The traditional Herero chief Vikuii Reinhard Rukoro has announced mass protests against the planned visit of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Windhoek. During the visit, the head of state should officially ask for forgiveness for the German colonial crimes in what is now Namibia. If Steinmeier asked for an apology in the Namibian parliament, opposition politicians would leave the room, Rukoro told the "Bild" newspaper on Saturday. There will also be mass demonstrations by the Herero and Nama in front of the building.
"I will expose Germany", emphasized Rukoro, who is one of the leading critics of the reconciliation agreement between Germany and Namibia to come to terms with the bloody German colonial history. He wanted to expose Germany “to the embarrassment that they signed an agreement on the genocide of Hereros and Namas, which was ratified by a parliament made up of Swapo people and Ovambos who know nothing about the genocide,” Rukoro said.
The reconciliation agreement that became known last week, in which Germany for the first time recognized the atrocities committed by so-called German protection troops against the Herero and Nama between 1904 and 1908 as genocide, had triggered a wave of criticism among representatives of the victims' groups in Namibia.
It is planned that Steinmeier will travel to Namibia as part of the reconciliation process and officially ask for forgiveness there on behalf of Germany.
A date for the visit has not yet been set.
The agreement has yet to be ratified by the Namibian parliament.
Representatives of the Herero and Nama complain, among other things, of the lack of participation of representatives of victim groups in the negotiations between Berlin and Windhoek.
They also criticized the fact that Germany does not pay any direct compensation to the victims' descendants.
The reconciliation agreement provides for German reconstruction aid amounting to 1.1 billion euros, which will be paid out over a period of 30 years and will primarily flow into social projects in the Herero and Nama settlement areas.
However, the federal government expressly rejects reparations.
She takes the position that she cannot legally accept responsibility for the genocide because the relevant UN genocide convention was only passed in 1948.
Namibia - at that time German South West Africa - was a German colony from 1884 to 1915.
Herero and Nama uprisings brutally suppressed the German colonial troops.
The then German governor Lothar von Trotha later ordered the scheduled annihilation of the two ethnic groups.
Historians speak of the first genocide of the 20th century.