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FROM: Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett , 4th July, 2000, Arawak House , Queen Street , P.O. Box 45 , Grand Turk , Turks and Caicos Islands, e-mail barnett46@hotmail.com
TO: Prime Minister Anthony Blair, 10 Downing Street , London SW 1, ENGLAND
Dear Prime Minister Blair,
I was born on the 4th October, 1954, of humble humanity in a poor country and am, as you are, a lawyer by profession.
You were born on the 6th May, 1953, of humble humanity in a wealthy country and are a lawyer, and are, as I am not, the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
On this historic day of the anniversary of the American War of Independence, when European colonials freed themselves from the oppression that was British rule in the American colonies in 1776, I feel considerable concern about conditions globally for Africans and people of the African Diaspora.
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Mr. Lloyd Rodney, my client, is the cousin of Professor Walter Rodney who wrote the seminal work, “ How Europe underdeveloped Africa”. The answer to the issue of Europe’s underdevelopment of Africa, should we pursue it, leads via the middle passage and links historically with issues addressed by Dr. Eric Williams in his work, entitled “Capitalism and slavery”. The tears which flowed for my client, Mr. Rodney, had deep and significant historical roots indeed .The British Chief Justice who that day tried the case, did not share the same, if any, empathy with my client. A feeling of hurt about racially abusive conduct against a person of African descent does not strike the heart of all human beings, as some feel that one set of standards are enshrined for some and another set apply to others. It was disgraceful that officers of the Crown had shackled Mr. Rodney, and worse yet that the Crown lied in its defence of the injury in formally pleading that no shackling had taken place.
The compensation awarded my client was his just due because British authority violated his body, assaulted and shackled him, while attempting to chain his human dignity. What, I ask myself, might be due to those and their descendants, had they previously had any systemic and/or institutional means of seeking and legitimately obtaining compensation for the egregious, degrading, and vastly inhumane treatment which was Britain’s significant part in the Atlantic African slave trade? This very question was raised by our legal colleague, Lord Gifford, at 9:18 p.m. on the 14th March, 1996, in the House of Lords.
While one may wish to give high praise to the tireless efforts of the abolitionists in words, “ Slavery was abolished as the result of the inspired and tireless efforts by the campaigners coupled with a growing doubt about its material economic advantages” as spoken by the Viscount of Falkland, one can for a moment also consider the corollary of waning “ material economic advantages” from the perspective of the African Diaspora. The compensation to the slave masters in Jamaica, where I was born, for the master’s loss of their “chattels” was some 20 million pounds at or about the 1838 abolition of slavery. The compensation to the slaves and their descendants was some…? Prime Minister, I do honestly believe that there is a figure missing there.
Do not misunderstand, for Prime Minister, against all odds, without just reparation my family by dint of hard labour, and indeed unpaid slave labour, pulled ourselves economically up without either boots or money left by Britain to buy boot straps. Significant wealth compensated slave masters and went to Britain’s public coffers, from Jamaica, the Caribbean and all the colonies from which Britain stole people’s land and labour. That which was stolen over three centuries is unlikely to be returned, but as Prime Minister you can with human decency respond appropriately and fairly.
Three centuries of unpaid work and subjection in the Caribbean to single-crop dependency have to this day never been addressed. Three decades of political, but not economic independence, with little left behind by Britain for development, could never have fairly served to redress three centuries of exploitative and brutally inhumane policies. Worse yet, certain aspects of such oppression still continue. Britain departed politically from the Caribbean, but has held a certain consistent stranglehold through economic interests which to this day continue to bleed the resources of the Caribbean with monopolistic and grossly unfair practices by some British interests such as Cable and Wireless, the telecommunications giant. Part of the colonial legacy, is the absence of any just compensation coupled with a perpetuation of Imperial domination via unjust terms of trade, a highly exploitative international monetary system, and patterns of giving so-called “aid” ( more akin to the debilitating disease of similar name) than any act of benevolence holding any real prospect of leading to self- sufficiency and economic independence for millions. Just consider for a moment the recent issue of the trade and sales of bananas from the single-crop economies in the Eastern Caribbean, then ask yourself Prime Minister whether Britain’s misgovernment in the Caribbean and overtly exploitative and racist policies have not bequeathed contemporary poverty. Britain’s mass transportation of people across the middle passage, followed by enslavement warrants an apology, but more significantly the crime justly demands that fair reparations be paid now. Consider, for a moment, the equivalent situation under British policy in Ireland. The single-crop dependency, and role which British misgovernment played in Irish suffering, have produced consequences today. When Irish men to whom I spoke in America told me of the “Famine Queen”, Queen Victoria, the falsehood of Britain’s blaming the potato blight as a dispensation of providence to which one should ascribe all historical blame, and the blasphemy of ignoring British policy at the time in the causes of Irish suffering, I found common cause on the level of basic human hurt. It has become obvious to me in observing Britain’s problems with Ireland that the vast majority of Irish people consider to this day the Irish Famine one of Britain’s crimes against humanity. Indeed, the evidence is that other European countries had the same potato blight at the time, but under British policy the single-crop dependency led in Ireland to mass starvation and outward migration, but not quite so in the other European countries at the time. Irish hearts and minds feel this collective hurt at British hands. Why then Prime Minister, might you feel for a moment that the unrecompensed descendants of African slaves have any less right to their honest and sincerely felt human feelings?
