Baherero Community in Botswana have been tasked to come up with developmental projects which will be funded through German genocide programme in the neighbouring Namibia.
Chief of Maharero Royal House in Okahandja in Namibia who was introduced at the just ended Otjiserandu commemoration in Tsau village this past Saturday as Baherero Paramount Chief, Tjinaani Maharero, said the project’s budget will be incorporated in a budget which will be sent to the German government for approval around March next year.
When the funds come through Maharero said, Botswana budget will be placed in the hands of its government for management purposes.
“We will hold a meeting in Namibia in March and we want you to come up with project ideas which you believe will work for you. It is important to do so, so that when the budget is sent to Germany yours is also included therein,” explained Maharero.
Over 80 000 Baherero were reportedly massacred in Okahandja region between 1904 and 1908 by German colonial masters in what was termed to be a 20th century genocide.
According to history, the Herero and Nama people of the then German South West Africa, now Namibia, were brutally killed during a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment which was waged by German armed forces.
Then Baherero were led by Samuel Maharero who managed to escape to Botswana with around 1000 people following a defeat by Germans.
Thousands of other survivors fled to neighbouring countries including Botswana and South Africa with some settleing in Ngamiland, Central and Gantsi Districts in Botswana.
In 2021 following years of negotiation with descendants of massacred Hereros, Germany apologised for the atrocities and offered compensation to the Hereros. Maharero explained this on Saturday 13th, 2024 that they did not accept the offer as it was too little to make a difference in the lives of Herero communities.
“It was even less than the budget of a single ministry. So we have agreed that we will draw a budget and send it to them instead, ” Maharero explained.
According to Baherero nothing will atone for the blood of their people which was mainly shed in the Namib desert where German army under the leadership of Lieutenant General Lothar Von Trotha, cruelly killed thousands of Hereros by means of genocidal massacre, starvation, dehydration, concentration camps, human experimentation and extermination through labour.
However through this new development Maharero believes these communities will find ways to empower themselves.
