Remains of a victim of German colonial rule when they were returned to Namibia (photo from 2018)
Photo: HAYOUNG JEON / EPA-EFE / REX / Shutterstock
The German Empire was a colonial power in what is now Namibia from 1884 to 1915 - and during this time it killed tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people.
After years of negotiations, Germany and Namibia have come to an agreement on how reparations should look like.
But the planned agreement has come under fire from parts of the ethnic groups.
According to a statement by the Ovaherero Traditional Authority and the Nama Traditional Leaders Association, the agreement is nothing more than a German PR coup and an act of deception by the Namibian government.
The Ovaherero Traditional Authority is one of many Herero groups, eight of which are officially recognized by the government and represented in the Namibian negotiating delegation.
The Nama Traditional Leaders Association is also not representative of all Nama groups.
Representatives of both ethnic groups demand an official apology for crimes committed during colonial times and financial reparation.
Compensation payments still unclear
What exactly the agreement will look like is still unclear.
According to Deutschlandfunk, the federal government is ready to recognize the killing of tens of thousands of people in the ex-colony of German South West Africa as genocide from today's perspective.
It is also planned that Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will officially apologize at a ceremony in the Namibian parliament.
Ruprecht Polenz (CDU), the negotiator on the German side, neither wanted to confirm or deny this, nor did the Namibian negotiator Ueriuka Tjikuua.
"We have agreed confidentiality with the Namibian side for some time and will adhere to it," Polenz told the dpa news agency.
According to historians, about 65,000 of the 80,000 Herero and at least 10,000 of the 20,000 Nama were killed by the Germans during colonial rule.
mrc / dpa
