“Ovaherero community urges action against desecration of ancestral graves at Swakopmund heritage site
By Donald Matthys
3 October 2024
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Community members are accusing both the Swakopmund municipality and developers of disregarding the historical significance of the land where their ancestors’ remains lie.
Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA) paramount chief Mutjinde Katjiua said this while speaking at a genocide commemoration event at Swakopmund yesterday.
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He said more than 2 600 people were either murdered, starved, or worked to death and dumped in shallow graves at the site.
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The event marked the anniversary of the extermination order German colonial leader Lothar von Trotha issued on 2 October 1904, calling for the annihilation of the Ovaherero people.
This order led to the systematic slaughter of thousands of Ovaherero and Nama between 1904 and 1908, in what is now known as the Ovaherero-Nama genocide.
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Katjiua criticised the Namibian government, stating that not a single government official has ever paid tribute to the victims of the genocide at the various sites where the atrocities were committed or where the remains of the victims are.
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Meanwhile, German ambassador Thorsten Hutter yesterday laid a wreath at the Genocide Memorial in memory of the victims of the extermination order.
“NOT OUR BUSINESS”
Responding to questions in the German parliament, minister of state Anna Lührmann acknowledged Germany’s awareness of the Shark Island concentration camp and plans to upgrade a port on the nearby Angra Pequena peninsula for the Hyphen Hydrogen Energy project and green ammonia exports.
She, however, said the Namibian government is responsible for the development of the project.
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German parliamentarian Sevim Dağdelen, who raised the question about remembrance of Von Trotha’s order, said the German government’s lacklustre commemoration of the event is a diplomatic misstep in its handling of Germany’s colonial crimes in Namibia.
[…].”
- Full report on the website of the Namibian (last checked in October 2024)
- Speech of OvaHerero Chief Mutjinde Katjiua “OUR HISTORY, OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE IS IN OUR HANDS”
- See also the response of the German Minister of State Lührmann of 25 September 2024 to the question on the commemoration of the extermination order and German Embassy’s Facebook post on the wreath-laying ceremony of Ambassador Thorsten Hutter in Windhoek
- Background to the extermination order by Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha