28 May - A rejoinder to Mitiri Festus Muundjua on the closure of concentration camps
OPINION
Please allow me a rejoinder to the article that appeared in Namibian Sun under the heading '28 May is not the date the concentration camps were ordered to close', written by Mitiri Festus U Muundjua.
Mititiri Muundjua is a person I respect, as I do anyone who is twenty years my senior. However, without checking the facts with Swanu or with me, he opted to play to the gallery.
But in whose interest?
This behaviour, therefore, calls for a rejoinder to dispel the myths, untruths and propaganda about the non-existence of the day of 28 May in 1908 in respect of the closure of the concentration camps.
The rejoinder will also demonstrate that the day of 1st April 1908 that he purports to be the closure of concentration camps is a fallacy and a deliberate distortion of facts.
Without bothering you with the myriad archival sources at the Namibia National Archive, let me refer you to a source that I trust you have on your desk – ‘...the closing of the concentration camps on the 28th of May, 1908’ (Koesler (2015, pg 1, Namibia and Germany Negotiating the Past).
"In 1908 (28 May), the German colonial administration dissolved the concentration camps that had been erected by order of Berlin on 9 December 1904."
Mitiri Muundjua says the month of May was never mentioned in the literature regarding the concentration camps.
To the contrary, May, in the documents at the National Archive, has been mentioned several times.
The orders to close the concentration camps in 1908 were postponed several times due to technical and logistical constraints.
In this respect, consult the Namibia National Archive (ZBU, 456, D-IV-I-3-6p088).
Further, in anticipation of the imminent release of the prisoners, the colonial secretary Bernhard Dernbusg addressed the Bundestag on the 19 May 1908 on what he thought to be the new relations between prisoners to be released and the new employers including the role of the native commissioners in this regard.
These show again that the month of May was mentioned in this regard several times.
Read the literature
My advice: please visit the National Archives if you are to engage in discourse about the matters of the day and genocide in general – the original documents are freely available.
That is what genocide historians ought to do.
The work of G Pool (Samuel Maharero), which you have referenced, stopped at the original order of 18 January 1908, J. No 1713. You did not follow up with research to find out if the order was implemented on that day or not.
On 26 April 2016, I, on behalf of Swanu of Namibia, dared to challenge the spectres of our past in the National Assembly.
The unanimous agreement reached in March 2020 by all political parties in parliament to designate 28 May as our Genocide Remembrance Day was preceded by an inclusive, countrywide consultation with all stakeholders.
Mitiri Muundjua, then patron of the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation (under the Ovaherero Traditional Authority), supported the submission to the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, stating:
"It is a day that is common to, especially for the foremost affected communities, the Ovaherero and Nama people, who were incarcerated in those concentration camps, in which many of them succumbed".
Mitiri Muundjua is now abandoning this position for reasons known only to himself and his ilk.
If he continues on this trajectory, we are likely to witness further disunity and division among the Ovaherero, as well as between the Ovaherero and Nama peoples.
Mititiri Muundjua is a person I respect, as I do anyone who is twenty years my senior. However, without checking the facts with Swanu or with me, he opted to play to the gallery.
But in whose interest?
This behaviour, therefore, calls for a rejoinder to dispel the myths, untruths and propaganda about the non-existence of the day of 28 May in 1908 in respect of the closure of the concentration camps.
The rejoinder will also demonstrate that the day of 1st April 1908 that he purports to be the closure of concentration camps is a fallacy and a deliberate distortion of facts.
Without bothering you with the myriad archival sources at the Namibia National Archive, let me refer you to a source that I trust you have on your desk – ‘...the closing of the concentration camps on the 28th of May, 1908’ (Koesler (2015, pg 1, Namibia and Germany Negotiating the Past).
"In 1908 (28 May), the German colonial administration dissolved the concentration camps that had been erected by order of Berlin on 9 December 1904."
Mitiri Muundjua says the month of May was never mentioned in the literature regarding the concentration camps.
To the contrary, May, in the documents at the National Archive, has been mentioned several times.
The orders to close the concentration camps in 1908 were postponed several times due to technical and logistical constraints.
In this respect, consult the Namibia National Archive (ZBU, 456, D-IV-I-3-6p088).
Further, in anticipation of the imminent release of the prisoners, the colonial secretary Bernhard Dernbusg addressed the Bundestag on the 19 May 1908 on what he thought to be the new relations between prisoners to be released and the new employers including the role of the native commissioners in this regard.
These show again that the month of May was mentioned in this regard several times.
Read the literature
My advice: please visit the National Archives if you are to engage in discourse about the matters of the day and genocide in general – the original documents are freely available.
That is what genocide historians ought to do.
The work of G Pool (Samuel Maharero), which you have referenced, stopped at the original order of 18 January 1908, J. No 1713. You did not follow up with research to find out if the order was implemented on that day or not.
On 26 April 2016, I, on behalf of Swanu of Namibia, dared to challenge the spectres of our past in the National Assembly.
The unanimous agreement reached in March 2020 by all political parties in parliament to designate 28 May as our Genocide Remembrance Day was preceded by an inclusive, countrywide consultation with all stakeholders.
Mitiri Muundjua, then patron of the Ovaherero and Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation (under the Ovaherero Traditional Authority), supported the submission to the Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, stating:
"It is a day that is common to, especially for the foremost affected communities, the Ovaherero and Nama people, who were incarcerated in those concentration camps, in which many of them succumbed".
Mitiri Muundjua is now abandoning this position for reasons known only to himself and his ilk.
If he continues on this trajectory, we are likely to witness further disunity and division among the Ovaherero, as well as between the Ovaherero and Nama peoples.
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