To ignore the legitimacy of my request might compel you to be companions with those Europeans who excuse the wrong by pointing to Africans participation in the exploitation of Africans. Alas, in every great crime against humanity the victims always have had and, in all historical probability, always will have collaborators. The rapist’s rape cannot be excused by reference to the fact that a brother participated while the act was being done. The Jews or French in the Second World War cannot claim that some Jews or French persons were not collusive participants in some evil acts of the attempted Nazi genocide of the Jewish people, nor can it be said that no French person participated for gain at the time of German occupation of France. The evil of the great wrong does not diminish for that the prime mover had secured some participants from the dominated populace. But, somehow some Europeans’ thinking on the issue find solace, or an assumed legitimacy for solace, as serves to diminish the scale of the barbarity as it weighs on human conscience to this day from historical suffering to contemporary consequences. This crime against humanity remains a crime of enormous and probably the largest proportion in the last five hundred years of human history. Despite the passage of time, one need not lose sight from earliest colonial times to the modern practices of international lending agencies in these times of modern “institutionalised imperialism” operating in bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and in “aid” policies of the European Union in certain aspects of European global conduct today. Domination through economic and politically determined strangleholds on the descendants of those whose foreparents had worked centuries without pay, may yet be viewed as an undeserved imposition of further economic violence.
Masters were human beings who under law lost something (someone?) and were compensated by Britain as acknowledgment of a just due from the Crown. What therefore was and is due to the descendants of those who lost their freedom and whose descendants in large measure have remained but children of Sisyphus, pushing burdens up to the top of foreign banks, only to have the debt stone roll down again for further labour. As unpaid labour helped to make Britain, Great Britain, and I am the first of the post-colonial generation now adult and able to speak freely, why then Prime Minister should we not address this matter in the court of human conscience with the evidence before us? When the verdict is in, are these people not deserving of an apology? The effect of early investment of funds as weighed against the absence of compensation to those who had actually slaved explains much in the modern world in identifiable patterns of divisions between poverty and wealth, of both nations and individuals within nations. The principle, Prime Minister, under the Fatal Accidents Act, as you, as a lawyer, are aware, is that the loss which the surviving descendants suffer by way of absence of contribution from the wage earner must inure to the benefit of the familial survivors. Surely, as English law does not entertain any difficulty with this legal concept, then as an uncompensated descendant of slaves, who were unpaid, then is there not a case for just and due compensation from the nation which still holds the stolen wealth in custody? I believe, as did the Jewish people who went back to Swiss banks after the Second World War, that it is time to open some of the vaults in which Britain has held much value in safekeeping. The inheritors now desire that their inheritance be paid out. I also consider that my immediate family has been hampered under colonialism and Britain’s policies remain accountable for lost opportunities. Being the first in my family to have the benefit of a university education, affords me this first real opportunity in history to address these matters of reparations as justified under law. About a half century ago, in Jamaica, the journalist and novelist, Roger Mais, was imprisoned under British colonial rule when in his article, “NOW WE KNOW”, he wrote the truth against British colonialism. I have been arrested and Mr. Lloyd Rodney has been imprisoned under British rule in these Turks and Caicos Islands for addressing and speaking out about issues of injustice, unfairness of British policies in these Islands, and corrupt practices effected under British justice. I do not have any apologies to make for doing that which human decency directs, and my conscience dictates is right, and a hundredfold arrests and imprisonments will not intimidate my opposition to inhumanity, racism and oppression.
Please, I beseech you Prime Minister, have the British Parliament fully investigate how in nine months by way of a British grant to the Colony of the Turks and Caicos Islands, three million pounds is spent to build a new prison, while the roads remain in disrepair; the school facilities are inadequate; the libraries have yet to be built; the old hospital is literally collapsing, and many of the poverty stricken people here live in shacks. Yet the housing for not so much as sixty prisoners, or one hundred maximum at any given time, is three million pounds freely given, expeditiously spent, and sustained in pride of place in the capital Grand Turk. Is it impossible in this millennium to change historically derived oppression, or is your heart and mind inured to human suffering as unnecessarily imposed by British policies here and elsewhere in the world? Prime Minister, are three centuries of such oppressive policies not enough?
