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#Post#: 4983--------------------------------------------------
South West Africa
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 20, 2021, 5:46 am
---------------------------------------------------------
OLD CONTENT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_South_West_Africa
[quote]In April 1885, the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft für
Südwest-Afrika (German Colonial Society for Southwest Africa,
known as DKGSWA) was founded with the support of German bankers
(Gerson von Bleichröder, Adolph von Hansemann), industrialists
(Count Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck) and politicians
(Frankfurt mayor Johannes von Miquel). DKGSWA was granted
monopoly rights to exploit mineral deposits.[2]
...
In May, Heinrich Ernst Göring was appointed Commissioner and
established his administration at Otjimbingwe. Then, on 17 April
1886, a law creating the legal system of the colony was passed,
creating a dual system with laws for Europeans and different
laws for natives.[3]
Over the following years relations between the German settlers
and the indigenous peoples continued to worsen. Additionally,
the British settlement at Walvis Bay, a coastal enclave within
South West Africa, continued to develop, and many small farmers
and missionaries moved into the region. A complex web of
treaties, agreements, and vendettas increased the unrest. In
1888 the first group of Schutztruppen—colonial protectorate
troops—arrived, sent to protect the military base at
Otjimbingwe.
In 1890 the colony was declared a German Crown Colony, and more
troops were sent.[4] In July of the same year, as part of the
Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty between Britain and Germany, the
colony grew in size through the acquisition of the Caprivi Strip
in the northeast, promising new trade routes into the
interior.[5]
Almost simultaneously, between August and September 1892, the
South West Africa Company Ltd (SWAC) was established by the
German, British, and Cape Colony governments, aided by
financiers to raise the capital required to enlarge mineral
exploitation (specifically, the Damaraland concession's copper
deposit interests).[/quote]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide
[quote]In 1883, during the scramble for Africa, Franz Adolf
Eduard Lüderitz, a German merchant, purchased a stretch of coast
near the Angra Pequena bay from the reigning chief. The terms of
the purchase were fraudulent, but the German government
nonetheless established a protectorate over it.[19] At that
time, it was the only overseas German territory deemed suitable
for white settlement.[20]
...
The Herero leaders repeatedly complained about violation of this
treaty, as Herero women and girls were raped by Germans, a crime
that the German authorities were reluctant to punish.[22]
In 1890 Maharero's son, Samuel, signed a great deal of land over
to the Germans in return for helping him to ascend to the
Ovaherero throne, and to subsequently be established as
paramount chief.[23] German involvement in ethnic fighting ended
in tenuous peace in 1894.[citation needed] In that year, Theodor
Leutwein became governor of the territory, which underwent a
period of rapid development, while the German government sent
the Schutztruppe (imperial colonial troops) to pacify the
region.[24]
...
Under German colonial rule, natives were routinely used as slave
labourers, and their lands were frequently confiscated and given
to colonists, who were encouraged to settle on land taken from
the natives;
...
In 1903, some of the Nama clans rose in revolt under the
leadership of Hendrik Witbooi.[24] A number of factors led the
Herero to join them in January 1904.
One of the major issues was land rights. The Herero had already
ceded over a quarter of their 130,000 square kilometres (50,000
sq mi) to German colonists by 1903,[25]:60 before the Otavi
railway line running from the African coast to inland German
settlements was completed.[31]:230 Completion of this line would
have made the German colonies much more accessible and would
have ushered a new wave of Europeans into the area.[32]:133
Historian Horst Drechsler states that there was discussion of
the possibility of establishing and placing the Herero in native
reserves and that this was further proof of the German
colonists' sense of ownership over the land. Drechsler
illustrates the gap between the rights of a European and an
African; the German Colonial League held that, in regards to
legal matters, the testimony of seven Africans was equivalent to
that of a colonist.[32]:132, 133 Bridgman writes about racial
tensions underlying these developments; the average German
colonist viewed native Africans as a lowly source of cheap
labour, and others welcomed their extermination.[25]:60
A new policy on debt collection, enforced in November 1903, also
played a role in the uprising. For many years, the Herero
population had fallen in the habit of borrowing money from
colonist traders at extreme interest rates. For a long time,
much of this debt went uncollected and accumulated, as most
Herero had no means to pay. To correct this growing problem,
Governor Leutwein decreed with good intentions that all debts
not paid within the next year would be voided.[25]:59 In the
absence of hard cash, traders often seized cattle, or whatever
objects of value they could get their hands on, to recoup their
loans as quickly as possible. This fostered a feeling of
resentment towards the Germans on the part of the Herero people,
which escalated to hopelessness when they saw that German
officials were sympathetic to the traders
...
The Herero judged the situation intolerable, and revolted in
early 1904, killing between 123 and 150 Germans, including seven
Boers and three women,[25]:74 in what Nils Ole Oermann calls a
"desperate surprise attack".[34]
The timing of their attack was carefully planned. After
successfully asking a large Herero clan to surrender their
weapons, Governor Leutwein was convinced that they and the rest
of the native population were essentially pacified and so
withdrew half of the German troops stationed in his
colony.[25]:56 Led by Chief Samuel Maharero, the Herero
surrounded Okahandja and cut links[clarification needed] to
Windhoek, the colonial capital. Maharero then issued a manifesto
in which he forbade his troops to kill any Englishmen, Boers,
uninvolved peoples, women and children in general, or German
missionaries.[25]:70 The Heroro revolts catalysed a separate
revolt and attack on Fort Namutoni in the north of the country a
few weeks later by the Ondonga.[35][36]
Leutwein was forced to request reinforcements and an experienced
officer from the German government in Berlin.[37]:604
Lieutenant-General Lothar von Trotha was appointed Supreme
Commander (German: Oberbefehlshaber) of South West Africa on 3
May 1904, arriving with an expeditionary force of 14,000 troops
on 11 June.
