Archive for the ‘GENOCIDE’ Category

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NYTIMES: WHAT’S IN THAT OCTOBER REPORT ON RWANDA?

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

U.N. Congo Report Offers New View on Genocide

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

A forthcoming United Nations report on 10 years of extraordinary violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo bluntly challenges the conventional history of events there after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, charging that invading troops from Rwanda and their rebel allies killed tens of thousands of members of the Hutu ethnic group, including many civilians.

Roger Lemoyne/Liaison, via Getty Images

Rwandan refugees passed a body in a refugee camp in Congo in 1997. United Nations-administered camps housed roughly one million Hutu who had fled the genocide in Rwanda.

Killings in Congo and Rwanda have led to long inquiries.

The 545-page report on 600 of the country’s most serious reported atrocities raises the question of whether Rwanda could be found guilty of genocide against Hutu during the war in neighboring Congo, but says international courts would need to rule on individual cases.

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Posted in AFRICA, Congo, GENOCIDE, Rwanda | No Comments »

BBC: DEFINING GENOCIDE

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Analysis: Defining genocide

Bones at the Nazi concentration camp of Majdanek in the outskirts of Lublin 1944 At what point does a mass killing or forced movement become genocide?

Genocide is understood by most to be the gravest crime against humanity it is possible to commit.

It is the mass extermination of a whole group of people, an attempt to destroy an entire group and wipe them out of existence.

But at the heart of this simple idea is a complicated tangle of legal definitions.

This has led to conflicting views on when a mass killing, or forced movement, of people can be called genocide.

There are people who say that there was only one genocide during the last century.

Others say there were at least three, possibly more.

What is genocide and when can that term be applied?

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Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Education, GENOCIDE | No Comments »

AP: Germany charges ex-Rwandan mayor with genocide

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

(AP) – Aug 18, 2010

BERLIN — A former Rwandan mayor living in Germany has been charged for allegedly organizing massacres and inciting killings during the African country’s 1994 genocide, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The 53-year-old, identified only as Onesphore R., was charged with genocide and murder as well as inciting those crimes, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

The man was the mayor of a district in northern Rwanda at the time of the killings, the prosecutors said, without identifying the district.

At least 500,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and moderates from the Hutu majority were slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide.

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Posted in AFRICA, GENOCIDE, Rwanda, War Crimes Trials | No Comments »

The Holocaust, genocide studies, and politics

Thursday, September 9th, 2010
Martin Shaw, 18 August 2010
A compelling argument among scholars of genocide reflects the gradual development of the field beyond its point of origin, the Nazi murder of Europe’s Jews. The questions include whether and how different episodes of mass killing should be seen in a common frame; how such a development changes understanding of the Holocaust; and how historical interpretation and modern political argument intertwine, not least over Israel and anti-semitism. Martin Shaw, both participant and observer in this debate, presents an overview of its core issues.
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Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Education, GENOCIDE, The Holocaust | No Comments »

CNN: PROSECUTORS APPEAL SENTENCE IN CAMBODIAN GENOCIDE TRIAL

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

(CNN) — Prosecutors in Cambodia on Monday appealed the 30-year sentence handed down to a man who ran a notorious torture prison in the Southeast Asian nation where more than 14,000 people died under the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime.

Some survivors had been angered by the sentence for Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, who was convicted of war crimes on July 26.

His prison term would have been about 19 years after the court took off 11 years for the time he has already served behind bars.

“The co-prosecutors are of the view that the judgment gives insufficient weight to the gravity of Duch’s crimes and his role and his willing participation in those crimes,” they said in a statement. “At the same time, the co-prosecutors believe that undue weight is placed on any mitigating circumstances applicable to Duch.”

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Posted in Cambodia, GENOCIDE, War Crimes Trials | No Comments »

THE EXAMINER: FOUR CHARGED WITH GENOCIDE IN SREBRENICA

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Three Bosnian-Serbs and one Slovene — Stanko Kojic, Vlastimir Golijan, Zoran Goronja, and Franc Kos – are being charged with genocide for actions in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Hercegovina by the Court of Bosnia and Hercegovina:

“The Indictment inter alia alleges that the accused Franc Kos, as the Commander of the 1st Bijeljina Platoon of the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska, and the other three accused as members of the 10th Sabotage Detachment of the Main Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska, took part in the execution of more than 800 Bosniak men and boys from the UN Safe Area of Srebrenica, who were transported to the execution site at the Branjevo farm.

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NPR: Clinton: Situation In Sudan A ‘Ticking Time Bomb’

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

by Michele Kelemen

Posted in AFRICA, Darfur, GENOCIDE, Sudan | No Comments »

Daily Mail: Genocide, blood diamonds and the absurd hypocrisy of a supermodel

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

By Stephen Glover

The supermodel Naomi Campbell is due to make an appearance at a war crimes tribunal in The Hague today. However, you may not see her doing so. She has obtained an order preventing her being photographed as she enters and leaves the court building in the Dutch city.

What is Ms Campbell doing at a war crimes tribunal? She has been subpoenaed to appear at the trial of Charles Taylor, a former President of Liberia, and not at all a nice piece of work, who is charged on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity over his alleged involvement in the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone – including murder, rape and conscripting child soldiers.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1300445/Naomi-Campbell-Genocide-blood-diamonds-absurd-hypocrisy.html#ixzz0z3HIcfjs

Posted in Blood Diamonds and Minerals, Corporate (ir)responsibility, GENOCIDE, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Time: Bangladesh: Bringing a Forgotten Genocide to Justice

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Two years ago, TIME met Ali Ahsan Mojaheed at the headquarters of his far-right Islamist party, nestled amid a warren of religious bookshops and seminaries in Dhaka. He welcomed this reporter by peeling a clutch of ripe lychees. “Our fruit is the sweetest,” said the secretary general of Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami, proffering a sticky hand. But the conversation soon soured. Asked about the traumatic legacy of Bangladesh’s 1971 independence — when the territory then known as East Pakistan split from West Pakistan in an orgy of bloodshed — Mojaheed dismissed the need for a proper reckoning with the past. “This is a dead issue,” he almost growled. “It cannot be raised.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2008085,00.html#ixzz0z3Fo8B2S

Posted in Bangladesh, GENOCIDE, Genocide Denial | No Comments »

AOL: Peacekeepers Fail to Stop Congo Rapes: Time for a UN Army?

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

(Aug. 24) — As Rwandan and Congolese rebels spent four days raping up to 200 women and baby boys within miles of a United Nations military camp, U.N. peacekeepers did … nothing. “There was no immediate explanation as to why the attacks were not reported until today,” AOL News reported on Monday.

And yet, the news of the U.N. soldiers’ non-response will surprise no one familiar with past U.N. peacekeeping efforts. The 1994 Rwandan genocide was arguably the organization’s greatest failure, for which the U.N. finally admitted responsibility in 2000. But there have been others: For instance, the 2005 massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia, which two years earlier been placed under U.N. protection, protected by 400 armed peacekeepers, none of whom fired upon the advancing Serbian soldiers. Similarly, the U.N. has not stopped the killings in Darfur.

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Posted in AFRICA, Analysis and Opinion, Darfur, GENDER HATE, GENOCIDE, War Crimes | No Comments »

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