The Fallible Pope

 Pope Francis described the Armenian massacre by the Turks as "the first genocide of the 20th century." This was simply factually incorrect. That grim distinction belongs to the genocide that imperial Germany unleashed a decade earlier against the Herero and Nama, two ethnic groups who lived in the former colony of South West Africa, modern Namibia.

The Namibian genocide, prefigured the later horrors. The systematic extermination of around 80 percent of the Herero people and 50 percent of the Nama was the work both of German soldiers and colonial administrators; "banal, desk-bound killers." As they have been portrayed. The most reliable figures estimate 90,000 people were killed.

In the case of the Herero, an official, written order - the extermination order - was issued by the German commander, explicitly condemning the entire people to annihilation. After military attempts to bring this about had been thwarted, the liquidation of the surviving Herero, along with the Nama people, was continued in concentration camps, a term that was used at the time for the archipelago of facilities the Germans built across Namibia. Some of the victims of the Namibian genocide were transported to those camps in cattle trucks and the bodies of some of the victims were subjected to pseudoscientific racial examinations and dissections.

All of this is now well known, fully documented and widely accepted and the Pope should have acknowledged this. Germany's “forgotten genocide”, it seems, still remains forgotten in the Vatican. Crimes such as the Namibian genocide can no longer be ignored, whether by accident or design.

Catholic cant

Pope Benedict XVI said Monday his heart cannot be at peace while people are homeless . Critics highlighted the plight of thousands whom the Angolan government has violently evicted from land owned by the Catholic church.
More than 2,000 families have been evicted since Angolan authorities began returning land to the church that had been seized by the former state, according to Muluka Miti, a researcher for Amnesty International. After a rapprochement with the church, the government of Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos in 1998 gave back lands seized by the state that had become occupied by ordinary Angolans.
The London-based human rights group said people were detained and arrested arbitrarily, and subjected to torture in some cases.

"I hope that the pope's message will be heard by our leaders and by the pope's priests and bishops so that no more people are left homeless as I was," said Damiao, who has received no compensation since authorities forced him from his land."It's very sad. I have lost a way of life. They destroyed our community, they destroyed our homes. Some people have been made beggars. Some people have been maimed... I am a Catholic. I cannot blame my church but I am very angry with the ambassadors of Christ, the priest and the bishop who forced us from our homes,"

The idiocy of religion

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with the HIV virus deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries. "They want to finish with the African people. This is the programme. They want to colonise until up to now. If we are not careful we will finish in one century's time."

"We've been using condoms for years now, and we still find them safe," prominent Mozambican Aids activist Marcella Mahanjane told the BBC.
The UN says anti-retrovirals (ARVs) have proved very effective for treating people with Aids. The drugs are not a cure, but attack the virus on several fronts at once.