KHORIXAS – The Secretary General of the Damara King’s Council, Abner Xoagub recently reiterated that his tribe wants an apology from Namas and Ovaherero for the alleged enslavement and killing of the Damara people in the 13th century at the hands of these Namibian ethnic groups.
“They must apologize to us (Damaras). We might accept that (apology) even if we are not compensated,” Xoagub said.
Xoagub said that since Ovaherero and Namas are using United Nations and courts in America to demand for reparations from German, the Damara Slavery and Genocide Committee also wants the Ovaherero and the Damaras to compensate them for the mass killings and enslavement of their people.
Xoagub said that they need to approach international lawyers to help them deal with this issue.
He said in 2015, the Damara Slavery and Genocide Committee consisting of fourteen people was set up in Khorixas to look into the issue. According to him, Namas and Hereros sold Damaras for iron making in the Cape Colony as well as later to the Germans. “Since Damaras were good at iron making and were sought in the Cape Colony they were sold there,” Xoagub said.
Some of the Damara people are said to have been sold to distant West African country such as Cameroon. The alleged enslavement of Damara tribal people is said to have begun in the 13th century.
“When whites commit atrocities against blacks then it is addressed but when blacks does that against fellow blacks then such issues are not addressed,” lamented Xoagub.
The secretary general of the Damara King’s Council claimed the Ovaherero tribe copied of the ‘holy fire’ and the traditional headdress (known by Ovaherero as Otjikaiva) from the Damara tribe.
“They build on our cultural practices and claimed it is theirs,” Xoagub thundered.
Xoagub feels the Damaras have a strong reparation claim against the Namas, Ovaherero, South Africans and the Germans for the enslavement of their people.
He also said in the ongoing genocide discussions, both Namas and Ovaherero have sidelined the Damaras despite what he says some of the skulls repatriated from German belong to Namas.
The Damara Ancestral Land Technical Committee will also be strengthened and will look into ancestral land claims, and it will report back to the Damara People’s Assembly.
Different sub groups from Damara will be represented on the Damara Ancestral Land Technical Committee; Damara tribe has thirty sub groups of which about eight are recognized by the government.