As Poles have been compensated for slave labour extracted during German occupation – then, why not African descendants for their foreparents unrewarded labour as has bequeathed poverty instead of payment. Either, as said rather callously, inhumanely and inappropriately by Lord Willoughby de Broke in the House of Lords debate on the issue of reparations, “ I had not intended to thank the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, for asking this question but I am indebted to him because, looking at the clock, I find that I have missed my train home and I shall claim appropriate reparations by way of an overnight allowance” ; or, with normal human decency and in all conscience it can be acknowledged that there is no statute of limitations on a great crime against humanity. The noble Lord may not have missed his train that night, but he definitely misses the point that native Americans have been claiming and receiving compensation in the Unites States of America, the indigenous people who suffered crimes against them in New Zealand, Aborigines for tremendous losses of valuable land in Australia, and compensation has been paid to the native inhabitants in Canada as well. What credible excuse then can Britain find, as the nation which was one of the world’s greatest beneficiaries from the Atlantic African slave trade, for not apologising and paying just reparations?
Prime Minister, Lord Willoughby de Broke’s utterance, as quoted, is an uncivilised sentiment. Such thinking is symptomatic of a certain breed of racist British intolerance coupled with a self-deceptive ignorance of Britain’s very recent and continuing exploitative relations with many people and nations of the world. More telling is it where he stated, “ Reparations breed envy and distrust and stir up hatred”, for his is but ignorant misunderstanding to suggest that just compensation once fairly paid will not serve more by way of healing hurt, alleviating poverty as had been historically bequeathed, and serve more to lessen envy, build trust and bridges of humane atonement. When less exploitative and more equitable institutional relations are established in the world community, we will then be well on the road to the unity of all humanity when then we might embrace, one with the other, as equals living in peace, with prosperity in dignity. Prime Minister, the point cannot be lost that the recent protests against the conduct of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are quite justified expressions against institutions which in actuality serve more to widen than narrow gaps between global wealth and global poverty. The sources of structurally determined poverty do originate oftentimes from the regulatory trade mechanisms conceived in, and institutionally structured by the wealthy nations. Sadly, it is this which breeds the envy as concerned that member of the House of Lords. So, the form of reparations may now be determined as mainly total debt forgiveness. On closer examination you may even find that in so doing Britain is giving away precious little, for debt burdens now so impoverish many nations where sixty percent and more of national budget is committed to countries such as Britain which originally stole people and lands, then ended up lending to the descendants of the slaves who still slave to repay unpayable debts. The little minimum of an apology and a justified waiver by lifting the debt burden off the backs of those who continue to slave and shovel wealth back to Britain as lender nation, is little to ask of Britain, which undeniably owes a tremendous debt to humanity, far greater than do the children of the African Diaspora owe to Britain – be assured of that.
Traditionally poor nations are yet again given false hopes with a concept such as “globalisation”. Political independence from British colonialism merely gave false hope that one can be independent without the economic means for a sustainable start in life. “Globalisation” in certain aspects is similarly replete with such false hopes for the poor, as you can verify that the gaps between rich and poor are exacerbating, not declining under the new forms of “institutionalised imperialism”. False promises have even destroyed people in Europe, Russia, where just as in the Third World forced devaluations of currency stimulated capital flight and has left greater debts and less in the value of money in public coffers for people’s real needs for education, housing, medical care and other social needs. Can you in heart and mind continue to subscribe to policies which bequeath mass suffering across the globe?
