Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the United States has developed from a super power into a hyper power, says Subrata Ghoshroy, researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This development has far reaching negative consequences in terms of global security – continual promotion of the international arms race as well as persistent devaluation of diplomacy and international law.

As one of the key speakers at a symposium on ‘Science between War and Peace’ held in Berlin from May 16 to 18 one hundred years after the outbreak of the First World War, Ghoshroy highlighted the militarisation and utilisation of research for war purposes in the United States. The Berlin symposium was organised by ‘Network 1914-2014’, an alliance of peace groups including the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).

Subrata Ghoshroy. Credit: Karina Boeckmann/IPS

In an interview with IPS, Ghoshroy, an engineer of Indian descent, describes how sophisticated weapon systems are being used as dominant instruments of U.S. foreign policy. Ghoshroy himself had worked in the field of high-energy laser before he turned defence analyst and whistleblower against faked ‘Star Wars’ missile defence tests by U.S. government contractors. At MIT, a private research university in the U.S. city of Cambridge, he directs a project to promote nuclear stability in South Asia.

IPS: We are experiencing ongoing militarisation and the use of research for military purposes. Are peace scientists like you an endangered species?

Ghoshroy: Yes, and very much so, unfortunately. The term ‘peace scientist’ really doesn’t exist in the United States. It’s more in a German context that you have these terms such as ‘Friedensforschung’. There are individual scientists who are opposed to war. They express themselves. But there is really no discipline.

So, individuals do things their own way. And of course there are scientists all over the United States with the heritage of the Manhattan Project, the U.S.-led research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs in the 1940s. All these scientists from top universities worked there, they came back and became very much against the bomb. And there is some legacy of them still lingering in U.S. departments, particularly in physics departments where more people have become more anti-war and openly speak if not write about the problems of military research – but very few.“The collapse of one super power, the Soviet Union, marked the beginning of the United States as a hyper power. Blind faith in technology fuelled unilateralism” – Subrata Ghoshroy

IPS: How much of U.S. academic research is sponsored by the Defence Department and how much is being invested annually?

Ghoshroy: In the United States, the Defence Department spends together about three billion dollars annually in universities. In certain disciplines – in physical sciences, in engineering, materials engineering, aerospace, mechanical engineering, physics, chemistry and computer science – the support from the military is absolutely crucial and dominating. So, if you look at numbers in electro-engineering, 72 percent of all research at U.S. universities is funded by the military, and in mechanical engineering maybe 60 percent and in computer science maybe 55 percent.

IPS: There is a long history of using academic research for military purposes. How has it developed since the end of the Cold War and 9/11 (the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States)?

Ghoshroy: The real collaboration between science and the military started with the Manhattan Project (a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during the Second World War II. That was the beginning. And then, after the war ended in 1945, this military had already established laboratories in different universities like MIT and other schools. So, they wanted to see how they could continue this relationship after the war and they came up with this plan that the military would invest massively and it would be very easy politically to support spending on science if it was done through the military.

Public support for the military was very strong after the defeat of fascism. The Second World War was a tremendous thing for the Americans. So they wanted to keep doing it and found a way for all science to be done through the military and then they would get support in Congress for this.

As the Cold War developed, the new rationale was science and technology to give the United States the upper hand against the Soviet Union. I believe that this paradigm that started after the end of the Second World War and continued throughout the Cold War has been maintained in all the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But there is no big enemy, no enemy that we need so much money for our military to defeat. Russia spends so little money compared with the United States or China, also although it’s coming up. But regardless, all this spending on weapons is primarily coming from the United States. The universities, the military and its contractors, they all act together to promote science and science for weapons.

IPS: And since the beginning of the so called war against terrorism?

Ghoshroy: After 9/11, the public was completely terrified, so it gave the government tremendous power to do anything and, yes, it gave the military and universities money for everyone who wanted to go into research to support the so-called war on terrorism. I would not say that the money has increased so much for research. Money has increased for other things like homeland security. But it certainly has given them another opportunity to support and boost science to fight this new enemy.

IPS: You have said that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States super power has turned into a hyper power. What have been the consequences?

A: Well, first of all, they are really blinded by this position that they have now. Nobody can do any check and balance on their actions. When I was in Congress, when we discussed foreign policy in meetings of the staff in Congress to advise members, there were no counter arguments against what they were doing. They would say “we will prevail, eventually; there are some people making noises, but that doesn’t matter, we will prevail.”

