticised the ceremony as insufficient.

Germany ruled what was then called South West Africa as a colony
<https://www.france24.com/en/tag/colonialism/> from 1884 to 1915.

>> Focus: The ghosts of German-ruled Namibia
<https://www.france24.com/en/20140912-focus-namibia-german-colonisation-world-war-i-history-south-africa>

Esther Utjiua Muinjangue, chairwoman of the Ovaherero Genocide Foundation,
said the handover of remains would have been “the perfect opportunity” for
Germany to officially apologise for what is often called the first genocide
of the 20th century.

“Is that asking too much? I don’t think so,” she told a Berlin press
conference this week, describing the attitude of the German government as
“shocking”.

No reparations

Muentefering told reporters on Monday that Germany still has “a lot of
catching up to do in coming to terms with our colonial heritage”.

As part of ongoing talks with the Namibian government on addressing its
brutal legacy in the country, the German government said in 2016 that it
planned to issue a formal apology.

But negotiations aimed at coming up with a joint declaration on the
massacres are ongoing.

Although Berlin has acknowledged the horrors that occurred at the hands of
German imperial troops, it has refused to pay direct reparations.

It has argued instead that German development aid worth hundreds of
millions of euros since Namibia’s independence from South Africa in 1990
was “for the benefit of all Namibians”.

Angered by Berlin’s stance, representatives of the Herero and Nama people
have filed a class-action lawsuit in a US court demanding reparations.

They also want to be included in the discussions between Germany and
Namibia.

Germany wants the lawsuit thrown out on the grounds of state immunity from
prosecution.

The New York judge in the case has yet to rule on whether to hear the
lawsuit.

Namibian Culture Minister Katrina Hanse-Himarwa, speaking alongside
Muentefering in Berlin, said the two countries “still have many problems to
solve”.

“We must ensure that, after we’ve reached agreements on damages,
recognition and an apology, there’s a future in which the German and
Namibian nations join hands and move forward.”

‘Extermination order’

Incensed by German settlers stealing their land, women and cattle, the
Hereros revolted in 1904 and killed more than 100 German civilians over
several days. The Nama people joined the uprising in 1905.

Determined to crush the rebellion, General Lothar von Trotha, under the
direct command of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin, signed a notorious
“extermination order” against the Herero.

“Within the German boundaries, every Herero, with or without a gun, with or
without livestock, will be shot dead,” he said.

Survivors were sent to concentration camps, decades before those in which
millions of Jews and others were exterminated during World War II.

An estimated 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people were killed from 1904 to
1908.

‘Scientific’ experiments

Dozens were beheaded after their deaths, their skulls sent to researchers
in Germany for discredited “scientific” experiments that purported to prove
the racial superiority of white Europeans.

In some instances, captured Herero women were made to boil the decapitated
heads and scrape them clean with shards of glass.

Research carried out by German professor Eugen Fischer on the skulls and
bones resulted in theories later used by the Nazis to justify the murder of
Jews.

Wednesday’s handover proceedings mark the third time that Germany has
repatriated human remains to Namibia; the previous occasions were in 2011
and 2014.

The remains, many of which were stored on dusty shelves in universities and
clinics, were “often stolen ... brought to Germany without respect for
human dignity”, according to the German foreign ministry.

Herero activist Muinjangue said the homecoming of the bones was always
“very emotional”.

“I’m looking at the skull of a Herero or Nama peasant. A peasant who could
have been my great-grandmother or great-great-grandmother or -father.”

*(FRANCE 24 with AFP)*