Credit: Wikipedia / Fanny Schertzer /  Nyamata Memorial Site, skulls. Nyamata, Rwanda.  Indigenous tribes of Namibia went to court in the U.S. seeking compensation from Germany for its role in genocide of their ancestors 100 years ago.

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES

A U.S. Federal court in New York  on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by two indigenous tribes of west Africa nation Namibia who who were demanding compensation from Germany for the genocide of their ancestors over a century ago. New York federal judge Laura Taylor Swain ruled Germany was immune from claims by descendants of the Ovaherero and Nama tribes over its over its role in what some historians have called the 20th century’s first genocide. The tribes’ lawyers vowed to appeal the ruling and continue to fight for justice.   Herero chief Vekuii Rukoro has described Wednesday’s ruling as “disappointing”.  “We assert that judge Swain has made some fundamental errors of law in her jurisdictional analysis and we are determined to see to it that this decision is reversed on appeal and that our claims for reparations shall proceed,” according to AFP.    Germany’s position is that it is protected from legal actions by the Federal Sovereign Immunities Act. However,  the plaintiffs argued in court that Germany was not shielded by the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act because some of its plunder found its way to Manhattan, that was used to purchase four buildings in New York. However, the federal judge ruled this week that transfers of human remains and the account of the genocide bore no “direct” or “immediate” connection to Germany’s activities in southwestern Africa.  In 1985,  a  United Nations report called it a massacre and genocide. According to the lawsuit filed in 2017 in U.S. District Court Southern District of New York located in Manhattan,  the indigenous tribes brought the legal action against Germany for:

“…damages resulting from the horrific genocide and unlawful taking of property in violation of international law by the German colonial authorities during the 1885 to 1909 period in what was formally known as South West Africa, and is now Namibia.”   

Class Action Complaint  against Federal Republic Of Germany. 

Lawsuit Accused Germany of Committing Genocide Under International Law 

Credit:  Ovaherero Traditional Authority  /  Representatives from the Herero and Nama tribes gather on the steps of the United States Southern District Court of New York, October 2017. 

The lawsuit alleged that “after decades of denying that the near destruction and eradication of the Ovaherero peoples by the German Imperial authorities was, in fact, a genocide, and refusing to even consider the issue of reparations, Defendant The Federal Republic of Germany recently entered into negotiations with the Republic of Namibia regarding these issue. However, Germany has refused to included representatives of the Ovaherero and Nama peoples in these discussions, even though they were the primary victims of the atrocities perpetrated by the German colonial authorities.

Germany has also refused to explicitly admit that what it did constitutes a genocide under international law, even though it has been quick to pass resolutions and declarations blaming Turkey for the allegedly genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.”

Lawsuit Alleged  Links Between German Medical Experiments On Africans and Nazi Holocaust 

The lawsuit also alleged there were direct links between medical experiments on the remains of Ovaherero and Nama victims by German scientists, and later medical procedures used  during the Nazi Holocaust.

The lawsuit alleged Germans maintained concentration camps  where the Namibia tribes were made available for slave labor and exploited as human guinea pigs in medical experiments, then later many of the lessons were later employed at Auschwitz and other German concentration camps during World War II. 

The plaintiffs further noted that during the past six decades,  Germany has atoned and compensated for its historical role in the Holocaust of World War II, paying out an estimated $70 billion to survivors since 1952. But Germany refuses to compensate African victims  in what has been termed the first genocide of the 20th century.