This is very dangerous. This vision of America – being a force for and doing good in the world – is really believed by the people and policy makers. But in many instances, or actually most instances, they are certainly doing the opposite. They don’t understand different cultures, the peculiarities of different societies and civilisations, so they see everything in this American way. “Our democracy, our form of democracy, is the right one” even though there are other civilisations that have lived for thousands of years.

The collapse of one super power, the Soviet Union, marked the beginning of the United States as a hyper power. Blind faith in technology fuelled unilateralism, variously termed as humanitarian, pre-emptive and regime change interventions. This hyper power is totally defying the United Nations, it is totally against everything. That has led to lawlessness in and out the country. “We don’t like the government in Iraq. So let’s go change it.”  But, I am optimistic that the post-Cold War order may be coming to an end.

IPS: Are we experiencing a devaluation of diplomacy?

Ghoshroy: Definitely. U.S. foreign policy always talks about diplomacy. But American diplomacy means that you speak softly but carry a big stick. This is how they operate. So the big stick is always there.

Diplomacy is about give and take. U.S. policy is not diplomacy in that way. Yes, they have their diplomats who sit down across the table with the people of Iran or wherever. But the moment that their plan is not accepted, diplomacy is over. They will bomb. So they don’t care about diplomacy in the original sense of the term where you negotiate for a peaceful solution of give and take. Either, it’s my way or the highway.

IPS: Is the economic downturn a chance to counter the trend of militarisation and reduce military expenditure?

Ghoshroy: It does offer an opportunity, but it’s a very hard uphill battle. Cutting a military budget is very difficult in the United States because military contractors are very tied to politicians, no matter whether they are Republicans or Democrats. All these people and their election campaigns receive funds from the military contractors like Lockheed and Boeing and the others all have strong lobbyists in Washington. All sides are benefitting.

IPS: What are the chances of winning the war against wars?

Ghoshroy: It’s a slow process. In the United State there is a lack of political consciousness. The country is isolated. And in the media you read what is being propagated by the establishment.

In Viet Nam, the public reacted against the war when thousands of their beloved ones came back in body bags. In wars such as in Iraq and Afghanistan the number of victims is relatively low. Further, journalists were not allowed to photograph the returning dead. And there is another big difference. The people being killed are not middle class people who can influence the system.

Yet, People are turning against these wars, although it is not moral but economic reasons that are the decisive factors.

IPS: European members of NATO rarely criticise the United States for its unilateral warfare. Do you have any advice for them?

Ghoshroy: I have been saying in many meetings that it would be so fantastic if European countries like Germany that suffered and inflicted so much pain on other countries in the world were to be the ones to take the initiative to stand up against the United States in terms of what they want to do with NATO.

First of all, we need its dissolution. It should have been dissolved when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. It has no mission. And I think stopping warmongering in Europe would be a further important first step for world peace. It’s unfortunate that despite people’s actual strong support for non-intervention, even the so-called parties of the Left in Europe, like the French Socialists or the Greens in Germany, support strengthening NATO. This is not helpful in terms of building peace.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the uprisings in Egypt that unseated an authoritarian regime and rekindled the spark of nonviolent resistance around the world.

According to CANVAS, nonviolent resistance movements have a much higher chance of success than armed struggles. Credit: Maged Helal/CC-BY-2.0

The mass demonstrations that began on Jan. 25 in Cairo appeared spontaneous, ignited by the Tunisian Jasmine Revolution some weeks before. But according to Srdja Popovic, a seasoned organiser and founder of the ‘Centre for Applied NonViolent Action & Strategies’ (CANVAS) in Belgrade, that assumption is far from the truth.

A consultancy group for nonviolent resistance movements around the world, CANVAS prides itself on having trained pro-democracy activists from almost 40 countries in nonviolent techniques and strategies.

Members of Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement, a decisive force in bringing down former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, were disciples of the organisation, which has been dubbed the ‘Revolution Academy’.

In CANVAS workshops, members of April 6 became familiar with forms of peaceful protest, creative provocation measures and practical advice on how to behave in critical situations. They took classes in fundraising and recruitment and gained valuable advice on how to attract new supporters to the movement.

Coupled with the revolutionary fervour that swept across Egypt throughout 2011 and is still visible on the streets today, CANVAS’ training of key young members of the resistance bore fruits of a legendary nature.

