Germany Pays Reparations to Namibia...

5fish

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It seems Germany is paying reparations for behavior from their colonial empire days in Namibia. They are not calling the payment reparations but they are calling it a genocide...


snip...

Germany has to agreed to pay Namibia €1.1bn (£940m) as it officially recognised the Herero-Nama genocide at the start of the 20th century, in what Angela Merkel’s government says amounts to a gesture of reconciliation but not legally binding reparations.

snip....

The text of the joint declaration calls the atrocities committed by German troops a “genocide” but omits the words “reparations” or “compensation” – a move borne out of fear that such language could set a legal precedent for similar claims from other nations.

snip...

A spokesman for the Namibian president, Hage Geingob, described German’s acknowledgment of genocide “as the first step” in the right direction. “It is the basis for the second step, which is an apology, to be followed by reparations,” the spokesman said.
 

rittmeister

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is there a chance you start to post an opinion with that kind of threads?
 

5fish

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Here is this for it was a race war...


snip...

On 2 October, Trotha issued a warning to the Herero:[DE 1]
I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Herero. The Herero are German subjects no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer. I announce to the people that whoever hands me one of the chiefs shall receive 1,000 marks, and 5,000 marks for Samuel Maherero. The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' [cannon]. Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people.[76]
He further gave orders that:
This proclamation is to be read to the troops at roll-call, with the addition that the unit that catches a captain will also receive the appropriate reward, and that the shooting at women and children is to be understood as shooting above their heads, so as to force them to run [away]. I assume absolutely that this proclamation will result in taking no more male prisoners, but will not degenerate into atrocities against women and children. The latter will run away if one shoots at them a couple of times. The troops will remain conscious of the good reputation of the German soldier.[36]:56
snip...

The German general staff was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; its official publication, named Der Kampf, noted that:
This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke [desert] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.[
snip...

After the war, Trotha argued that his orders were necessary, writing in 1909 that "If I had made the small water holes accessible to the womenfolk, I would run the risk of an African catastrophe comparable to the Battle of Beresonia."[69]:22

snip... Concentration Camps...

Survivors of the massacre, the majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put in places like Shark Island concentration camp, where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for German military and settlers. All prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work, and pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued.[84] The British government published their well-known account of the German genocide of the Nama and Herero peoples in 1918

snip...medical experiments

Prisoners were used for medical experiments and their illnesses or their recoveries from them were used for research.[99]
Experiments on live prisoners were performed by Dr. Bofinger, who injected Herero that were suffering from scurvy with various substances including arsenic and opium; afterwards he researched the effects of these substances via autopsy.[25]:225
 

rittmeister

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It seems Germany is paying reparations for behavior from their colonial empire days in Namibia. They are not calling the payment reparations but they are calling it a genocide...

... and btw, the graun's headline is bollocks as these payments are explicitly not reparations or compensations - i'm also wonderring if a certain alexander boris de pfeffel johnson' already ordered compiling a list

---

* or emmanuel macron, pedro sánchez pérez-castjón, antónio sanchez da costa and some other dudes for that matter
 

5fish

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... and btw, the graun's headline is bollocks as these payments are explicitly not reparations or compensations - i'm also wonderring if a certain alexander boris de pfeffel johnson' already ordered compiling a list

---

* or emmanuel macron and some other dudes for that matter
What does the German government call the money being given to Namibia... I admit its not going directly to the tribes which were the victims of the German violence...
 

rittmeister

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What does the German government call the money being given to Namibia... I admit its not going directly to the tribes which were the victims of the German violence...
  1. it's in the article isn't it?
  2. how would you do that?
 

rittmeister

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An opinion or an implied observation...
an opinion like we should do that, too (there's a wide variaty of atrocities for your govt to chose from), an observation like why hasn't any other country done something like that before?

... anything, really
 

rittmeister

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and just for the record: i'm all for doing that
 

5fish

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  1. it's in the article isn't it?
  2. how would you do that?
Your government is paying the Namibian government...

On Thursday, official circles in Berlin confirmed reports in Namibian media that after nine rounds of negotiations the two sides had settled on the text of a joint declaration and a sum of €1.1bn, which will be paid separately to existing aid programmes over 30 years.
 

5fish

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What about about equality in Reparation are is an article that goings in some detail but not all on how Germany has paid reparations to Israel over the years and the resent one where they gave a billion to Israel to pay for elder care of the Holocaust victims. I do not see Namibia getting these kind of reparation for the horrors they suffered under under rule. If you paid for 87% of Namibia government expenses they too could invest in their nation as Israel did... Namibia even a new nation than Israel... You realize they estimate that 80% of those tribes were kill off by the Germans in 1904 to 1908...


snip...

