ON the morning of 12 January 1904, shooting started in Okahandja,
a small
town in German South West Africa, present-day Namibia. When the
Herero–German war finally ended four years later, Herero society,
as it had
existed prior to 1904, had been completely destroyed. In the genocidal
war
which developed, the Herero were either killed in battle, lynched, shot
or
beaten to death upon capture, or driven to death in the waterless wastes
that
make up much of Namibia. Within Namibia, the surviving Herero were
deprived of their chiefs, prohibited from owing land and cattle, and
prevented from practising their own religion. Herero survivors, the majority
of whom were women and children, were incarcerated in prison camps and
put to work as forced labourers for the German military and settlers.Over the years there have been a fair number of works dealing with the
causes and effects of the Herero–German war of 1904–8. It has
been argued
that the loss of land, water, cattle and liberty, coupled with the activities
of
unscrupulous traders and German colonial officials, steered the Herero
into
launching a carefully planned, countrywide insurrection against German
colonial rule. In brief, ‘in 1904, the Herero, feeling the cumulative
and
bitter effects of colonial rule in South West Africa, took advantage of
the
withdrawal of German troops from central Hereroland…and revolted’.
AT LAST A SOUTH AFRICAN PROPER LAW OF DELICT Burchell v Anglin 2010 3 SA 48 (ECG)