It is evidently more difficult now for significant sections of the British population than in the 1960s, there is significant unemployment in the North of England, and there is more uncertainty and overall volatility in the British domestic economy. Meanwhile, the poor nations remain likely to continue on the trajectory of poverty presently existing with gaps increasing between the former colonies and the European countries which had held colonies. As you are aware, Britain’s interest in relations with the rest of the countries of the world, bear much in dealings in covert arms trading and reliance on terms of trade less than favorable for the traditionally poor nations. Economic promise of transformations through utilisation of new technologies, and more particularly information technologies, is largely a device to convince the poor of the world that the structural and institutional rule changes somewhere, somehow, hold promise for economic upliftment for Third World countries. The opening of those markets ironically under “globalisation” lift a certain elite minority but structurally impoverishes the majority. In 1997 more than sixty per cent of people in Third world nations lived in the rural areas, while more than eighty percent of main telephone lines were in urban centres. The consequences of monopoly domination by British companies such as Cable and Wireless in the Caribbean, and systems of expensive access to the international network, are but some of the realities of adverse economic consequences under policies which are promoted and perpetuated by rich against poor. As with your role in Britain domestically, structural economic stagnation in certain areas leave people in a sense of hopelessness as to a future of perpetual jobless poverty. If you, as you do Prime Minister, face this very real problem in Britain with disaffection about your government’s ability to deliver satisfactorily on a social charter of needs, can you but imagine the degrees of despondency in the African Diaspora ? And think further as to your challenge there in Britain, and translate your leadership tasks’ equivalency in terms of making a third world economy work in the type of world we live in – could you manage if you were leader of a third world country, under the rules set by the wealthy nations? Beyond our present discourse of black and white, do not for a moment think that I do not share, as I suspect you by now understand, a feeling of common concern across a wide spectrum of human issues. In that wide area, where we are faced with jobless areas and economies not working adequately to satisfy human aspirations, if for too long the repeated promises of new technologies, “globalisation”, the ability of the market to do without certain types of government intervention, are found to be false promises, then the implosion of human frustration will lead to increased violence in societies and between nations across the world. The small step which I am asking you to take of making an apology to the people of the African Diaspora can but assist in bridging the gap of historically felt hurt, a sense of abandonment after exploitation, and feelings of persisting injustices. Help to build that worthwhile bridge across the wide divide of human feeling. Likewise, a mature rethinking of so-called “aid” in the traditional ways of consultancies with technical advisors, and unjust terms of loans tied to export credit guarantees, are areas for meaningful change which you ought to address. You can see the growing mass of global suffering, of which I can but remind you as seen and felt by me. Do you perceive and reasonably comprehend the magnitude of the problem which you can help alleviate, Prime Minister?
You, as Prime Minister, can to some extent, influence and positively change some of these long-standing problems existing between rich and poor, black and white. The ideological market embrace which you share with President Clinton, holds far too many false and unrealistic promises if critically examined relative to the actuality of people’s lives globally. I have found myself forced to rethink those false promises made by the wealthy countries of “globalisation”, with prosperity and peace. I believe that the acquisitive material rationale as had propelled an imperialist country such as Britain, now objectively is compelling reassessment both of that historically derived model, and of the global viability of such a model’s perpetuation. In a world of limited resources, with populations doomed in actual hopelessness, you might sensibly reconsider these projected European modalities. We, as human beings, can conceive of , and actually apply far better means of social and economic relations well beyond some of the misconceptions of European dominated processes. Indeed, as you may observe in the most wealthy of nations there is a quest at heart for more than the “success” of over consumption . There is real desire for inner contentment and spiritual satisfaction, in the sea of plenty. While food, shelter and clothing are basic material human needs, peace of mind is in itself indeed a worthy treasure. For what but an implicit quest for “Karma” could propel over-consumers, already well-fed, housed, clothed and educated to move away from the mindless acquisitive practices which materially deplenish and spiritually destroy? You, Prime Minister, as a policy-maker in this never-ending bazaar of acquisition, may yourself yet come to doubt the sanity and/or rationality of enriching the few and impoverishing the many. Without a blend of spiritual connection to one’s inner humanity and needs, one will become alienated in life’s processes from the sources of that which serve to make us human and humane beings. Do think about the historical role you are presently playing and where you are directing the future of humanity. We can all be placed in service of a higher purpose and goal beyond individually pursued power such as you wield as the leader of Britain. After skewed material acquisition, there is still some human life and feeling left, then what?
In accordance with my feelings, and the feelings of millions of others around the globe, and with respect for the principles of The Abuja Declaration of the First Pan African Conference on Reparations, the obtaining of an apology from Her Majesty’s Government for the proven act of shackling in 1997 in a British colony, a descendant of African slaves, Lloyd Rodney, is sought as a necessary first necessary step towards human healing. A more extensive and equally justified apology from Her Majesty’s Government for having stolen, transported and enslaved several millions of Africans, along with appropriate reparations now due for Britain’s barbaric conduct in and profit from the Atlantic African slave trade is desired as a larger meaningful step towards some of the healing needed in the world we both share and know as human beings. We need urgently to find ways of caring one for the other. Do you care about the feelings of Africans and people in the African Diaspora? Can you bring yourself to a sane realisation which obliges you on behalf of your nation to admit wrong and apologise as is right?
Where Europeans in the form of Irish people, or Jews from the infamous Holocaust are deserving recipients of an apology from the perpetrators of British and German crimes, respectively, against humanity, what more does it take to feel in your heart, and speak from a morally correct mind, an apology to people of African descent? Those words of apology as needed for all persons of African descent, should come easily from a heart and mind which is truly great. Such humanity and decency, surely, is not beyond the capacity of a great man leading a great nation?
