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Friday, August 25, 2006 - Web posted at 9:16:21 GMT German leftist MP to speak at Herero Day BRIGITTE WEIDLICHHUNDREDS of Herero people from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa will flock to Okahandja this weekend to commemorate the annual Herero Day. |
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This has been done since 1923, the year when the remains of Chief Samuel Maharero, who led the 1904 uprising against German colonial rule, were returned to Okahandja from Botswana, where the Chief had died in exile. However, the annual event has in the past few years become more of a political platform for certain factions within the Herero community, who are trying to pressurise the German government for war reparations. About 60 000 Herero people were killed in the aftermath of the uprising when they tried to cross the waterless Omaheke area into Botswana, pursued by German troops. The guest speaker this year is Hueseyin Aydin, a member of the German Bundestag (Parliament) in Berlin and spokesperson for the Left Party in the Parliamentary Committee for Economic Cooperation and Development. He was invited by Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako to speak at this year's commemoration at Okahandja. Aydin will speak on Sunday morning during the main ceremony, after the traditional rituals have taken place at the graves of Chief Maharero and other ancestral Herero chiefs. Aydin strives for the official acknowledgement of the genocide committed by German colonial troops against the Herero and Nama people about one hundred years ago. According to his press officer, Frank Renken, Aydin demands that the German government start a dialogue about reparations "with representatives of the Herero and Nama people without preconditions and including the Namibian Government". At the centenary commemoration at Ohamakari near the Waterberg in 2004, German Development Cooperation Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul rendered an official apology on behalf of her government by asking "for forgiveness for the sins committed". Her apology was met with shouts of, "Mariwa, mariwa," (Money, money) from the crowd. Five years ago, Chief Riruako and 80 other Herero-speaking Namibians sued Germany for reparations for what they call the "Herero genocide". In May 2005, Wieczorek-Zeul announced a N$160 million Reconciliation Initiative to flow into projects for Herero and Nama communities in Namibia. The projects still have to be determined. The Hereros in diaspora, descendants of Herero who fled from the Germans to Botswana and South Africa, have also joined their Namibian relatives in the call for reparations. They claim that part of the N$160 million should go to their communities in Botswana and South Africa. |
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