...
Leutwein wanted to defeat the most determined Herero rebels and
negotiate a surrender with the remainder to achieve a political
settlement.[37]:605 Trotha, however, planned to crush the native
resistance through military force. He stated that:
My intimate knowledge of many central African nations (Bantu and
others) has everywhere convinced me of the necessity that the
Negro does not respect treaties but only brute force.[19]
...
General Trotha stated his proposed solution to end the
resistance of the Herero people in a letter, before the Battle
of Waterberg:[38]:11
I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if
this was not possible by tactical measures, have to be expelled
from the country ... This will be possible if the water-holes
from Grootfontein to Gobabis are occupied. The constant movement
of our troops will enable us to find the small groups of this
nation who have moved backwards and destroy them gradually.
Trotha's troops defeated 3,000–5,000 Herero combatants at the
Battle of Waterberg on 11–12 August 1904 but were unable to
encircle and annihilate the retreating survivors.[37]:605
The pursuing German forces prevented groups of Herero from
breaking from the main body of the fleeing force and pushed them
further into the desert. As exhausted Herero fell to the ground,
unable to go on, German soldiers acting on orders killed men,
women, and children.[39]:22 Jan Cloete, acting as a guide for
the Germans, witnessed the atrocities committed by the German
troops and deposed the following statement:[32]:157
I was present when the Herero were defeated in a battle in the
vicinity of Waterberg. After the battle all men, women, and
children who fell into German hands, wounded or otherwise, were
mercilessly put to death. Then the Germans set off in pursuit of
the rest, and all those found by the wayside and in the sandveld
were shot down and bayoneted to death. The mass of the Herero
men were unarmed and thus unable to offer resistance. They were
just trying to get away with their cattle.
A portion of the Herero escaped the Germans and went to the
Omaheke Desert, hoping to reach British territory of
Bechuanaland; fewer than 1,000 reached Bechuanaland, where they
were granted asylum.[40] To prevent them from returning, Trotha
ordered the desert to be sealed off.[41] German patrols later
found skeletons around holes 13 metres (43 ft) deep that had
been dug in a vain attempt to find water. Some sources also
state that the German colonial army systematically poisoned
desert water wells.[39][39]:22[42] Maherero and 500–1,500 men
crossed the Kalahari into Bechuanaland where he was accepted as
a vassal of the Batswana chief Sekgoma.[43]
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.[46]
...
Trotha gave orders that captured Herero males were to be
executed, while women and children were to be driven into the
desert where their death from starvation and thirst was to be
certain; Trotha argued that there was no need to make exceptions
for Herero women and children, since these would "infect German
troops with their diseases", the insurrection Trotha explained
"is and remains the beginning of a racial struggle".[37]:605
Regardless, German soldiers regularly raped young Herero women
before killing them or letting them die in the desert.[47]:272
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."[39]
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.[48][49]
Alfred von Schlieffen (Chief of the Imperial German General
Staff) approved of Trotha's intentions in terms of a "racial
struggle" and the need to "wipe out the entire nation or to
drive them out of the country", but had doubts about his
strategy, preferring their surrender.[50]
Governor Leutwein, later relieved of his duties, complained to
Chancellor von Bülow about Trotha's actions, seeing the
general's orders as intruding upon the civilian colonial
jurisdiction and ruining any chance of a political
settlement.[37]:606 According to Professor Mahmood Mamdani from
Columbia University, opposition to the policy of annihilation
was largely the consequence of the fact that colonial officials
looked at the Herero people as a potential source of labour, and
thus economically important.[38]:12 For instance, Governor
Leutwein wrote that:
I do not concur with those fanatics who want to see the Herero
destroyed altogether ... I would consider such a move a grave
mistake from an economic point of view. We need the Herero as
cattle breeders ... and especially as labourers.[19]:169
Having no authority over the military, Chancellor Bülow could
only advise Emperor Wilhelm II that Trotha's actions were
"contrary to Christian and humanitarian principle, economically
devastating and damaging to Germany's international
reputation."[37]:606 Upon the arrival of new orders at the end
of 1904, prisoners were herded into concentration camps, where
they were given to private companies as slave labourers or
exploited as human guinea pigs in medical experiments.[8][51]
...
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.[54] The British
government published their well-known account of the German
genocide of the Nama and Herero peoples in 1918.[55]
Many Herero died later of disease, exhaustion, and
malnutrition.[56][57] Estimates of the mortality rate at the
camps are between 45%[58][59] and 74%.[30]:196–216[58][59]
Food in the camps was extremely scarce, consisting of rice with
no additions.[60]:92 As the prisoners lacked pots and the rice
they received was uncooked, it was indigestible; horses and oxen
that died in the camp were later distributed to the inmates as
food.[27]:75 Dysentery and lung diseases were common.[27]:76
Despite those conditions, the Herero were taken outside the camp
every day for labour under harsh treatment by the German guards,
while the sick were left without any medical assistance or
nursing care.[27]:76
Shootings, hangings, beatings, and other harsh treatment of the
forced labourers (including use of sjamboks) were
common.[27]:76[61] A 28 September 1905 article in the South
African newspaper Cape Argus detailed some of the abuse with the
heading: "In German S. W. Africa: Further Startling Allegations:
Horrible Cruelty". In an interview with Percival Griffith, "an
accountant of profession, who owing to hard times, took up on
transport work at Angra Pequena, Lüderitz", related his
experiences.