When the British administration shackled Professor Walter Rodney’s cousin, Lloyd Rodney, that individual act of racist British intolerance said to me that centuries of enslaving people has implanted an evil in certain minds approaching proportions of endemic racism. Is the intimidation of a black lawyer who refuses to submit to injustice and subscribe to ideas of racial superiority, an act worthy of a great nation? How would you, Prime Minister, as a lawyer and a human being, have felt had you been shackled? Why do some people place their humanity on a level above that of their fellow human beings? Can you condone such an act as perpetrated by the Crown’s servants? I do think that as Prime Minister, you have a far more commendable record of genuinely expressed concern for humanity than all of the petty officials appointed to rule these British Islands, who yet have to find a moral compass as directs right from wrong. An unqualified and truly sincere apology is most definitely due Mr. Rodney. When other victims have sought and received reparations, I am obliged to ask of you again, Prime Minister – when will it be Britain’s time to acknowledge wrong and pay just compensation as is right? When?
The time has now come when you, Prime Minister Blair, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, that very same great nation of which you spoke with sincere and overflowing emotion at time of your winning the elections and becoming elected leader of Britain – before the eyes of the world and the conscience of all humanity can make a morally justified, and legally correct admission of guilt for a great crime against humanity and apologise for your nation. Admit with a measure of humility, your nation’s wrong, and do not think that your dignity need be compromised, as was Mr. Rodney’s. Never will I ask that of you, for the indignity of slavery cannot be compensated by any denial of your dignity as a fellow human being. Acknowledge the great benefits derived from the unpaid labour of persons stolen from Africa, and do understand that in seeking reparations there is no call for charity, but an end to oppression as it had existed and continues to exist to this day. As beneficiary of accumulated wealth from that time, a great man as you are can ensure that a great nation, as Britain is, does the morally correct thing. May I exonerate you personally as the sins of your forefathers need not be visited upon you unduly, and it therefore might be more appropriate for Her Majesty, Elizabeth 11, to tender the necessary apology on behalf of the British nation. Indeed, Her Majesty’s lineage bears identifiable direct links to the very crime of which I spoke, and Her Majesty’s words therefore would be of greater significance in the hearts and minds of the people of Africa and the African Diaspora.
I place this formal request before you and file the reasonable request in the court of world opinion and before the eyes and conscience of the world community, in the name of common humanity and common human decency.
This letter is accordingly copied to Her Majesty, Elizabeth 11, the United Nations, global institutions, and individuals concerned with this question of reparations for all Africans and people of African descent.
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The case is before you, a Prime Minister with formal legal training, and your decision is awaited.
I have the honour to be Sir,
The great general of the German troops, sends this letter to the Herero people. Hereros are no longer German subjects... All the Hereros must leave the land. If the people do not want this, then I will force them to do it with the great guns. Any Herero found within the German borders with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot. I shall no longer receive any women or children; I will drive them back to their people - otherwise I shall order shots to be fired at them... No male prisoner will be taken. I will shoot them. This is my decision for the Herero people.
Signed:
The Great General of the Mighty Kaiser,
Lt-Gen Lothar von Trotha.
2nd October, 1904."
"The powerful, great German Kaiser wants to grant clemency to those of the Hottentot [Nama] people who surrender themselves voluntarily. They will be presented with life. Only those who at the beginning of the rebellion have committed murder against whites or have commanded that whites be murdered, have by law forfeited their lives. This I declare publicly and state further that of the few who have not been defeated, it will fare with them, just as it fared with the Hereros, who in their blindness also believed that they could make successful war against the powerful German Kaiser and the great German people.
I ask you, where are the Hereros today, where are their chiefs? Samuel Maherero, who at one time styled himself the ruler of thousands of children, has, hunted like a wild animal, fled across the English border. He has become as poor as the poorest field Herero and now own nothing. Just so has it fared with the other Herero people, most of whom have lost their lives - some having died of hunger and thirst in the Sandfeld, some having been killed by German Reiters, some having been murdered by the Owambos.
No harm will befall the Hottentot people as soon as they voluntarily appear and turn over their weapons. You should come with a white cloth on a stick along with your entire household and nothing will happen to you. You will be given work and receive food until after the conclusion of the war when the great German Kaiser will present new rules governing the affairs of the protectorate. He who after this chooses not to make an application for mercy must emigrate, because where he allows himself to be seen in the German area, he will be shot until all are exterminated.
For the surrender of the murderous culprits, whether dead or alive, I offer the following rewards: for Hendrik Witboi, 5,000 marks; Sturmann, 3,000 marks; Cornelius 3,000 marks; and all the remaining guilty leaders, 1,000 marks.