“2011 was the worst year for the bad guys ever,” said Popovic at a discussion in Berlin entitled, ‘Democracy Promotion – Democracy Export – Regime Change?’, referring to the many pro-democracy uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East that have come to be known as the Arab Spring.

Popovic easily counts himself as one of the ‘good guys’, given that he was a driving force behind the Serbian student movement Otpor! (meaning resistance) that peacefully toppled the ‘butcher of Belgrade’ Slobodan Milosevic from power in the year 2000.

A proven formula?

Popovic is the executive director of CANVAS and, by extension, the chief trainer at the ‘Revolution Academy’.

A veteran organiser, he inspires professionalism, assertiveness and confidence when he speaks about the techniques of “how to get rid of a dictator” and of the importance of unity, planning and nonviolent discipline as “the universal principles of success.”

Assuming that a successful pro-democracy movement needs the support of just three to eight percent of the population, the chances of overthrowing dictators anywhere in the world are quite high, Popovic said, corroborating his assertion with the results of a report explaining ‘Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict’.

Authored by Erica Chenoweth, assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University, and Maria J. Stephan, a strategic planner with the U.S. Department of State, the report analysed 323 violent and nonviolent resistance movements from 1900 to 2006 and concluded that “major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.”

Chenoweth and Stephan examine campaigns like Gandhi’s struggle for Indian Independence from British rule in 1947, the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, the civilian-based movements in Serbia (2000), Madagascar (2002), Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004) as well as the ousting of foreign troops in Lebanon (2005) and the restoration of civil rule in Nepal (2006) and the Maldives (2008).

The study bolsters the ‘democracy export’ policy introduced by former U.S. president Ronald Reagan back in 1983, which is as dynamic today as it was more than two decades ago – in fact, Washington invests roughly two billion dollars a year in nonviolent global interventions, or what critics of the model call ‘hidden U.S. imperialism’.

Both authors argue that nonviolent resistance has a strategic advantage over violent resistance. Repressing peaceful protests could backfire, resulting in a breakdown of obedience amoung regime supporters, mobilisation of the population against the regime and international condemnation or sanctions, which often serve to weaken those in power.

The authors go a step further to predict that key members of the regime – including civil servants, security forces and members of the judiciary – “are more likely to shift loyalty toward nonviolent opposition groups than toward violent opposition groups.”

When repression by state forces is directed towards nonviolent campaigns, the report estimates the rate of defection by security forces to be as high as 46 percent.

Popovic also stressed that nonviolent strategies against authoritarian rule, as well as the use of social media tools rather than weapons, are, in general, far less risky endeavors for individuals involved in the movement.

Limited success

Solid research and success stories notwithstanding, many experts believe there are crippling limits to CANVAS’ strategies.

What CANVAS refers to as “small risk campaigns”, Anselm Weidner – a prominent German journalist and expert on nonviolent struggles – slams as irresponsible “marketing” tactics that could easily cause new violent realities.

Referring to CANVAS’ ‘method of the fist’ (a reference to the organisation’s use of the fist as its official symbol), he said, “This is a highly media-dependent and dangerous business idea that might lead to counter-revolutionary scenarios.”

Weidner warned that CANVAS’ strategies often fail in post-revolution scenarios.

For example, “One year after the beginning of the Arab Spring, Egypt is experiencing an icy authoritarian winter,” he stressed.

Though CANVAS trained leaders like Mohamed Adel and other members of Egypt’s April 6 Movement, Weidner believes identifying people like Popovic and the great nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp as the initiators of the Arab Spring is a “cynical and megalomaniacal interpretation of history.”

In fact, Popovic himself has noted on numerous occasions that nonviolent revolutionaries should “mistrust foreigners”. But as one participant at the discussion in Berlin remarked, this recommendation seemed “strange” coming from someone who is in the business of ‘exporting democracy’ and is financed by the U.S. and other Western powers.

Frank Schimmelfennig, a prominent researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, said that ‘democracy promotion’ is useless unless there is a political will in certain countries to democratize.

Referring to post-Communist Europe, he said that genuine examples of democracy promotion were few and far between, except when the European Union dangled its “carrot of membership” as bait.

In another example, Belarusian democracy has been consistently ‘promoted’ for the last 15 years with very little tangible success, due mostly to a lack of strong internal leadership.