There are hundreds of them, mostly women and children and a few
old men ... when they fall they are sjamboked by the soldiers in
charge of the gang, with full force, until they get up ... On
one occasion I saw a woman carrying a child of under a year old
slung at her back, and with a heavy sack of grain on her head
... she fell. The corporal sjamboked her for certainly more than
four minutes and sjamboked the baby as well ... the woman
struggled slowly to her feet, and went on with her load. She did
not utter a sound the whole time, but the baby cried very
hard.[62]
During the war, a number of people from the Cape (in modern-day
South Africa) sought employment as transport riders for German
troops in Namibia. Upon their return to the Cape, some of these
people recounted their stories, including those of the
imprisonment and genocide of the Herero and Nama people. Fred
Cornell, a British aspirant diamond prospector, was in Lüderitz
when the Shark Island concentration camp was being used. Cornell
wrote of the camp:
Cold - for the nights are often bitterly cold there - hunger,
thirst, exposure, disease and madness claimed scores of victims
every day, and cartloads of their bodies were every day carted
over to the back beach, buried in a few inches of sand at low
tide, and as the tide came in the bodies went out, food for the
sharks.[62][63]
...
German Commander Von Estorff wrote in a report that
approximately 1700 prisoners (including 1203 Nama) had died by
April 1907. In December 1906, four months after their arrival,
291 Nama died (a rate of more than nine people per day).
Missionary reports put the death rate at 12–18 per day; as many
as 80% of the prisoners sent to Shark Island eventually died
there.[62]
There are accusations of Herero women being coerced into sex
slavery as a means of survival.[38]:12[65]
...
Benjamin Madley argues that although Shark Island is referred to
as a concentration camp, it functioned as an extermination camp
or death camp.[66][67][68]
...
Prisoners were used for medical experiments and their illnesses
or their recoveries from them were used for research.[69]
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.[18]:225
Experimentation with the dead body parts of the prisoners was
rife. Zoologist Leonhard Schultze (1872-1955)[70][better source
needed] noted taking "body parts from fresh native corpses"
which according to him was a "welcome addition," and he also
noted that he could use prisoners for that purpose.[71][/quote]
#Post#: 4984--------------------------------------------------
Re: South West Africa
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 20, 2021, 5:48 am
---------------------------------------------------------
OLD CONTENT contd.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Island_Concentration_Camp
[quote]Although there are records of Herero prisoners-of-war
being held in Lüderitz Bay as early as 1904, the first
references to a camp at Shark Island and the transfer of large
numbers of Herero prisoners from Keetmanshoop are in March
1905.[12] From early on, large numbers of Herero died in the
camp, with 59 men, 59 women and 73 children reportedly dying by
late May 1905.[13] Despite this high initial rate of mortality
on the island which, with its cold climate, was unsuitable for
habitation, particularly for people used to the dry, arid
climate of the veld, the German authorities continued to
transfer people from the interior to the island, ostensibly
because of a lack of food in the interior, but also because they
wished to use the prisoners as labour in constructing a railway
connecting Lüderitz with Aus.[14]
...
Word quickly spread among the Herero of the conditions at the
camp, with prisoners in other parts of German South West Africa
reportedly committing suicide rather than be deported to
Lüderitz due to the stories of harsh conditions there in late
1905.[15] The Cape Argus, a South African newspaper, also ran
stories describing terrible conditions at the camp in late
September 1905. One transport rider who was described as having
been employed at the camp in early 1905 was quoted as saying:
The women who are captured and not executed are set to work for
the military as prisoners ... saw numbers of them at Angra
Pequena (i.e., Lüderitz) put to the hardest work, and so starved
that they were nothing but skin and bones [...] They are given
hardly anything to eat, and I have very often seen them pick up
bits of refuse food thrown away by the transport riders. If they
are caught doing so, they are sjamboked (whipped).[16]
August Kuhlmann was one of the first civilians to visit the
camp. What he witnessed shocked him as he described in September
1905:
A woman, who was so weak from illness that she could not stand,
crawled to some of the other prisoners to beg for water. The
overseer fired five shots at her. Two shots hit her: one in the
thigh, the other smashing her forearm...in the night she
died.[17]
Many cases of rape of prisoners by Germans were reported at the
camp.[18] Although some of these cases did result in the
perpetrator being successfully punished where a "white champion"
took up the victim's cause, the majority of cases went
unpunished.[19]
Other factors such as minimal food rations, uncontrolled
diseases, and maltreatment led to high mortality rates.
Prisoners typically received a handful of uncooked rice.
Diseases such as typhoid spread quickly. Prisoners were
concentrated in large, unsanitary living quarters with low
medical attention. Beating occurred frequently as the German
officials often used the sjambok to force prisoners to work.
...
Whilst the Germans initially followed a policy of sending people
from the south to concentration camps in the north, and vice
versa,[20] meaning that Nama prisoners mostly went to
concentration camps around the city of Windhoek, by mid-1906
Germans in Windhoek were becoming increasingly concerned about
the presence of so many prisoners in their city. In response to
these concerns, in August 1906 the Germans began to transfer
Nama prisoners to Shark Island, sending them by cattle-car to
Swakopmund and then by sea to Lüderitz.[21] The Nama leader,
Samuel Isaak, protested this, saying that their transfer to
Lüderitz had not been part of the agreement under which they had
surrendered to the Germans, however, the Germans ignored these
protests.[21] By late 1906, 2,000 Nama were held prisoner on the
island.
...
