Cruella de Colonizer: Imperial / Colonial Genocides, Genocidaires and Human Rights Violators in Africa, 1885-1985

• In Event: Violence, Freedom, and Law

Abstract

Intended as a monograph, this research evaluates the relative conduct of European powers during their colonization of Africa (1885-1989) and the nature of human rights violations, genocides, and violations of international law. It begins by evaluating the human rights regimes that existed during the period (for example, the ICRC, the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907), and the extent to which colonization and the genocides that resulted (e.g., the German massacre of the Hereros, or the suppression of the Maji Maji rebellion in Tanganyika, or the British massacre at Lari, Kenya Colony) violated existing humanitarian laws. Focusing on the major African colonizers (Great Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and other derivative groups - such as the Afrikaners in South Africa), it also sets out criteria for establishing (and ranking) some of the worst colonial powers through their conduct in the societies they colonized. Ultimately, the research finds that among the colonial powers, Belgium was likely the worst colonizer (and thus, colonial experience), its agents having massacred nearly 3 million Congolese, and maimed untold more through amputations and other corporal punishment. Germany’s harshness with driving out the Herero and Nama while dispossessing them of their land (especially under Gen. Lothar von Trotha) was also remarkable. But the British also held Africans in the Kenya Colony under conditions only previously witnessed in Germany during World War II. Indeed, determining the cruelest of them all is a most taxing endeavor.

Author

• Stephen Magu, Norfolk State University