THE abolishment of the Slave Trade was not some form of kindness by the West, but adoption of a new approach of their exploitation of the black people and Germany; one of the orchestrator-in-chief of colonialism was behind one of the worst massacres ever committed in the world; the Herero and Namaqua Genocide in modern day Namibia.
It is easy to trace the footprints and effects of these atrocities.
The West have spawned endless wars in Africa, the same wars the West wants to blame on religious and tribal issues.
Today, despite concerted efforts by colonialists to hide the scars of the trails of destruction they left behind, they stubbornly refuse to be thrown into the wastebaskets of history.
Germans today pride themselves as ‘champions of democracy’ in Zimbabwe and the rest of the developing world, but their ‘pride’ conveniently overlooks their brutal maiming, torture and killings in Namibia.
What is most disappointing is the fact that it took Germany a century to apologise to the Hereros for their gory acts, but even as the apology came, there was and still is deliberate avoidance of the use of the word genocide.
In the 1880s, Germany made South West Africa (Namibia) their own colony, and when settlers moved in, they were followed by a military governor, a man who knew little about running a colony and nothing at all about Africa.
His name was Major Theodor Leutwein and it was him who initiated his South West Africa conquest project by using the age old divide and rule tactic by playing off the Nama and Herero tribes against each other.
After a cattle-virus epidemic in the late 1890s killed a lot of livestock, Major Leutwein ‘offered’ the Herero ‘aid’ on credit.
Typical of the situation most African countries find themselves in today, as a result of Western ‘aid’, the farmers amassed large debts, and when they could not pay them off, the colonialists simply seized the little cattle left.
That was to signal the beginning of the ugly ghost that has haunted Germany up to this day and still haunts the Hereros.
On January 12 1904, the Herero, desperate to regain their livelihoods, rebelled.
Under their leader, Samuel Maherero, they began to attack the numerous German outposts.
They killed German men, but spared women, children, missionaries, and the English or Boer farmers whose support they did not want to lose.

At the same time, the Nama chief, Hendrik Witbooi, wrote a letter to Leutwein, telling him what the native Africans thought of their invaders, who had taken their land, deprived them of their rights to pasture their animals on it, used up the scanty water supplies, and imposed alien laws and taxes.
His hope was that Leutwein would recognise the injustice and do something about it.  
Expectedly, Leutwein ignored Chief Witbooi’s plea.
In August, German General, Lothar von Trotha defeated the Herero in the Battle of Waterberg and drove them into the desert of Omaheke, where most of them died of thirst.
Herero and Namaqua Genocide was a campaign of racial extermination and collective punishment.
It is considered to have been the first genocide of the 20th century.
It took place between 1904 and 1907, reports Wikipedia.
Justifying his actions, Trotha stated that:
“My intimate knowledge of many central African tribes (Bantu and others) has everywhere convinced me of the necessity that the Negro does not respect treaties but only brutal force.”
Trotha was even more damning and menacing in his quest to crush the Herero.
He also wrote that:
“I know enough of African tribes that they give way only to violence.
“To exercise this violence with crass terrorism and even with gruesomeness was and is my policy.
“I destroy the rebellious tribes with streams of blood and money.
“Only from this something new will emerge, which will remain.”
True to his word, in October of the same year, the Nama people also rebelled against the Germans only to suffer a similar fate.
In total, 24 000 – 100 000 Herero and 10 000 Nama died.
The genocide was characterised by widespread death from starvation and thirst because the Herero who fled the violence were prevented from leaving the Namib Desert.
General Trotha stated his proposed solution to end the resistance of the Herero people in a letter, before the Battle of Waterberg:
“I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this was not possible by tactical measures, have to be expelled from the country.
“This will be possible if the water holes from Grootfontein to Gobabis are occupied.”
Some sources also claim that the German colonial army systematically poisoned desert wells.
It was only after massive efforts by the remaining Herero people that Germany apologised for the first time on the genocide in 2004.
Prior to the apology, successive German governments had steadfastly declined to call the massacres genocide.
“We Germans accept our historic and moral responsibility and the guilt incurred by Germans at that time,” said Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Germany’s Development Aid Minister, at a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the Hereros’ 1904-1907 uprising against their rulers.
“The atrocities committed at that time would have been termed genocide.”
True to their arrogant nature, the Germans ruled out financial compensation for the victims’ descendants, only promising aid, particularly in land reform.