The prisoners held on Shark Island were used as forced labour
throughout the camp's existence.[22] This labour was made
available by the German army Etappenkommando for use by private
companies throughout the Lüderitz area, working on
infrastructure projects such as railway construction, the
building of the harbour, and flattening and levelling Shark
Island through the use of explosives.[23] This highly dangerous
and physical work inevitably led to large-scale sickness and
death amongst the prisoners, with one German technician
complaining that the 1,600-strong Nama work force had shrunk to
a strength of only 30–40 available for work due to 7–8 deaths
occurring daily by late 1906.[24] The policy of forced labour
officially ended when prisoner-of-war status for the Herero and
Nama was revoked on 1 April 1908, although Herero and Nama
continued to labour on colonial projects after this.[25][/quote]
[quote]According to the Whitaker Report, the population of
80,000 Herero was reduced to 15,000 "starving refugees" between
1904 and 1907.[77]
...
With the closure of concentration camps, all surviving Herero
were distributed as labourers for settlers in the German colony.
From that time on, all Herero over the age of seven were forced
to wear a metal disc with their labour registration
number,[38]:12 and banned from owning land or cattle
...
The German losses were 676 soldiers killed in combat, 76
missing, and 689 dead from disease.[27]:88 The Reiterdenkmal
(English: Equestrian Monument) in Windhoek was erected in 1912
to celebrate the victory and to remember the fallen Germans with
no mention of the killed indigenous population.[/quote]
(So yes, the Holocaust was real. But its perpetrators were not
"Nazis", but colonial era Germans, and its victims were not
Jews, but Herero, Nama and other "black" people. But how many
people around the world have heard of this compared with the
fake Holohoax?)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_Island_Concentration_Camp
[quote]Although there are records of Herero prisoners-of-war
being held in Lüderitz Bay as early as 1904, the first
references to a camp at Shark Island and the transfer of large
numbers of Herero prisoners from Keetmanshoop are in March
1905.[12] From early on, large numbers of Herero died in the
camp, with 59 men, 59 women and 73 children reportedly dying by
late May 1905.[13] Despite this high initial rate of mortality
on the island which, with its cold climate, was unsuitable for
habitation, particularly for people used to the dry, arid
climate of the veld, the German authorities continued to
transfer people from the interior to the island, ostensibly
because of a lack of food in the interior, but also because they
wished to use the prisoners as labour in constructing a railway
connecting Lüderitz with Aus.[14]
...
Word quickly spread among the Herero of the conditions at the
camp, with prisoners in other parts of German South West Africa
reportedly committing suicide rather than be deported to
Lüderitz due to the stories of harsh conditions there in late
1905.[15] The Cape Argus, a South African newspaper, also ran
stories describing terrible conditions at the camp in late
September 1905. One transport rider who was described as having
been employed at the camp in early 1905 was quoted as saying:
The women who are captured and not executed are set to work for
the military as prisoners ... saw numbers of them at Angra
Pequena (i.e., Lüderitz) put to the hardest work, and so starved
that they were nothing but skin and bones [...] They are given
hardly anything to eat, and I have very often seen them pick up
bits of refuse food thrown away by the transport riders. If they
are caught doing so, they are sjamboked (whipped).[16]
August Kuhlmann was one of the first civilians to visit the
camp. What he witnessed shocked him as he described in September
1905:
A woman, who was so weak from illness that she could not stand,
crawled to some of the other prisoners to beg for water. The
overseer fired five shots at her. Two shots hit her: one in the
thigh, the other smashing her forearm...in the night she
died.[17]
Many cases of rape of prisoners by Germans were reported at the
camp.[18] Although some of these cases did result in the
perpetrator being successfully punished where a "white champion"
took up the victim's cause, the majority of cases went
unpunished.[19]
Other factors such as minimal food rations, uncontrolled
diseases, and maltreatment led to high mortality rates.
Prisoners typically received a handful of uncooked rice.
Diseases such as typhoid spread quickly. Prisoners were
concentrated in large, unsanitary living quarters with low
medical attention. Beating occurred frequently as the German
officials often used the sjambok to force prisoners to work.
...
Whilst the Germans initially followed a policy of sending people
from the south to concentration camps in the north, and vice
versa,[20] meaning that Nama prisoners mostly went to
concentration camps around the city of Windhoek, by mid-1906
Germans in Windhoek were becoming increasingly concerned about
the presence of so many prisoners in their city. In response to
these concerns, in August 1906 the Germans began to transfer
Nama prisoners to Shark Island, sending them by cattle-car to
Swakopmund and then by sea to Lüderitz.[21] The Nama leader,
Samuel Isaak, protested this, saying that their transfer to
Lüderitz had not been part of the agreement under which they had
surrendered to the Germans, however, the Germans ignored these
protests.[21] By late 1906, 2,000 Nama were held prisoner on the
island.
...
The prisoners held on Shark Island were used as forced labour
throughout the camp's existence.[22] This labour was made
available by the German army Etappenkommando for use by private
companies throughout the Lüderitz area, working on
infrastructure projects such as railway construction, the
building of the harbour, and flattening and levelling Shark
Island through the use of explosives.[23] This highly dangerous
and physical work inevitably led to large-scale sickness and
death amongst the prisoners, with one German technician
complaining that the 1,600-strong Nama work force had shrunk to
a strength of only 30–40 available for work due to 7–8 deaths
occurring daily by late 1906.[24] The policy of forced labour
officially ended when prisoner-of-war status for the Herero and
Nama was revoked on 1 April 1908, although Herero and Nama
continued to labour on colonial projects after this.[25][/quote]
[quote]According to the Whitaker Report, the population of
80,000 Herero was reduced to 15,000 "starving refugees" between
1904 and 1907.[77]
...
With the closure of concentration camps, all surviving Herero
were distributed as labourers for settlers in the German colony.
From that time on, all Herero over the age of seven were forced
to wear a metal disc with their labour registration
number,[38]:12 and banned from owning land or cattle
...