Signed:
Lt-Gen Lothar
von Trotha,
22 April 1905.
With these words, Germany's Lt-Gen von Trotha and his forces completed the savage extermination of almost the entire Herero tribe of Namibia (then called German South West Africa), leaving in its wake labour camps, sex slaves and wounds that have refused to heal.
Most historians now agree that the annihilation of the Hereros is actually "the first genocide of the 20th century". It is also now becoming increasingly clear that this merciless German undertaking in Namibia, sowed the first seeds from which Adolf Hitler plucked ideas for his racial experiments against the Jews in the Nazi holocaust that came 40 years later.
Indeed, as Namibia celebrates 10 years of independence this month, this ugly blot in the country's troubled past would not just go away. Attempts by Germany to cajole everyone, including President Sam Nujoma's government in Namibia, into believing that this is a better-forgotten issue, have just not worked.
The descendants of the Herero survivors of this little known holocaust, are today reviving the issue with aroused vigour, demanding from the German government not only an apology for the atrocities that culminated in the 1904 butchery of their ancestors, but reparations as well.
They say if Germany can pay DM90bn to Israel in voluntary reparations in 50 years for the gas chambers in Auschwitz alone, and is still paying billions more to the Jewish people for the other crimes committed against the Jews and other slave labourers, it is only fair that the Hereros get a just recompense.
Elsewhere in Europe and America, banks, governments and others are owning up to their Nazi past, and are paying reparations or making restitution to the Jewish people.
Japan recently apologised for its brutal colonial rule in Korea and paid reparations to the "comfort women" (sex slaves) used by the Japanese troops in World War II.
But this atonement has so far passed the Hereros by.
Although Germany joined the European colonial plunder of Africa quite late, it effected in record time one of the worst landmarks on the continent. The German presence in Africa began, effectively, in 1884 when it colonised Togo, Cameroon, Namibia and Tanzania. In Namibia, the German presence had actually started in the 1870s with the arrival of a handful of German missionaries.
But in January 1894, following the discovery of diamonds in Namibia, the German leader, Otto von Bismarck, sent Major Theodor Leutwein (photo below) as his representative in the territory. Luetwein was "a professional officer with a classical education and a background in law, but had no experience in colonial matters and knew nothing about Africa".
Apparently, Bismarck sent him to Africa because he was a "level-headed and judicious man". However, it wasn't long before Leutwein showed his true colours.
First, he played the two main tribes in the country (the Herero and Nama) against each other, using the time-tested divide-and-rule tactics so loved by all the European colonialists. At one time the Herero even allied themselves with the Germans against the Nama (also known as Hottentots). This ploy paid Leutwein handsome dividends.
But soon both tribes realised what the man was really up to - they were losing their best land and cattle to the handful of German settlers in the territory.
Leutwein had, by this time, been carried away by the profits of his exploits in land grabbing. He started to arrange for more Germans to come in. But to do this he needed more land. And the best land, at the time, still belonged to the Herero.
So Leutwein decided to play tough. Ignoring the simmering discontent among the Herero against his betrayal and land grabbing antics, he went ahead and brought in boatloads of Germans. They, in turn, came along with guns, arrogance and coarse racism. And this is where the problems really started.
The Germans began to slowly push the Herero from their traditional land - at first, through persuasion and bribery. But by 1900, the Germans were going all out to grab Herero land with brazen insolence. Nothing, and no one, was there to restrain them.
By January 1904, the Herero had had enough! With barely any land and cattle left for them, their chief Samuel Maherero led an armed rebellion. The target: the now ubiquitous German military post. At least, 123 Germans were killed at the beginning of the Herero uprising.
The Herero, like the Nama tribe, intensely disliked the Germans taking their land, and eroding their centuries-old rights to common pastures and water resources. Both tribes also resented the Germans introducing foreign laws and taxes.
When the Herero revolt started, the Nama chief Hendrik Witbooi even felt compelled to draw Leutwein's attention to the injustice being perpetrated by the Germans. He wrote to Leutwein thus:
"The German himself... is just what he described the other nations... he makes no requests according to truth and justice and asks no permission of a chief. He introduces laws into the land [which] are entirely impossible, untenable, unbelievable, unbearable, unmerciful and unfeeling.
"He punishes our people [in] Windhoek and has already beaten people to death for debt. It is not just and right to beat people to death for that. He flogs people in a shameful and cruel manner. We stupid and unintelligent people, for so he thinks us to be, we have never yet punished a human being in such a cruel and improper way. For, he stretches people on their backs and flogs them on the stomach and even between the legs, be they male or female. So, Your Honour can understand that no one can survive such a punishment."
