WINDHOEK – Unlike the 2011 episode where over 7000 people flocked to both the Hosea Kutako International Airport and Parliament Gardens to receive 20 skulls of Namibian
origin from Germany, only a few hundred people showed up at the Parliament Gardens
to view the second consignment of human remains to be repatriated last Friday.
Thirty-five skulls and two skeletons of Namibians who were killed by imperial Germany
during the Herero and Nama uprisings of 1904 up to 1908 arrived early on Friday
morning from Freiburg and Berlin universities. The skulls were taken to Germany in the early 1900s to try and prove through ‘race
science’ theories that whites were superior to blacks.
Speaking at the ceremony on the arrival of the skulls, President Hifikepunye Pohamba said the human remains that were classified as belonging to Ovaherero, Nama,
Ovambo, Damara and San communities showed that Namibians fought side by side in unity
of purpose in defence of the motherland. “This should serve as a good lesson for our nation to always remain united,” he said.
The president paid tribute to the Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and Nama communities
who were either exterminated or driven into exile by the infamous Extermination Order
issued by General Lothar von Trotha of Imperial Germany.
An animated Pohamba said some people in the German community say the government betrayed its insensitivity by removing the Reiterdenkmal (horse rider statue) not too long ago without any consultations. “No, it’s them that are insensitive. They want us to keep the horse, while they removed
the Berlin Wall,” he said to thundering applause, adding that if the Germans want the
Reiterdenkmal, they can ship it back to Germany.
Gerson Katjirua, acting chief and chairperson of the Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Council for
Dialogue on the 1904 Genocide (OCD-1904), who was one of the speakers on the occasion also did not mince words in a hard hitting speech. “German citizens
and Namibians of German origin in the country, whose forefathers killed our fore-fathers,
raped and maimed them, expatriated their body parts to Germany and took our land, cattle and other property without compensation.”
He said that those atrocities left wounds that will never be healed, unless Germany apologizes officially and pays reparations like in the case of the Jewish communities that suffered during the Nazi holocaust. “We already expressed our dissatisfaction towards our government for having failed to
involve and inform us timely during the process of the repatriation of our human remains
and for not letting us to perform befitting rituals of significant importance to our
cultures, norms and traditions during the repatriation process of our human remains,” he
said, adding that they are expecting further consultation with the government to clear certain issues in a mature and responsible manner, including the question of
securing restorative justice for the descendants of the victims of genocide/extermination. “What should be noted, Your Excellencies, is the fact that genocide, of which the
return of human remains is part of the equation, is about us, the descendants of
the German war of genocide and extermination and thus, should be done with us and not without us,”
he pointed out. The king of the Damara people, Justus //Garoeb, said the Damaras were the first inhabitants of Namibia together with the San and were also victims of the German extermination.
“Now the truth comes from the horse’s mouth,” he said, referring to the skulls of Damara
people that are also among the second consignment of repatriated human remains. He said he would have died in pain not to have witnessed this day and as the custodian of the Damara culture, he appealed to the German government also to return research materials on the skulls and other human remains.
Immanuel /Gaseb, deputy chairman of the Council of Traditional Leaders and chief of the
Damara #Oe-/Gan clan, who was part of the delegation that went to Germany, said the human remains brought back to Namibia served as a reminder of the hardships
endured by people in all corners of the country in their quest for freedom.
“As Namibians we do not want to continue harbouring anger towards Germany. We continue to
extend a hand of friendship to you and we want you to be honest with yourselves and understand why we want you to acknowledge the wrongdoings of your forefathers,” he said,
urging the German government to offer a formal apology.
Former German Ambassador to Namibia, Egon Kochanke, who is
now the Regional Director for sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel in the German Foreign Office said although their generation could not undo the sins, mistakes or crimes of their forefathers, they have a shared responsibility in the light of “our history for shaping the future.”
He said no one can provide a conclusive answer as to how many more sets of human remains would still be repatriated. Kochanke said the process of repatriating human remains from Germany to Namibia is a lengthy one, since it requires intensive provenance research or expert identification and said the descendants of the deceased have a right to expect that only human remains that have been proven without doubt are handed over to them. “Germans today deeply regret this dark chapter in our scientific history. We are profoundly shocked at how colonial thinking at that time turned into open and malevolent racism and excessive nationalism,” he added. Other speakers included chiefs Manase Zeraua of the Zeraua Royal House and Max Haraseb of the Damara Chiefs Council. Members of the Ovaherero and Nama genocide committees were notably absent from the event, which they decided to shun.
By Magreth Nunuhe