The German losses were 676 soldiers killed in combat, 76
missing, and 689 dead from disease.[27]:88 The Reiterdenkmal
(English: Equestrian Monument) in Windhoek was erected in 1912
to celebrate the victory and to remember the fallen Germans with
no mention of the killed indigenous population.[/quote]
(So yes, the Holocaust was real. But its perpetrators were not
"Nazis", but colonial era Germans, and its victims were not
Jews, but Herero, Nama and other "black" people. But how many
people around the world have heard of this compared with the
fake Holohoax?)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_Africa
[quote]In 1915, during South West Africa Campaign of World War
I, South Africa captured the German colony. After the war, it
was declared a League of Nations Class C Mandate territory under
the Treaty of Versailles, with the Union of South Africa
responsible for the administration of South West Africa.
...
The Prime Minister, Jan Smuts, objected to South West Africa
coming under UN control and refused to allow the territory's
transition to independence, instead seeking to make it South
Africa's fifth province in 1946.[7]
Although this never occurred, in 1949, the South West Africa
Affairs Act was amended to give representation in the Parliament
of South Africa to whites in South West Africa, which gave them
six seats in the House of Assembly and four in the Senate.[8]
This was to the advantage of the National Party, which enjoyed
strong support from the predominantly Afrikaner and ethnic
German white population in the territory.[9] Between 1950 and
1977, all of South West Africa's parliamentary seats were held
by the National Party.[10][/quote]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia#South_African_mandate
[quote]South Africa began imposing apartheid, its codified
system of racial segregation and discrimination, on South West
Africa during the late 1940s.[36] Black South West Africans were
subject to pass laws, curfews, and a host of draconian
residential regulations that heavily restricted their movement.
Development was concentrated in the region of the country
immediately adjacent to South Africa, formally denoted as the
"Police Zone", where most of the German colonial era settlements
and mines were also located. Outside the Police Zone, indigenous
peoples were restricted to theoretically self-governing tribal
homelands.[37][/quote]
NEVER FORGIVE. NEVER FORGET.
#Post#: 4985--------------------------------------------------
Re: South West Africa
By: 90sRetroFan Date: March 20, 2021, 5:49 am
---------------------------------------------------------
OLD CONTENT contd.
Finally:
[quote]During the late 1950s and early 1960s, pressure for
global decolonisation and national self-determination began
mounting on the African continent; these factors had a radical
impact on South West African nationalism. Early nationalist
organisations such as the South West African National Union
(SWANU) and South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO)
made determined attempts to establish indigenous political
structures for an independent South West Africa.[38] In 1966,
following the ICJ's controversial ruling that it had no legal
standing to consider the question of South African rule, SWAPO
launched an armed insurgency which escalated into part of a
wider regional conflict known as the South African Border
War.[39][/quote]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Border_War#Internal_oppositi
on_to_South_African_rule
[quote]Modelled after Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the
African National Congress,[47] the South West African Liberation
Army (SWALA) was formed by SWAPO in 1962.
...
In November 1960, Ethiopia and Liberia had formally petitioned
the ICJ for a binding judgement, rather than an advisory
opinion, on whether South Africa remained fit to govern South
West Africa. Both nations made it clear that they considered the
implementation of apartheid to be a violation of Pretoria's
obligations as a mandatory power.[46]
...
Around March 1962 SWAPO president Sam Nujoma visited the party's
refugee camps across Tanzania, describing his recent petitions
for South West African independence at the Non-Aligned Movement
and the UN. He pointed out that independence was unlikely in the
foreseeable future, predicting a "long and bitter struggle".[15]
Nujoma personally directed two exiles in Dar es Salaam, Lucas
Pohamba and Elia Muatale, to return to South West Africa,
infiltrate Ovamboland and send back more potential recruits for
SWALA.[15] Over the next few years Pohamba and Muatale
successfully recruited hundreds of volunteers from the
Ovamboland countryside, most of whom were shipped to Eastern
Europe for guerrilla training.[15] Between July 1962 and October
1963 SWAPO negotiated military alliances with other
anti-colonial movements, namely in Angola.[5] It also absorbed
the separatist Caprivi African National Union (CANU), which was
formed to combat South African rule in the Caprivi Strip.[14]
Outside the Soviet bloc, Egypt continued training SWALA
personnel. By 1964 others were also being sent to Ghana,
Algeria, the People's Republic of China, and North Korea for
military instruction.[15] In June of that year, SWAPO confirmed
that it was irrevocably committed to the course of armed
revolution.[5]
...
