60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

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112 development dialogue december 2008 – revisiting the heart of darkness Accordingly, the biological attack on the Delaware Indians mentioned above was legitimised by the state through Sir Amherst’s order, while in this sense the murder of the Herero and Nama was offi cially committed in Germany’s name. The signifi cance of intermediary powers has also been confi rmed in recent research into National Socialism. Detailed analysis of the decision-making processes in German-occupied Eastern Europe has questioned the notion of a chain of command from above down, emphasising instead the importance of local initiative (see Herbert 2000, Gerlach 1999). The question of the state’s role in the execution of genocide is, however, of considerable signifi cance with respect to the forms of mass murder: genocidal massacres do not require a large degree of organisation, whereas the quasi-industrial extermination in camps is predicated on a modern, centralised and bureaucratised state. As argued above, both massacres and camps are found in National Socialism, whereas in the colonial context massacres or other strategies with rela tively low organisational requirements clearly dominated. The most common form of killing was the genocidal massacre. Whether in the Pequot War in New England or in the fi ght against the Round Valley Indians, or at the Sand Creek Massacre, examples of the butchering of men, women and children by bands of settlers and local militia can be readily found. Acts of reprisals by settlers for actual or alleged attacks by Aborigines also belong in this category, such as were reported by The Queenslander in 1867: There is not much more in the present system by which blacks are shot down most ruthlessly for weeks and months after a case of murder or theft has been reported, and when many innocent are either killed in order that the guilty party may be included in the number or so hunted about that the spirit of revenge is aroused in them. (Cited in Palmer 2000: 43) Over time, army and police units were established for this purpose. The ‘Third Colorado Cavalry,’ responsible for the massacre of the Cheyennes at Sand Creek was assembled especially for the fi ght against the Indians (Chalk and Jonassohn 1990: 199-201). 44 The ‘Native Police of Queensland’ were also state units, in this case employing Aborigines from other parts of the country under white offi cers. As ‘mobile death squads aimed at eradicating Aborigines’ they at- 44 The background was a confl ict between Indians and settlers, who managed to involve the state in their struggle. The regiment deployed consisted of volunteers who were temporarily engaged. The force they used was thus legitimised by the state.
colonialism and the holocaust – towards an archeology of genocide 113 tempted to ‘cleanse’ the frontier in Queensland of the local indigenes in order to make room for an increasing number of settlers and their livestock (Palmer 2000, Moses 2000: 102). A heightened form of these campaigns of annihilation was genocidal war of conquest and pacifi cation, a larger military action requiring a correspondingly higher level of organisation. The most important example of this was the war waged by German imperial troops against the Herero and Nama in German Southwest Africa between 1904 and 1908, which constituted an important connection between colonial genocide and the crimes of the Nazis. Sparked in January 1904 by an attack by the Herero, this confl ict soon went beyond the bounds of previous warlike confl icts in the German colony. 45 This was in part due to the extraordinary success of the Herero who in a few day almost brought German rule to collapse, and in part to the German reaction. The General Staff in Berlin sent an expeditionary corps and removed the long-serving governor, Theodor Leutwein, replacing him with General von Trotha who pursued a genocidal policy from the outset. This culminated on 2 October 1904 in the infamous order to shoot. Von Trotha ordered a chain of posts to seal off the Herero in the Omaheke desert where they had fl ed, following the only large battle of the war at Waterberg: The Hereros are no longer German subjects. They have murdered and stolen, have cut off the ears and noses and other body parts from wounded soldiers, and in cowardice no longer want to fi ght. I say to the people: Everyone, who brings one of the captains to one of my stations as prisoners, will receive 1,000 marks, whoever brings Samuel Maharero will receive 5,000 marks. However, the Herero people must leave the country. If the people does not do that, then I will force it to with the Groot Rohr [big cannon]. Within the German border every Herero, armed or not, with cattle or without, will be shot, I will not take up any more women or children, will drive them back to their people or let them be shot at. 46 In an order of the day, he clarifi ed that for the maintenance of the good reputation of German soldiers the instruction to ‘shoot at women and 45 Various aspects of the war and its outcome are covered in Zimmerer and Zeller (2003; English edition 2008). On the war, see also Zimmerer (2001a: 31–55), Gewald (1996), Smith (1999), Dedering (1993, 1999), Krüger (1999), Lundtofte (2003) 46 Proclamation by Trotha, Osombo-Windhuk (copy), 2 October 1904, Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde (German Federal Archive, Berlin Lichterfelde), R 1001/2089, p.7 ff .
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no. 50 | december 2008 Revisiting t
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Revisiting the heart of darkness -
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Acknowledgements The larger part of
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Dennis Brutus, born 1924 in then Rh
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8 development dialogue december 200
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In short, both the understanding of
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Behind most mass violence lurk econ
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ehind most mass violence lurk econo
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Is there a south perspective on gen
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is there a south perspective on gen
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The Voksenåsen Statement Genocides
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This Development Dialogue is publis
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