What happened next is the dirty, brutal secret that the German government and strangely, also the Namibian government, want buried.
Back home in Berlin, the Herero uprising was very badly received by "the Mighty Kaiser", Wilheim II. He chastised Leutwein for being "too soft", and so relieved him of his military command and made him the governor of the territory.
In Leutwein's place as commander-in-chief, the "Mighty Kaiser" sent a hard man called Lt-Gen Lothar von Trotha. He was an experienced, "extremely resolute" soldier, renowned for his brutal involvement in the suppression of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion in 1900 in which the Chinese had risen up against what they saw as European/American attempts "to destroy traditional Chinese culture".
Trotha was also involved in the bloody suppression of African resistance to German colonial rule in German East Africa (today's Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania).
So Trotha knew a thing or two about being brutal to Africans. In Namibia, he actually threw all caution to the wind. He disregarded commands and refused to take advice from his superiors in Berlin. He had a mission - not to quell the Herero uprising but to annihilate the tribe altogether and set an example to others intending to challenge the German occupation.
Trotha quickly came up with a battle plan that was simple but well calculated. It achieved the intended result in the quickest possible time.
With 10,000 heavily armed German men ready to obey his every word, Trotha began to shepherd the Herero north into the sandy Waterberg region. Here they were surrounded and attacked from three fronts - leaving only one possible escape route: into the Omaheke Desert (now called the Kalahari Desert). With nowhere else to run, and German guns pointing directly at them, the Herero had no choice but take to the desert.
Even then, Trotha would not leave them alone. He offered huge rewards to his men to pursue the fleeing, thirsty, hungry and unarmed Hereros deep into the desert. The Kalahari, thus, became the killing fields where the "first genocide of the 20th century" happened.
The German brutality didn't end there. They killed more Hereros by poisoning the few water holes in the desert, and forcing fathers and mothers perishing from thirst to share breast milk with their dying babies.
To complete the slaughter, Trotha erected guard posts along the 150-mile border of the Kalahari. Any Herero who tried to escape was mercilessly bayoneted to death.
Emaciated, diseased and left with no other choice, the Herero surrendered by September 1904. Chief Maherero had managed to flee into neighbouring Bechuanaland (now Botswana). By then over 80% of the Herero had been killed! But Trotha rejected their pleas of surrender. Instead, he issued the Vernichtunsfehl or extermination order:
"...Within the German borders, every Herero, whether armed or unarmed, with or without cattle...will be shot. I shall not accept anymore, men, women or children..."
This dashed any hopes for mercy. The Herero men who tried to surrender were shot at sight, while the women and children were forced back into the desert.
To seal his mercilessness, Trotha wrote in his diary: "To accept women and children, most of whom are ill, is a serious danger to the [German] troops. And to feed them is an impossibility. I find it appropriate that the nation perishes instead of infecting our soldiers."
As expected, international condemnation of Trotha's carnage fell on deaf ears in Berlin. By the time a reluctant Kaiser Wilhelm II brought himself to condemn and withdraw Trotha's extermination order, the damage had already been done.
The few surviving Hereros were finally rounded up, forbidden to own land or keep cattle and became a reservoir of slave labour for the German settlers.
They were sent into labour camps where they were overworked and died of hunger and diseases such as typhoid and smallpox in scenes reminiscent of the Nazi concentration camps of the 1940s.
As their men died in the camps, thousands of Herero women were turned into sex slaves by the Germans. By now, less than 15,000 of an estimated 80,000 Herero population remained.
Not only did the Herero men in the labour camps suffer death, slavery and hunger, Hitler's theories of racial purity of his Aryan race can be traced to these camps. It was here that the German geneticist, Eugene Fischer first came to do his racial medical experiments. He used the Herero and mulattos (the offspring of the German settlers and Herero women) as guinea pigs.
Fischer believed that there were genetic dangers arising from race mixing, and he came to the Namibian camps to find out how and why. A book he wrote about his findings, The Principles of Human Heredity and Race Hygiene, became one of Hitler's favourites. Fischer's warped racial ideas, thus, provided Hitler with a kind of scientific legitimacy to justify his Nazi terror.
Fischer later become chancellor of the University of Berlin, where he taught medicine to Nazi physicians. One of his prominent students was Josef Mengele, the notorious doctor who did weird genetic experiments on Jewish children at Auschwitz.
The Herero ordeal would be incomplete without mentioning that, soon after their defeat and extermination by the Germans, their tribal rivals, the Nama (Hottentots) led by Chief Hendrik Witboi, tried to mount a similar revolt against the Germans. But it was a short, sharp, shock for the Nama. The Germans routed them. Here, Trotha's hard-heartedness was again crudely exposed. See his proclamation to the Nama on page 17.