In September 1965, the first cadre of six SWALA guerrillas,
identified simply as "Group 1", departed the Kongwa refugee camp
to infiltrate South West Africa.[14][2] Group 1 trekked first
into Angola, before crossing the border into the Caprivi
Strip.[2] Encouraged by South Africa's apparent failure to
detect the initial incursion, larger cadres made their own
infiltration attempts in February and March 1966.[5] The second
cadre, "Group 2", was led by Leonard Philemon Shuuya,[5] also
known by the nom de guerre "Castro" or "Leonard Nangolo".[14]
Group 2 apparently become lost in Angola before it was able to
cross the border, and the cadre dispersed after an incident in
which the guerrillas killed two shopkeepers and a vagrant.[2]
Three were arrested by the Portuguese colonial authorities in
Angola, working off tips received from local civilians.[2]
Another eight, including Shuuya,[5] had been captured between
March and May by the South African police, apparently in
Kavangoland.[14] Shuuya later resurfaced at Kongwa, claiming to
have escaped his captors after his arrest. He helped plan two
further incursions: a third SWALA group entered Ovamboland that
July, while a fourth was scheduled to follow in September.[5]
On 18 July 1966, the ICJ ruled that it had no authority to
decide on the South West African affair. Furthermore, the court
found that while Ethiopia and Liberia had locus standi to
institute proceedings on the matter, neither had enough vested
legal interest in South West Africa to entitle them to a
judgement of merits.[55] This ruling was met with great
indignation by SWAPO and the OAU.[48] SWAPO officials
immediately issued a statement from Dar es Salaam declaring that
they now had "no alternative but to rise in arms" and "cross
rivers of blood" in their march towards freedom.[15] Upon
receiving the news SWALA escalated its insurgency.[48] Its third
cadre, which had infiltrated Ovamboland in July, attacked
white-owned farms, traditional Ovambo leaders perceived as South
African agents, and a border post.[5] The guerrillas set up camp
at Omugulugwombashe, one of five potential bases identified by
SWALA's initial reconnaissance team as appropriate sites to
train future recruits.[5] Here, they drilled up to thirty local
volunteers between September 1965 and August 1966.[5] South
African intelligence became aware of the camp by mid 1966 and
identified its general location.[15] On 26 August 1966, the
first major clash of the conflict took place when South African
paratroops and paramilitary police units executed Operation
Blouwildebees to capture or kill the insurgents.[54] SWALA had
dug trenches around Omugulugwombashe for defensive purposes, but
was taken by surprise and most of the cadre was quickly
overpowered.[54] The South Africans killed two guerrillas,
wounded one, and captured eight more.[54] This engagement is
widely regarded as the start of what became known in South
Africa as the Border War, and according to SWAPO, officially
marked the beginning of its revolutionary armed
struggle.[15][56]
...
As the war intensified, South Africa's case for annexation in
the international community continued to decline, coinciding
with an unparalleled wave of sympathy for SWAPO.[41] Despite the
ICJ's advisory opinions to the contrary, as well as the
dismissal of the case presented by Ethiopia and Liberia, the UN
declared that South Africa had failed in its obligations to
ensure the moral and material well-being of the indigenous
inhabitants of South West Africa, and had thus disavowed its own
mandate.[58] The UN thereby assumed that the mandate was
terminated, which meant South Africa had no further right to
administer the territory, and that henceforth South West Africa
would come under the direct responsibility of the General
Assembly.[58] The post of United Nations Commissioner for South
West Africa was created, as well as an ad hoc council, to
recommend practical means for local administration.[58] South
Africa maintained it did not recognise the jurisdiction of the
UN with regards to the mandate and refused visas to the
commissioner or the council.[58] On 12 June 1968, the UN General
Assembly adopted a resolution which proclaimed that, in
accordance with the desires of its people, South West Africa be
renamed Namibia.[58] United Nations Security Council Resolution
269, adopted in August 1969, declared South Africa's continued
occupation of "Namibia" illegal.[58][59] In recognition of the
UN's decision, SWALA was renamed the People's Liberation Army of
Namibia.[14]
...
mines were strategically placed along roads to hamper police
convoys or throw them into disarray prior to an ambush;
guerrillas also laid others along their infiltration routes on
the long border with Angola.[61] The proliferation of mines in
South West Africa initially resulted in heavy police casualties
and would become one of the most defining features of PLAN's war
effort for the next two decades.[61]
...
Swelled by thousands of new recruits and an increasingly
sophisticated arsenal of heavy weapons, PLAN undertook more
direct confrontations with the security forces in 1973.[62]
Insurgent activity took the form of ambushes and selective
target attacks, particularly in the Caprivi near the Zambian
border.[66] On the evening of 26 January 1973 a heavily armed
cadre of about 50 PLAN insurgents attacked a police base at
Singalamwe, Caprivi with mortars, machine guns, and a single
tube, man portable rocket launcher.[59][67] The police were
ill-equipped to repel the attack and the base soon caught fire
due to the initial rocket bombardment, which incapacitated both
the senior officer and his second in command.[67] This marked
the beginning of a new phase of the South African Border War in
which the scope and intensity of PLAN raids was greatly
increased.[54] By the end of 1973, PLAN's insurgency had
engulfed six regions: Caprivi, Ovamboland, Kaokoland, and
Kavangoland.[54] It had also successfully recruited another
2,400 Ovambo and 600 Caprivian guerrillas.[59] PLAN reports from
late 1973 indicate that the militants planned to open up two new
fronts in central South West Africa and carry out acts of urban
insurrection in Windhoek, Walvis Bay, and other major urban
centres.[54]
...
Another significant factor of the physical environment was South
West Africa's limited road network. The main arteries for SADF
bases on the border were two highways leading west to Ruacana
and north to Oshikango, and a third which stretched from
Grootfontein through Kavangoland to Rundu.[32] Much of this
vital road infrastructure was vulnerable to guerrilla sabotage:
innumerable road culverts and bridges were blown up and rebuilt
multiple times over the course of the war.[54][103] After their
destruction PLAN saboteurs sowed the surrounding area with land
mines to catch the South African engineers sent to repair
them.[29] One of the most routine tasks for local sector troops
was a morning patrol along their assigned stretch of highway to
check for mines or overnight sabotage.[29] Despite their efforts
it was nearly impossible to guard or patrol the almost limitless
number of vulnerable points on the road network, and losses from
mines mounted steadily; for instance in 1977 the SADF suffered
16 deaths due to mined roads.[62] Aside from road sabotage, the
SADF was also forced to contend with regular ambushes of both
military and civilian traffic throughout Ovamboland.[29]
...
South Africa pledged to begin bestowing independence on South
West Africa by 1 November 1989.
...
