European governments and African demands for reparations

Reparations for colonial atrocities in Africa are now, for perhaps the first time, a serious topic of discussion in European politics. The claims of the Mau-Mau veterans from Kenya, and the descendants of the victims of the Herero Genocide in Namibia (1904-1907), make headline news[1]. Drawing on considerable legal and historical expertise, the cases represent a new professionalisation and seriousness of the campaign for African reparations. Gone is the inflated rhetoric of the 2001 Durban World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which allowed European states to dismiss the issue as a means for some states to boost their diminishing international legitimacy. In the Mau-Mau case, indeed, the British government was recently forced, effectively, to declare itself guilty, but not liable, for its repression of the uprising. In other words, it, like its German counterpart, is concerned about opening the infamous ‘Pandora’ Box’, and creating a legal precedent which would precipitate an avalanche of claims from every corner of its former colonial world.