Tatiana Poshevalova from the Program of the European Commission reminded the audience in Berlin that Belarus was the “most sovietized country” in the Eastern bloc and thus collapsed at the same moment as the former Soviet Union, leaving very little time and space in which to produce a strong civil society.

“Our main problem now is the lack of internal actors,” she said on a panel on Jan. 16.

“In this land that lacks a (democratic consciousness) there was nobody to prepare us for democracy and no time to build up a (sufficient) democratic force,” she said, echoing the lamentations now heard throughout Egypt, as nonviolent soldiers grow weary with the ongoing war for freedom.

(*The story moved Jan. 25 2012 contained an error in the 22nd paragraph. The first sentence has been changed from: “Though he praises CANVAS for training leaders like Mohamed Adel and other members of Egypt’s April 6 Movement, he believes identifying people like Popovic and the great nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp as the initiators of the Arab Spring is a “cynical and megalomaniacal interpretation of history” to “Though CANVAS trained leaders like Mohamed Adel and other members of Egypt’s April 6 Movement, Weidner believes identifying people like Popovic and the great nonviolent theorist Gene Sharp as the initiators of the Arab Spring is a “cynical and megalomaniacal interpretation of history.”)

Withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan raises concern about continued aid. Credit: U.S. Army/CC BY 2.0

By Karina Boeckmann and - -
BERLIN, Nov 28 2011 (IPS)

With the majority of international troops expected to withdraw over the next three years, there are growing doubts over donors’ commitments to continue to support Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan raises concern about continued aid. Credit: U.S. Army/CC BY 2.0

“You should make sure that in Bonn the cheques will be signed,” Frithjof Schmidt, a member of the German parliament for Alliance 90/The Greens, recommended to Afghan politicians and members of civil society at a Nov. 23 international forum in Berlin organised by the green think tank and international policy network Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Schmidt urged western donors to commit to continued civilian aid after the pullout of international troops, set to be complete by the end of 2014. Afghanistan should not undergo what other conflict regions have painfully experienced: the decline of development aid after the withdrawal of foreign troops, he said.

“We must guarantee a responsible handover of responsibility for security,” said Ambassador Michael Steiner, Germany’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “We should not leave ruins of engagement.”

Time for self-criticism

Steiner and Schmidt acknowledged the general perception that there will be no military solution to the Afghan civil war and that focussing on military aid has proved to be a mistake. “The last decade of international presence in Afghanistan has been a history of fatal misjudgements and missed chances,” Schmidt said.

For years Afghan and international NGOs have warned that the military rationale has increased the insecurity in the country and undermined the positive gains of the previous ten years in the fields of education, health and infrastructure.

From the very beginning the western allies committed serious mistakes, said Francesc Vendrell, former UN/EU Special Representative to Afghanistan. “In the difficult Afghan setting it’s important to take advantage of the few materialising opportunities,” he told IPS. “This has not happened.”

Two “cardinal mistakes” he mentioned were the decision by western countries to include Afghan warlords in the government and the sidelining of the United Nations. In his point of view the reduced U.N. participation in the peace process has created more space for combat-ready actors like NATO and the United States, whose pretext for invading Afghanistan was to fight the Taliban for harbouring Al Qaeda.

Because of their neutrality, the U.N. would be the best facilitators of talks with the Taliban and others in Afghanistan, who are essential for peace, Vendrell said.

The Bonn conference is being held much too early, Vendrell criticised. Without clear positions on the part of the actors involved, the conference will be a “waste of money,” he said.

The Dec. 5 conference, presided by Afghanistan and hosted by Germany, will be attended by delegations from more than 90 countries.

Since the withdrawal plans were announced in 2010, Afghans have feared that they will be left in the lurch, Aziz Rafiee, director of the Afghanistan Civil Society Forum- organisation (ACSFo), told IPS. He complained that NATO and the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) will leave his country without having achieved the preconditions for the pullout.

For years, Afghan and international NGOs have called for a correction of the huge disparity between military and civilian aid. “Now that the international community doesn’t see any chance of a military victory, it’s hastily withdrawing its troops,” he said.

Lost resources

Rafiee estimates that since the overturn of the Taliban in 2001, the military costs of NATO and ISAF have added up to one trillion dollars, with the U.S. accounting for 525 billion dollars, the EU for 400 billion dollars and the other ISAF partners for 100 billion dollars.

