Tribunal/Conference

Background

The so-called Berlin Africa conference/Congo conference took place in Berlin between November 1884 and February 1885 on the invitation of the then chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Fourteen nations participated, Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Russia, Turkey, Austria/Hungary, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway/Sweden, and the US.

Colonial powers at the Berlin Congo conference

It was in this conference that Africa was divided among the colonial powers like a piece of cake. This conference was a starting signal for the scramble for Africa and sealt the fate of Africa. Africa was divided arbitrarily with a ruler, which is the main cause of today’s border conflicts. As one of the participants puts it:

"[We] have been engaged in drawing lines upon maps where no white man's foot ever trod, we have been giving away mountains and rivers and lakes to each other, only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where the mountains and
rivers and lakes were."

Lord Salisbury, head of the British delegation to the Berlin Africa conference in an interview with the London times on
7th August 1890.

Objectives of the tribunal/conference will be to commemorate the 125^th anniversary of the Berlin Africa conference. This historic event and its implication on the economic, policital and cultural situation of Africans today. In the same city where they divided Africa.

Africa before the Berlin Africa conference

Africa after the Berlin Africa conference

The less known German colonialism will be addressed in its unprecedented atrocity. Since the first official concentration camps of Germans were established in today’s Namibia with all its ugly cruelties, such as so-called medical experiments in Lüderitz Bucht to prove the superiority of the “white race”. Many Africans were murdered and being used as guinea pigs for inhuman experiments. View years later the same methods were applied in Hitler’s Germany on other minorities.

The genocide on Herero, Damara, and Nama is one of the less known in history, were e.g. the Hereo were disseminated up to 90% of the total population. This was the first genocide of the 20th century.

Another important aspect to be addressed besides transatlantic slave trade and slavery are the contemporary forms of anti-African/anti-Black racism. Here we expect contributions from different places in Europe and the US to address the different forms of anti-African racism and to share experiences and forms of resistence. We will try to link the impact of slavery and colonialism as a main source of contemporary racism. Since the dehumanisation of Africans then and racist attacks today in Europe and US are the direct consequences of these historical events. The number of racist violence and murder against Africans is disproportionally high than other minorities even though the African population is the smallest, e.g. in Germany with no reaction from the state yet.

Method

We have chosen to use the method of people’s tribunal with a jury, defendants, voices of victims and expert witnesses.

Venue

Berlin, Germany

Date: 25-26 February 2010

Unity Conference

A unity conference Africans and people of African origin will take pace on 27^th of Feb. in the same place where we were once divided by the colonialists, exactly 125 years later to demonstrate unity with short solidarity statements from places in Europe and the USA and to share experience on combating anti-African racism and dealing with colonialism the transatlantic slave trade and slavery and contemporary forms of anti-African racism.

The event is organised jointly by the Afrika-Rat/African Council, an umbrella organisation of Africans and black people in Germany and the German chapter of the Global Afrikan Congress.

Venue

Berlin, Germany

Date: 27 February 2010

Coordinator:

Yonas Endrias, e-mail: endriasy@aol.com, Tel.: +49-30-23186266