In response, the German military commander, General Lothar von Trotha, ordered the Herero people to leave Namibia or be killed.
Herero were massacred with machine guns, their wells poisoned and then driven into the desert to die.
In the bush and scrub of central Namibia, the descendants of the surviving Herero live in squalid shacks and tiny plots of land. Next door, the descendants of German settlers still own vast properties of 20,000 hectares or more. It’s a contrast that infuriates many Herero, fuelling a new radicalism here.
Every year the Herero hold solemn ceremonies to remember the first genocide of history’s bloodiest century, when German troops drove them into the desert to die, annihilating 80 per cent of their population through starvation, thirst, and slave labour in concentration camps. The Nama, a smaller ethnic group, lost half of their population from the same persecution.
Today, the descendants of the survivors are seeking reparations from the German government. This film tells for the first time this forgotten story and its links to German racial theories. Source
Watch the full documentary here
1 comment:
Thank you for sharing this documentary. I am shocked and appalled at the history of Namibia, but undoubtedly, I am sure, that this history is not uncommon in colonial Africa. The savagery of "civilized" people will never be forgotten and the eternal justice of our sovereign Creator will transcend time to bring those who devised and executed these atrocities to full punishment. That is my prayer and hope. Guinea Bissau is still clearing mines from their independence from Portugal and the injustice committed in that country by Portugal may equal or exceed what was done in Namibia. Hopefully, a fact-finding mission will take place there as well.
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