“The government of Hamid Karzai insists that it has received 29 billion dollars. The West (the U.S. and EU) speaks of 79 billion dollars being transferred through Kabul. Even if we assume 100 billion dollars, that’s just one-tenth of the military aid,” noted Rafiee. “With one trillion dollars in development aid we could have been much more fair.”

That seems fatally true especially in the case of the Afghan security forces, which will take on the task of protecting the Afghan people in 2014 but are much too weak to fight the armed opposition groups. Taliban fighters regularly demonstrate their strength by killing international troops. And they already control more than half of the country.

The ACSFo director pointed to a study by the German Technical Cooperation agency (GTZ – now GIZ) which reports that an ISAF soldier on duty in Afghanistan costs 4,200 dollars a day, while the monthly pay for an Afghan soldier amounts to merely 400 dollars a month. “Extensive training of Afghan forces would have translated into lower military costs for western countries,” Rafiee said.

The German Institute of Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin puts the economic costs of Germany’s ten-year participation in the Afghan war at 17 billion euros – three times what the government was officially supposed to pay. And the DIW estimates that by late 2014, the total cost of participation will jump to at least 22 billion euros.

The vast majority of Germans – between 70 and 80 percent, according to opinion polls – disapprove of the military participation in Afghanistan, where 50 German soldiers have been killed so far.

Believe in Afghan abilities

“After the fantasies of almightiness have failed” – western politicians and military leaders were sure that the fight against Al Qaeda would last no more than two or three years – “time for modesty in target-setting has come,” the diplomat Steiner said at the Berlin forum on Nov. 23. He also recommended being more confident in Afghanistan’s abilities.

Fazel Rabi Haqbeen of the Asia Foundation told IPS that “western donor countries tend to pursue a top-down approach, ignoring the abilities of local and religious institutions, especially in the countryside. There are local structures that do work,” he said. “They should not be disqualified.”

The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) underlines that the sustainability of development services also depends on the capability to help to ensure that development projects benefit from local knowledge. “The violation of culture is a mistake,” ACBAR Director Anne Garella told IPS. “Quick decisions have proved to be unsustainable. On the local level it’s necessary to be patient and ‘drink a lot of tea’.”

Excerpt:

The question which is safer – the heavily armed world we live in now, or a world in which all peoples’ basic needs are met – is one core issue of an antinuclear exhibition that has reached Germany after touring more than 220 cities in 28 countries.

In the wake of the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant in March, which drew the world’s attention to the limits of nuclear safety, the question seems more legitimate than ever.

At the Oct. 7 opening of the exhibition “From a Culture of Violence to a Culture of Peace: Transforming the Human Spirit” in Berlin, Hiromasa Ikeda, vice president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), gave the German capital a prize as a city of peace.

The SGI also declared Germany’s anti-nuclear movement a model for Japan, which is so far the only victim of devastating nuclear attacks. More than 160,000 people died immediately after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The SGI exhibition brought to Berlin is comprised of 18 panels that document the threat of nuclear weapons in pictures and words and offer a wide range of reasons and arguments in favour of global peace, disarmament and non-proliferation.

SGI is a lay Buddhist movement linking more than 12 million people around the world to promote peace, culture and education through personal change and social contribution. It is committed to the abolition of one of the biggest threats to mankind: nuclear weapons.

“Today humanity faces a daunting array of challenges – from poverty and environmental destruction to devastating unemployment and financial instability – which require the joint, coordinated response of all nations,” SGI President Daisaku Ikeda said in a message read out during the opening of the Berlin exhibition.

“These challenges make all the more clear the folly of diverting precious human and economic resources to the maintenance of nuclear arsenals. What humanity requires is genuine security, not nuclear weapons,” he added.

The exhibition, which will run through Oct 16, documents the “folly” of investing in a culture of war instead of development. Currently countries spend more than one trillion dollars a year on global military expenditures and the arms trade – an average of 173 dollars for each person on the planet, one panel reads.

“We could meet the basic human needs of every person on earth if 70 – 80 billion dollars – less than 10 percent of the world’s military spending – were redirected to that purpose,” it adds.

The weapons arsenals still comprise more than 20,000 nuclear heads, which could annihilate all life on earth several times over.

“Now is the time for global civil society and political leaders of conscience to come together to work for the noble goal of a world without nuclear weapons,” said Daisaku Ikeda. “The realisation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) outlawing these weapons of mass destruction should be the first milestone to which we aspire.”

