Around 17,000 people from Mozambique worked as so-called contract workers in the GDR. Many of them are still waiting for their wages. The SED victims’ representative Zupke is calling on the Bundestag to compensate them.
The SED victims’ representative Evelyn Zupke and the German Institute for Human Rights are pushing for compensation for GDR contract workers from Mozambique who have not yet received their full wages. Together with other supporters and the affected person, David Macou, they presented an appeal to the Bundestag to initiate payments, if possible, during this electoral period.
Since the late 1970s, the GDR had recruited so-called contract workers from Mozambique, which was ruled by Marxists at the time – and other socialist “brother states” – in order to counteract the labor shortage in the GDR. They were promised training and wages. However, the people were often employed in particularly difficult industries such as open-cast mining or the meat industry.
They only received part of the promised wages because the GDR withheld the other part as payment for the debts that Mozambique owed to the GDR. After the end of the GDR in 1990, many of those affected returned to their homeland without any wages.
Flat rate compensation required for those affected
“This is injustice that came from German soil,” said Zupke in Berlin. “It was the SED state that deliberately deceived people, took away their rights and exploited them.” This is about people “who carry deep scars throughout their lives as a result of the influence of the SED dictatorship.” Germany must “acknowledge this historic responsibility.”
The aim of the initiative is for the Bundestag to recognize the injustice suffered by the contract workers from Mozambique in a resolution and to finance a compensation fund for the around 10,000 still living affected people from the federal budget. “It would amount to a lump sum compensation,” said Zupke. Individual wage claims could no longer be reconstructed after more than 30 years. She did not want to name a sum.
Michael Windfuhr from the board of the German Institute for Human Rights suggested an amount of 50 million euros. Those affected should receive 4,000 to 6,000 euros each – staggered according to the individual injustice they suffered. “This is not a sum that would break the budget,” said Windfuhr. “It’s the gesture that matters.”
Same work, unequal pay
“I still feel betrayed by both countries to this day,” said former Mozambican contract worker David Mocou, who worked in the opencast mine in Hoyerswerda from 1979 to 1991. There he was the target of racist attacks in 1991 and then returned to Mozambique without pay. He also reported at the press conference that he did not receive any social security benefits into which he had paid.
“We worked shoulder to shoulder with our German colleagues in the opencast mine for twelve hours a day,” emphasized Mocou. “We then found out that our money was being used to offset the national debt without our knowledge.” No help has come from the Mozambican government: “When we ask, they come with guns and do whatever they want to us,” said Mocou.
Federal Government doesn’t see anyone Need for action
After reunification, the Federal Republic transferred around 75 million marks (38.4 million euros) to the Mozambican state in 1993 as a lump sum payment for the services of contract workers. However, little of this was received by those affected.
The money was “largely lost in the swamp of a corrupt state,” said victims’ representative Zupke. The federal government says it sees no need for action. Obligations from the contract workers agreement with Mozambique, which were transferred from the former GDR to the Federal Republic, have been “fully fulfilled,” said a Foreign Office spokesman. If there are demands, it would be “the job of the Mozambican government to address them.”