Repatriation deal at the centre of a storm

WITH the German government assigning the head of the Charite Institute to sign over 20 historical skulls for repatriation, Youth and Culture Minister Kazenambo Kazenambo in turn refused to sign the repatriation agreement. Instead, the Head of the National Museum of Namibia, Esther Moombola-//Goagoses, signed on his behalf.

The Minister in terms of an agreement between the Namibia and German governments was supposed to sign for the repatriation of the skulls with his German counterpart or any other designated German official.

The German Government delegated the signing of the handing-over document to the Chief Executive Officer of the Charite University Hospital, Professor Dr Karl Max Einhaupl. In terms of the agreement, “the German government will only facilitate the identification of human remains of Namibian origin located in German institutions and the repatriation of such remains from Germany to Namibia.”

Kazenambo, on the occasion of the official signing over of the skulls, said: “The Namibian Government and its people will never forget the dark colonial chapter in the then-German South West Africa that was characterised by repression and brutality against the indigenous population.” And the ceremony was marred by protests of the German Alliance of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) demanding immediate reparation for the descendants of the exterminated OvaHerero and Nama people.

“It is historically recorded that numerous atrocities were committed in Namibia during the German colonial period,” Kazenambo said, adding that the atrocities reached their peak after a German General, Adrian Dietrich Lothar von Trotha, took over from Theodor Leutwein.

According to Kazenambo, Von Trotha had a reputation for ruthlessness and he had unfl inchingly ordered mass hangings and the summary execution of prisoners of war.

“He burned down entire villages, sometimes with the inhabitants still in the villages,” said Kazenambo. According to the Minister, Von Trotha’s treatment of the indigenous people was so extreme that it even drew opposition from the then-Governor of German East Africa, Hermann von Wissmann. Kazenambo told the audience that Von Trotha issued the infamous extermination order against the OvaHerero and Nama people with the blessing of the then-German Colonial Government. The extermination order, Kazenambo said, resulted in thousands of innocent indigenous Namibians being killed, tortured and injured by German colonial soldiers.

The Minister pointed out that the majority of Von Trotha’s victims were innocent civilians, mostly indigenous women and children.

“It is in this context, these human skulls that are about to be repatriated to Namibia were illegally brought from Namibia to Germany,” Kazenambo stated.

The returning of the 20 skulls to Namibia, he said, marks the first step in the repatriation of all Namibian remains which are still kept in Germany. Speaking at the same event, the German Minister of State (equivalent to a Permanent Secretary) of the Foreign Office, Cornelia Pieper, concentrated her speech on what she termed ‘good bilateral relations’ between Germany and Namibia, which resulted in the government of Germany’s continuous development assistance to Namibia.

Pieper left immediately after delivering her speech in German.