He renewed his call for the prompt start of negotiations on such a convention.

His son Hiromasa Ikeda underlined in an address to some 100 invited participants from different walks of life the importance of challenging the rationale of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear weapons don’t contribute to human security, he said, but reflect an “ossified thinking” 20 years after the end of the Cold War.

“As the Cold War faded in the final years of the 20th century, the threat of global nuclear war seemed to recede. But the world missed the opportunity to dismantle the structures and the logic of nuclear deterrence,” said the vice president of SGI.

The Japanese in general have a very negative stance towards nuclear weapons – a legacy of the traumatic experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But until the atomic accident in Fukushima they had largely accepted the peaceful use of nuclear power.

“Now the Japanese public finds itself facing both the possible dangers of nuclear power generation and, at the same time, the difficulties of securing acceptable alternative sources of energy,” Hirotsugu Terasaki, executive director of SGI’s office of peace affairs, told IPS.

“In light of this, the unconditional rejection of nuclear power does not seem to be an appropriate response. Nor can we deliberately ignore the very real role that nuclear power presently plays in meeting the world’s energy needs,” he said.

“But over the short- and medium-term, the role of nuclear power should be limited to that of a transitional or bridging technology until alternative technologies mature,” he added. “Its role should be limited to enabling humanity to reach the renewable, clean energy society of the future.”

“The time has come to rid us of nuclear bonds,” said Xanthe Hall from the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which together with the development and peace organisation Global Cooperation Council (GCC) is organising the Berlin exhibition.

Every single link of the chain of nuclear production, she said, from excavation and enrichment of uranium to the disposal of atomic waste, poses a threat to humankind, causing illnesses like cancer, genetic defects and environmental damages.

In her view it’s not enough to abandon nuclear energy, as Germany is doing after deciding to close down all atomic power plants by 2022. The reason: every link in the chain of nuclear production causes radiation and therefore threatens humankind and the environment.

The IPPNW campaigns for a worldwide ban on uranium excavation, uranium weapons, the production of fissile materials, an end to the transport of nuclear materials, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and a NWC.

Sun and wind have never caused wars, Hall said. “So let’s free ourselves from nuclear chains and the danger of nuclear terrorism. I hope that we’ll reach this aim in our lifetime.”

“It’s regrettable but until now peace is not yet anchored in the human spirit and the new NATO strategy is a good example,” said lawmaker Uta Zapf, chair of the German parliamentary subcommittee for Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

“We are surrounded by friends and partners – why don’t we abstain from atomic deterrence? Let’s get involved as you do with your exhibition, let’s all work together with those who want to build a culture of peace and to ban the inhuman evil of nuclear weapons,” she said.

A delegation of Namibian government representatives and leaders of the indigenous Herero and Nama people who came to Germany to repatriate 20 skulls of their ancestors were once again disappointed in their hopes for dialogue and an official apology.

One of 20 Nama and Herero skulls kept for decades at the anatomic collection of Berlin Charité and now repatriated to Namibia. Credit: Courtesy of Yonas Endrias

The skulls were of victims of the mass murder of 80,000 Herero and Nama between 1904 and 1908, which were stolen by the former colonial ‘Kaiserreich’ for racial research some 100 years ago.

“When the Great Powers partitioned Africa in 1884, unfortunately we were allotted to the Germans,” said Advocate Krukoro of the Ovaherero Genocide Committee, one of the 60 Namibian delegates, during the Sept. 27-Oct. 2 visit to Berlin.

In 1904, some 17,000 German colonial troops commanded by General Lothar von Trotha launched a brutal war of extermination against the Herero and Nama people, after they revolted against the continued deprivation of land and rights. Following their defeat at Waterberg on Aug. 11, 1904, they were hunted, murdered or driven deep into the Omaheke desert where they died of thirst.

Thousands of men, women and children were later interned in German concentration camps, and died of malnutrition and disease. The territories of the Herero and Nama people were seized, their community life and means of production destroyed. The discussion about the mass murder did not start until Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990.

Germany’s foreign ministry has routinely avoided the use of the term “genocide” in dismissing the Herero and Nama peoples’ claims for compensation, using instead vague phrases such as “Germany’s historic responsibility with respect to Namibia.”