By 1956, the German state was supplying 87.5% of Israel’s state revenue. The young new country used the money to buy equipment and raw materials to build up its industry, railways and electrical grid. Mining equipment, irrigation and fuel were also high on the list of Israel’s reparations-fueled development priorities

snip...

Most recently, the German government in 2013 agreed with the Jewish Claims Conference to pay about $1 billion for the home care of all elderly Holocaust survivors.

snip...


Pressured by Israeli leaders David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer agreed to pay 3 billion German marks in reparations to Israel between 1953 and 1967. Germany also paid 450 million German marks to the World Jewish Congress, an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. Assuming the midcentury rate of 4 German marks to $1, that’s the equivalent today of $7 billion for Israel and $1 billion for the Jewish Congress.

Here another look it was German money that built Israel... Germany is paying compensation for slave labor too...

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/german-holocaust-reparations
 

5fish

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chance you start to post an opinion
I do argue if Germany has paid reparation numerous times for their sins. We Americans can belly up to the table a pay reparations and restitution for our sins too... Germany was rebuilding from the war and paid reparations...
 

rittmeister

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Your government is paying the Namibian government...

On Thursday, official circles in Berlin confirmed reports in Namibian media that after nine rounds of negotiations the two sides had settled on the text of a joint declaration and a sum of €1.1bn, which will be paid separately to existing aid programmes over 30 years.
how would you pay those tribes directly? the namibian govt would hardly allow it
 

rittmeister

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I do argue if Germany has paid reparation numerous times for their sins. We Americans can belly up to the table a pay reparations and restitution for our sins too... Germany was rebuilding from the war and paid reparations...
they already got a billion in the last thirty years (more than anyone else in africa) - it's not like we don't have a bunch of rather bad after action reports signed by lothar von trotha who - btw - was relieved of command (certainly too late but rather fast for that day and age)
 

5fish

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how would you pay those tribes directly? the namibian govt would hardly allow it
You never paid the victims of the holocaust directly but you did pay the slave laborers directly through a Jewish organizations... I do not think directly the issue why been over backwards for Israel and not for Namibia... I think a program like Israel got would do wonders for Namibia...
 

5fish

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they already got a billion in the last thirty years (more than anyone else in africa) - it's not like we don't have a bunch of rather bad after action reports signed by lothar von trotha who - btw - was relieved of command (certainly too late but rather fast for that day and age)
I just saw this impressive maybe you can help...
 

rittmeister

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You never paid the victims of the holocaust directly but you did pay the slave laborers directly through a Jewish organizations... I do not think directly the issue why been over backwards for Israel and not for Namibia... I think a program like Israel got would do wonders for Namibia...
as i said above they already got more than a billion in the last thirty years which makes it more than 2 billion in the next 30 years how much did the native americans get (they are us citizens, right?)?

show me just one country that did nearly as much (and not just for the nazi shit) in an intent to come clear with her own history
 

rittmeister

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just think for a second if a us president - any us president - would do something like that today (not 50 years ago). you'd probably have lynchmobs in the streets


... he wasn't that popular with certain groups in germany either but he got re-elected
 

5fish

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I read a little about this...


snip...

In fact, the few people who did get down on their knees, like Willy Brandt, were vilified by the majority of their compatriots.” A Der Spiegel survey (link in German) at the time revealed that 48% of Germans felt Brandt’s gesture was excessive.

Yet in spite of public opinion, Germany’s efforts at reconciliation didn’t stop at reparations. The country has engaged in vergangenheitsbewältigung—the process of “overcoming the past.” It erected monuments to victims of the Holocaust, the most famous of which lies at the heart of Berlin (and was only approved in 1999 after a lengthy and contentious debate.) It created the Foundation for Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future, an educational institution dedicated to promoting “the continuing political and moral responsibility of the state, the private sector, and society as a whole for Nazi injustice and towards the victims.”

“The German process has been long, continuous, difficult,” says Feldman. Similarly, “one can expect that in the American case.”
 

5fish

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It seems you all have left out Tanzania from the colonial reparation program...


snip...

The government will seek compensation over tens of thousands of people who allegedly were starved, tortured and killed by German forces while trying to put down rebellious tribes, minister Hussein Mwinyi told lawmakers.

“We will consider steps taken by Kenya and Namibia governments in seeking reparations from Britain and German governments, respectively,” he said.

Germany ruled Tanzania, then known as Tanganyika, from 1890 to 1919.

There was no immediate response from the German embassy in Tanzania.

snip...

In January, Germany said it may make payments to Namibia for the killing of 65,000 people during its colonial occupation, an episode that is seen by some as the first genocide of the 20th century. Talks with Namibia’s government were continuing on the issue.

In Tanzania, German forces were accused of crimes including forced starvations following the tribal revolt known as Maji Maji.
 
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