South West Africa formally obtained independence as the Republic
of Namibia on 21 March 1990.[175][/quote]
Well done Non-Aligned Movement! (Cuba played an especially
important role, though not mentioned here because its
involvement was more relevant to Angola, which is another
story.)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement
This is a good example of multinational anti-colonialist
collaboration that should continue to inspire us.
#Post#: 6782--------------------------------------------------
Germany officially recognizes colonial-era Namibia genocide
By: guest5 Date: May 29, 2021, 3:47 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Germany officially recognizes colonial-era Namibia genocide
[quote]Germany on Friday formally recognized as genocide the
crimes committed by its colonial troops at the beginning of the
20th century against the Herero and Nama people in what is now
Namibia.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) said in a statement that as a
"gesture of recognition of the immeasurable suffering" Germany
caused, it would set up a fund amounting to €1.1 billion (US $
1.34 billion). Affected communities would play a key role in
deciding what the funds were used for, the Foreign Ministry said
in a statement, while legal claims for compensation would not be
deducted from it.
The aim of the negotiations that lasted more than half a decade
was "to find a common path to genuine reconciliation in memory
of the victims," Maas explained.
The foreign minister said that representative of the Herero and
Nama communities were closely involved in negotiations with
Namibia lasting more than five years.
Germany began talks with the Namibian government in 2015 on what
was termed a "future-oriented reappraisal of German colonial
rule.''
Germany's former development minister, Heidemarie
Wieczorek-Zeul, offered her country's first apology for the
killings on a trip to Namibia in 2004, where she said the
country's actions would be seen as genocidal in today's terms.
The declaration is expected to be signed by Maas in the Namibian
capital, Windhoek, in early June.
Parliaments in both countries must then ratify the declaration.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is then expected to officially
apologize for Germany's crimes in front of the Namibian
Parliament.
The German Empire was the colonial power in what was then called
German South West Africa from 1884 to 1915.
During that time, its military forces brutally put down several
rebellions, killing tens of thousands of people.
German General Lothar von Trotha, who was sent to quell a Herero
uprising in 1904, was particularly known for his extreme
ruthlessness.
Historians generally accept that up to 65,000 of roughly 80,000
Herero people living in the area at the time, and at least
10,000 of the roughly 20,000 Nama people, were killed.[/quote]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqjacCNhgO0
#Post#: 6911--------------------------------------------------
Re: South West Africa
By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 5, 2021, 12:22 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Good to see Namibia not fooled:
HTML https://us.yahoo.com/news/viewpoint-why-germanys-namibia-genocide-001947186.html
[quote]Why Germany's Namibia genocide apology is not enough
Germany's long-awaited apology for last century's mass killing
in Namibia has opened fresh questions about how Europe confronts
its colonial past in Africa, argues Namibian analyst Emsie
Erastus.
...
The media announcement on Friday was stage craft at its best: a
carefully compiled statement seemingly to avoid any legal
culpability. It came as the largest faction within the Ovaherero
community continue to pursue attempts to sue the German state
for the genocide.
The message was intended for a sceptical German audience that,
according to multiple studies, has little remembrance of the
killings or of the country's past as a powerful colonial force
with dominion over modern-day Togo, Namibia, Burundi, and
Tanzania.
'Hollow declaration'
In terms of fully acknowledging its colonial past in Namibia,
Germany has always been reluctant to do so. This is despite
providing development support to successive administrations
since Namibia's independence in 1990.
...
Germany made it clear that it is willing to atone for its
colonial crimes "without sparing or glossing over them".
But the country also needs to come to terms with the origins of
a racialised view of the world, placing Western authorities at
the top and Africans at the bottom.
'Patronising aid'
In the colonial era, Africans were regarded as "barbarians" who
lacked the abilities to bring about economic and technological
change, justifying the intervention of the imperial powers.
This view defined how the West perceived and presented Africa in
the past, and the echoes of that view may be found today.
Development aid can still be presented in a patronising way,
maintaining an unequal relationship.
If it is being seen as an alternative to reparations, with fewer
legal ramifications, it does not dismantle the relationship that
allowed the genocide to happen in the first place.[/quote]
We do not want money. We want justice.
#Post#: 7040--------------------------------------------------
Re: South West Africa
By: 90sRetroFan Date: June 10, 2021, 2:09 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-acknowledges-colonial-era-genocide-164238547.html
[quote]As Germany Acknowledges Its Colonial-Era Genocide in
Namibia, the Brutal Legacy of Diamond Mining Still Needs a
Reckoning
...
Millions of carats in diamonds have been exported from Namibia
since 1908. These same sparkling stones have a dirty history
tied to German colonial rule. Right now, official statements
about Germany’s debt to Namibia do not account for those
gemstones at all. The debt Germany owes is construed as limited
to the recognized period of genocide—even though the real money
that Germans made and controlled in Namibia came after 1908, and
the process of making that money implicated many parts of the
world in a deadly, brutal colonial process. We cannot really
assess what Germany and the world “owe” Namibia until we
consider this economic dimension of the past.
...
Germans began settling in Southwest Africa with the conviction
that diamonds would turn up there, because of the Namib desert’s
proximity to lucrative South African mines. Adolf Lüderitz, the
“founder” of the German colony in Namibia, conned indigenous
leaders out of their land. But his hunt for diamonds proved
fruitless—and, in fact, he died while prospecting.
Lüderitz’s successors hunted clues, spurred on by gemstones that
sporadically popped up in the hands of indigenous traders and
European missionaries. Backed by major German banks, some
Germans sought to colonize stretches of land judged likely to
contain diamond mines. Between 1904 and 1907, a dozen spots
taken from slaughtered Herero and Nama people—the victims of the
recently acknowledged genocide—were identified by engineers as
containing “blue ground,” a type of rock that had so far
accompanied all diamond finds in South Africa. German Emperor
William II viewed documents on this subject around the same time
as he backed an infamous “extermination order” from his
now-reviled general, Lothar von Trotha. People can view the
correspondence today in the Berlin-based archives of the German
state.