Cornelia Pieper, the minister of state in the German foreign office, did the same this time around. “Germans acknowledge and accept the heavy moral and historical responsibility to Namibia,” she said on Sep. 30 at the Charité University in Berlin, which hosted the ceremony in which the skulls of nine Herero and eleven Nama people were handed over to the Namibian delegation.

The remains of four females, 15 males and one child were part of the Charité anatomical collection. They were used by German scientists in research that had the aim of proving the supposed racial superiority of white Europeans over black Africans.

Now, 100 years later, the president of the executive board of the 300-year-old institution, Karl Max Einhaeupl, deplored “the crimes perpetrated in the name of a perverted concept of scientific progress” and said: “We sincerely apologise”.

The treatment of the Herero and Nama people in Namibia – mass extermination on the grounds of racism, extermination through labour, expropriation of land and cattle, research to prove the alleged superiority of white people – is widely seen as a precursor to the Holocaust.

Eugen Fischer, a German professor of medicine and eugenics who conducted studies on the offspring of German or Boer fathers and native Namibian women in the former German colony, later became the teacher of Josef Mengele – known as Auschwitz’s ‘Angel of Death’ – who carried out gruesome medical experiments in the Nazi concentration camps.

Development aid is not compensation

Berlin has consistently refused to pay reparations to its former colony, using the development aid argument: that since Namibian independence Germany has provided the country with a total of 500 million euro in aid.

But the majority of the Herero want an official apology. “Development aid is welcome, but may not be used to cover up the genocide,” said Supreme Chief Alfons Maharero.

Minister Pieper left the ceremony at the Charité shortly before Namibia’s minister of culture, Kazenambo Kazenambo, rose to speak.

“Imagine a German state minister leaving a hall where a ceremony is being held to repatriate the human remains of victims of German genocide without hearing the delegation head, a Namibian minister, and without hearing what the highest representative of the Nama and Herero has to say,” said Yonas Endrias, a political scientist from Berlin.

“She has no sense of dignity or honour. She walked out on the display of human remains of the first German genocide and the first German concentration camp,” he added.

The Namibian delegates interpreted Pieper’s early departure as another expression of disrespect. They complained that they were not officially received, and that German officials did not take part in a Sep. 28 panel discussion organised by an alliance of German NGOs.

“We came here to extend our hand to the German government,” said Ueriuka Festus Tjikuua from the Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Council for Dialogue on the 1904 Genocide. “But our hand was rejected.”

Herero Paramount Chief Kuaima Riruako, a fervent voice for an official apology and the establishment of a reparation fund, said in his speech at the ceremony in the Charité that “now we are here and you could apologise,” while deploring that the Germans were avoiding the word genocide.

The organisers of the ceremony gave a clear indication that they were not overly pleased with his one hour long summary of Germany’s past in Namibia: his microphone was disconnected.

The people of Namibia have experienced “a further betrayal of the Herero and Nama by Germany,” said Krukuro of the Ovaherero Genocide Committee.

The refusal of German governments since Namibia’s independence to engage in dialogue and in a critical reflection of its colonial past and to pay reparations “expresses a continued Nazi attitude towards the legitimate claims of the Namibian people,” he said.

“Germany is in big part responsible for the dire situation of the Herero and Nama in Namibia,” said Hewat Beukes of the Nama Technical Committee, who pointed to continued poverty and social and cultural disintegration suffered by these peoples.

In Beukes’ point of view, the question of reparations is not only a moral issue but a necessity, to avoid a new conflict in Namibia.

“We don’t want a second Zimbabwe,” Freddy U. Nguvauva, an official with Namibia’s ministry of regional and local government and housing, said in reference to the expropriation of land from white farmers by the government of President Robert Mugabe since 2000.

In her speech at the Charité, Pieper underlined that civil society in Germany is engaged in a critical review of the country’s colonial history.

At the end of the ceremony, civil society groups did what the Herero and Nama people wanted the German government to do: Judith Strohm from AfricAvenir International apologised for the “German genocide against the Herero and Nama,” on behalf of the alliance of NGOs that organised the Sep. 28 panel discussion.

“The German government uses the term ‘regret’ instead of ‘apologise’. One ‘regrets’ a minor crime, but genocide is the worst of all crimes – a crime against humanity,” said Yonas Endrias, who is a spokesperson for the NGO alliance. “But at the end it’s all about reparation; that is, repairing the damage and redressing injustice – restorative justice to be offered by the Germans immediately, as justice delayed is justice denied.”