Don’t forget Herero genocide

Re Protests mark centenary of Armenian genocide, April 20 Notwithstanding its catastrophic scale, the Armenian genocide was not the first genocide of the 20th century as many people, including Pope Francis, have stated.

Surely the attempt by Lieut. General Lothar von Trotha and the German colonial Schutztruppe to wipe out the then populous Herero tribe in German Southwest Africa (now known as Namibia) between 1904 and 1908 would qualify for this ghastly honour.

Many historians claim that von Trotha was sent to GWSA by Kaiser Wilhelm II with expansive resources and explicit instructions to execute this murderous deed.

Furthermore, there has been much pointed speculation that the efficiency and ruthlessness with which von Trotha eliminated much of the Herero people provided a practical template for the subsequent Holocaust conducted by Hitler and the Nazis.

The Herero genocide was a notable though little publicized event in the early 20th century, and it would do history a major disservice for us to forget it. Tony Whittaker, Toronto In reference to what happened to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, Dr. Mehmet Bor, president of the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations, is quoted as saying, “It wasn’t a genocide, it was a civil war.”

My Armenian great-grandfather, educated by American missionaries, was a protestant reverend in the town of Kharpert. He was taken away and executed by Ottoman soldiers in 1915.

Surely, a civil war requires both sides to be armed. Harout Manougian, North York