Berlin did not want the term "reparations for war crimes" to be used, as this could open the door to a chain of individual claims.
like why does europe just have to be so shitty? just dont be exploitative in trade deals and offer infrastructure and industry in exchange for raw materials. tada, africa becomes a better place
instead they just gotta rip the entire continent raw and send them only manufactured resources. just christ
But they're social democrats! They're experiencing socialism the European way!
Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism
If they did then it would eventually mean less profits for them and then how would they fund their pensions?
Berlin did not want the term “reparations for war crimes” to be used, as this could open the door to a chain of individual claims.
So they didn't really recognise it, did they?
fun fact: Germany paid only 115 Million DM to Greece in exchange for them dropping their prosecution of German war criminals. You know, the Greece where Germany razed entire villages and laid the groundwork for one of the most bloody civil wars in European history (between communists and fash, no less)
Also Not A Reparation - because then, everyone would ask for a hand-out, can't have that lol
setting precedent for the banning of /r/cth, of course
Haiti literally had to pay France reparations for taking their slaves.
:france-cool:
It becomes even more galling when you bring into it the fact that the Nazis paid off the expenses of their invasion of Greece.......by giving themselves a no-interest loan from Greece's national bank It is around 12.48 billion euros
That's so despicable; never heard about it. Apparently the sum is estimated to be anywhere between 3 to 575 billion, depending on who you listen to... Pretty nuts all around
And yet the mainstream view on Greco-German relations is still reactionary bullshit about lazy Greeks mooching off hard-working Germans.
1.1 billion euro development program
anyone got more info on this? Seems like means-tested credit-based "aid" from the sound of it
Was curious about that too. Are they just like privatizing shit and calling it reparations?
I skimmed a few (German language) sources, and so far it seems like it's actually a direct payment to the State of Namibia. However, the actual text of the agreement is not yet published, so nobody knows for sure, probably.
Namibian opposition rightfully criticizes how the actual indigenous peoples were excluded from the negotiations (there were some representatives present, but they were selected by the Namibian state top-down) - and how the actual payment doesn't got to them directly but rather to the State of Namibia.
and how the actual payment doesn’t got to them directly but rather to the State of Namibia.
This would literally be neocolonialism though, it's better for the Namibian (socialist-ish) government to receive the money and to hopefully build up some industry so that the populace can actually spend their money on domestic goods, rather than just increase the money already flowing out of the nation.
Why would money given to Herero/Nama directly flow out of the nation? Honestly asking, I know next to nothing about the situation (as you might have guessed)
Sure, but how does giving it to Namibia change that consideration? Do we know that a) the Herero/Nama wouldn't invest in infrastructure and other 'enduring ways' and b) that Namibia will indeed do so (and not just subsidise consumer goods from the global north, let's say)?
Yea, makes sense. I had hoped the Herero/Nama would be somewhat self-governing, as in, have the means in place to collectively invest in local infrastructure already - but that's probably a naive assumption of mine. I just know too little about the situation in Namibia, especially regarding these peoples' context within it. Still, the state picking representatives as opposed to them deciding on their own representatives really rubs me the wrong way with this whole thing.
Mm. Better than what I was thinking but I'm still giving this a lot of side eye
Yea, same. It's not horrible, but it kinda stands or falls with the actual wording of the agreement
According to this taz article, the 1.1 billion are paid over a period of 30 years and are basically what Namibia would receive in development aid anyway:
https://taz.de/Kolonialverbrechen-an-Herero-und-Nama/!5775510/
Note that this whole "recognition" did not involve the Herero and Nama peoples themselves, either. As in a previous negotiation over the restitution of human remains, the German government insisted from the very start to only discuss the matter with the federal government of Namibia, and the Herero and Nama only make up a minority of the population. Officials who actually do speak for these groups, like Paramount Chief Vekuii Rukoro, have stated that this can be at best a begining of recognizing the genocide.
The whole thing is a farce. Self-congratulatory "we hear you, we see you" bs that does fucking nothing.
Here are some interesting facts:
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This agreement involves 1.4 billion USD in payments over 30 years, the genocide estimates on the higher end are at about 140,00 people (source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/world/europe/germany-namibia-genocide.html ). Last year the chemical company Bayer agreed to an 11 Billion USD settlement related to a lawsuit involving one of their pesticides - the estimated number of plaintiffs are 90,000 currently and 30,000 estimated potential future ones. (Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/05/federal-judge-nixes-proposed-monsanto-glysophate-settlement-deepening-black-hole-for-bayer.html). Looks like US lawsuits are more powerful than an African state with many natural resources.
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Foreign direct investment in mining in Namibia has been about 50 billion dollars ANNUALLY. Germany is one of the main investors.
Source: https://www.npc.gov.na/download/Researches_by_NPC/mining-research-paper-18-11-2020.pdf -
China and South Africa are the two biggest investors in Namibia by far. 80% of all foreign direct investment in Namibia goes into mining. Foreign Direct Investment apparently accounts for 6.6% of the employment in Namibia. Source: https://www.bon.com.na/CMSTemplates/Bon/Files/bon.com.na/ea/eaaee5ca-4e72-4bd3-9df8-55f15a36c4d9.pdf I would recommend reading this in full- here is another fun thing to notice here - apparently the mining sector doesn't produce stable profits for Foreign investment (yet it keeps coming). Incidentally, manufacturing is a good source of profits due to mineral processing companies (I wonder what the connection is 🙂 )
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The unemployment rate is about 20% Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NAM/namibia/unemployment-rate
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Namibia is apparently a great place for investment! Because it has a stable democracy and a well established road infrastructure. One of the cons is alas that the government has a "willingness to raise state ownership of mining assets in the industry". Source: https://santandertrade.com/en/portal/establish-overseas/namibia/investing
Anyway I don't know much about internal politics in Namibia but I am somewhat inclined to believe given the current setup this is the most they can get. Maybe the info I shared has a completely benign outlook to it. I am not an expert on Development economics so I would be happy to hear other insights.
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real genocide from the early 1900s
but your comment gets to why america's cynical disinformation campaign is deeply antisemitic in that it devalues the holocaust