In 1908, when Germans at last found major reserves of
diamonds—in sand dunes, not underground mines—they discovered
quantities so massive as to allow for more than a century of
continual mining. Insiders confirmed to a consortium of German
financiers that billions of dollars’ worth of diamonds (in 1908
terms!) lay buried in the shifting sands of the Namib desert.
Germany, owing to its colonial occupation of Namibia, suddenly
controlled as much as 30% of the world’s diamond supply. There
was major money at stake. And there was a compelling new reason
for Germans to continue, and legally endorse, violent acts that
left Germans as owners of nearly all Namibian property.
Chillingly, the core of the nascent German diamond business, a
boomtown oceanside settlement grandiosely named Lüderitz, served
as the site for a German concentration camp imprisoning Nama and
Herero from 1904 to 1908.
As the German government sought to monetize Namibian diamonds
after 1908, they had to assemble a workforce but, owing to the
genocide, found few Nama and Herero willing or able to
participate. The “solution” was the importation of tens of
thousands of additional African workers. The largest such group
consisted of Ovambo people, who were indigenous to Southwest
Africa but lived in an area to the Namib desert’s north, outside
German colonial control. Starting in 1908, many Ovambos traveled
to diamond fields hoping they could send their wages home to
families devastated by drought and harvest failure. Once
arrived, though, the workers met with a nightmare. Living
conditions were abysmal, beatings and contractual fraud were
rampant, and death rates grew so high as to rival those of the
genocide. The diamond industry established under German colonial
rule perpetuated a relationship between violence and profits.
And Namibian diamonds became “blood” or “conflict” diamonds,
before the concept existed.
...
Today, conversations in Germany about Namibia tend to operate
within established parameters, concentrating on moral debt to
the descendants of the Nama and Herero, the indigenous peoples
nearly wiped out between 1904 and 1908, and on the repatriation
of Namibian cultural artifacts sitting in German museums. While
these emphases are proper, the conversation is incomplete if it
doesn’t also include economic history. As with Namibian land—the
large majority of which still rests in European hands—ownership
of Namibian diamond wealth was effectively seized by Germans
before, during and after the genocide. Later, as German rule
started to collapse in World War I, control of diamond rights in
Namibia was sold to South Africans at prices generous enough to
make many millionaires.
It is crucial to remember that, absent German colonial violence,
lasting transfers of wealth from Namibia would not have occurred
in the way they did. It is also important for global consumers
to realize how they and their ancestors might have played an
unwitting role in this tragedy.
Though brief in its duration, German colonialism in Namibia
proved economically significant—for Germans, for Africans and
for global commodity chains connected to the United States.
Germany’s official conversation about genocide has made notable
progress. But Namibia, and the world, need more.[/quote]
Which is not to say that Namibians should demand to be paid a
monetary sum for the diamonds, which would require messy
estimates of how much in today's money would be equivalent to
the value of the diamonds back then. Instead, since the profit
from the diamond trade was spent on building up Germany,
Namibians should demand German citizenship.
#Post#: 18997--------------------------------------------------
Re: South West Africa
By: 90sRetroFan Date: April 22, 2023, 11:38 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgyOYdxirxk
We need:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/decolonized-housing-(america-edition)/
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/statue-decolonization/
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/name-decolonization/
And Sadlowski (as well as all other remaining colonialists,
including those who own the 70% of farmland) should be
exterminated ASAP (preferably as painfully as possible).
#Post#: 19007--------------------------------------------------
Re: South West Africa
By: antihellenistic Date: April 24, 2023, 5:50 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=90sRetroFan link=topic=583.msg18997#msg18997
date=1682224715]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgyOYdxirxk
We need:
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/decolonized-housing-(america-edition)/
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/statue-decolonization/
HTML https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/name-decolonization/
And Sadlowski (as well as all other remaining colonialists,
including those who own the 70% of farmland) should be
exterminated ASAP (preferably as painfully as possible).
[/quote]
Answering Norbert Sadlowski, we don't want every root of Jewish
and White history to be judged positively or to be preserved.
Even Hitler considers the Whites and Jews themselves a negative
creatures you know.
#Post#: 25205--------------------------------------------------
Re: Colonial Crimes
By: Schwartze Katze Date: February 25, 2024, 2:58 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Is Germany’s other genocide being forgotten? | The Listening
Post
[quote]Germany’s genocide in Namibia early in the 20th century
has long been a misremembered episode in colonial history.
Despite efforts to correct the record, many are yet to hear the
testimonies of the victimised communities: the Herero and Nama
peoples.[/quote]
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGEMnxyJCw
Comments:
[quote]Al Jazeera is doing humanity a great service by exposing
such past horrors.[/quote]
[quote]Only when lions have historians, will hunters cease being
heroes. - African Proverb[/quote]
[quote]Some wisdom for Africa : Colonizers were wildly
successful, dominating much of the world. Crying about their
morals now is like to a brick wall, Africa should find better
things to do like not enslaving their own people, which is
happening today in Africa[/quote]
[quote]Much of the non-western world is still psychologically,
socially, legally, dietary, diplomatically, re-productively,
academically, and linguistically colonized by western culture.
The non-western world must decolonize before they can seriously
solve any of their other problems.[/quote]
[quote]This was an intentional genocide by Germany, the other
one not so much. Typhus moves through concentration camps quick,
especially during war time. Hitler was clearly
anti-colonial...[/quote]
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