Today, the Jewish survivors of the Nazi holocaust are rightly being compensated and drawing worldwide support for their suffering. But for the Herero, despite their heart-rending ordeal, they have been denied a seat on the compensation bandwagon. The German government, despite acknowledging the country's dark past in Namibia, has flatly refused to apologise and compensate the Herero.
Visiting Namibia in 1998, the German president, Roman Herzog, acknowledged that the Herero massacre was "a dark chapter in our bilateral relations". Yet he refused to apologise, saying "too much time has passed for a formal apology to the Hereros to make sense".
The nearest President Herzog came to an apology was to admit that Trotha "acted incorrectly" and that the killing of the Herero was "a burden on the conscience of every German". These were appeasing words all right, but they did not go far enough.
As a result, the Herero have recently sharpened the campaign for a proper apology and compensation from the German government. On 16 January this year, Professor Mburumba Kerina, a prominent Herero campaigner and secretary general of the Chief Hosea Kutako Foundation (the leading group highlighting the Herero plight), wrote to the British lawyer, Lord Anthony Gifford QC, asking him to take on their case.
Lord Gifford is an activist par excellence who has campaigned on behalf of oppressed people in many parts of Africa, including Mozambique, Angola and South Africa. He fully supports Africa's claim to reparations for the slave trade, and in 1993 published a detailed paper outlining the legal basis to this claim. New African printed the full version of his paper in our December 1999 and January 2000 issues.
Lord Gifford confirmed to New African that he had been asked by the Herero people to represent them, but said he had written back to them for further instructions.
In the letter to Lord Gifford, made available to New African, Prof Kerina wrote: "The Chief Hosea Kutako Foundation of the Herero Nation in Namibia has been mandated to explore the possibility of meeting with leaders and representatives of the German government to discuss reparations... Unfortunately our efforts have ended in zero response."
Indeed, for years, the Herero leaders have pleaded with the German government to lend them an ear. In March 1999, the German foreign ministry wrote to Prof Kerina in response to numerous requests from the Herero for a meeting to discuss the issue. Signed by Dr Ludger Volmer, an official in the German foreign ministry, the letter said: "I very much regret to have to inform you that direct reparations to the Herero are not possible due to legal constraints. Rest however assured that the Federal Government would further, intensively, support your country and especially the Herero nation within the framework of its financial means."
The letter continued: "We are aware of our moral and especially our historical obligation towards Namibia and the Hereros. Therefore, the Federal Republic maintains a comprehensive and unusually intensive developmental co-operation with Namibia. Your country obtains the highest per capita financial development contributions of all recipient states from Germany. However, our developmental commitment must extend to all regions of Namibia. The Federal government strives to include more strongly, the Herero nation in the bilateral development co-operation in accordance with agreements with the Namibia government."
Prof Kerina, who has a German grandparent, has made it categorically clear that the Herero do not want cash. Their compensation request is very modest, he says. "All we want is a mini-Marshall plan," he has told the Germans.
But it appears that the Germans are dragging their feet over the Herero issue because of the land "problem" at the heart of the whole affair. What will happen to the 25,000 or so rich German settlers still occupying Herero land, if Germany apologises and makes restitution to the Hereros? Both the settlers and Germany fear that this might lead to the loss of land, and the thought terrifies them!
Professor Lora Wildenthal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology even betters this argument: "There is fear that a payoff would invite multitudes of similar claims for colonial-era crimes. I do not think any colonial power will go anywhere near this," she told the US paper, Salt Lake Tribune, in an interview.
To this day, German ranchers in Namibia who insist that there was no genocide in the country, still own millions of acres seized from the Herero over 90 years ago. In the meantime, it is not only the Herero, but also half of Namibia's 1.8 million population live on crowded, impoverished land.
The current paramount chief of the Hereros, Chief Kuima Riruako, is quite conciliatory on the land issue: "We want reparations to buy land and give it to people who need it... We do not want to seize it the way they are doing it in Zimbabwe."
This time last year, Chief Riruako was talking about taking the Herero case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague (The Netherlands). "On the threshold of the new millennium," Chief Riruako said at the time, "the Hereros have decided to take Germany to the International Court of Justice for a decision regarding reparations. We also warn the Namibian government not to stand in our way as we explore this avenue to justice."
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But the majority of the Herero, it so happens, belongs to the opposition and are viewed as rivals by Nujoma's government. In addition, the government receives millions of deustche marks in aid each year from the German government (about $400m in direct aid since 1990). As a result, the Nujoma government does not want to rock the boat.
But Prof Kerina, who is a member of parliament himself, says the Herero will not be pushed around any longer. Not by Germany. Nor the Namibian government.
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