genocide

Distant Genocides Demand Intervention, Report Urges

WASHINGTON - Far-away genocides - like Rwanda's in the 1990s and Darfur's today - pose grave national security threats that warrant robust intervention by countries like Canada and the United States, according to a report to be published today.

It argues that political leaders have failed to learn the lessons of inaction, despite the horrific consequences and decades of repeated "never-again" promises.

Posted in genocide

Former Rwandan Minister Gets 30 Years for Genocide Role

A Rwandan ex-deputy interior minister who tricked thousands of people into hiding on a hill where they were butchered has been jailed for genocide.

Callixte Kalimanzira, 54, was sentenced to 30 years for his role in the 1994 slaughter.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda heard he supervised massacres in the southern region of Butare.

More than 800-000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the 100-day genocide that shocked the world.

Posted in Equality/Justice, genocide, Rwanda

Obama Falls Short on Armenian Pledge

It was clever, crafty - artful, even - but it was not the truth. For in the end, Barack Obama dishonoured his promise to his American-Armenian voters to call the deliberate mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 a genocide. How grateful today's Turkish generals must be.

Posted in genocide, Armenia, turkey

World 'Abandoned' Rwanda During Genocide: Kagame

$Skulls of victims of one of the massacres during the 1994 Rwandan genocide are displayed at the Genocide Memorial Site church of Ntarama in Nyamata, Rwanda, in 2004. Rwanda President Paul Kagame on Tuesday slammed the cowardice of an international community that \"abandoned\" his people, 15 years on from the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people died. (AFP)$

KIGALI - Rwanda President Paul Kagame on Tuesday slammed the cowardice of an international community that "abandoned" his people, 15 years on from the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people died.

In a speech marking the anniversary, Kagame addressed nearly 20,000 people gathered at a symbolic location in Kigali -- as survivors hissed at a "failure of humanity" and recounted fooling the butchers responsible for the orgy of violence by lying among dead bodies.

Posted in genocide, Rwanda

Will Obama Honour Pledge on Genocide of Armenians?

It's all supposed to be about campaign promises. Didn't Barack Obama promise to deliver an address from a "Muslim capital" in his first 100 days? It's got to be in a safe, moderate country, of course, but where better than Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's secular/Islamist nation of Turkey, whose rulers talk to Syria as well as Israel, Iran as well as Iraq? But when the Obama cavalcade turned up in the heart of the old Ottoman Empire last night, he and all his panjandrums were praying that he did not have to use the "G" word.

The "G" word?

Posted in genocide

Official: Uganda to Rebury Rwanda Genocide Victims

$Map and chronology of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Rwanda has chosen a symbolic location to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi minority and highlight \"the bankruptcy of humanity\" during the 1994 massacres. (afp.com/Afp/Graphic/File)$

KAMPALA, Uganda - The bodies of nearly 11,000 Rwandan genocide victims that floated more than 100 miles downriver and were placed in makeshift graves in Uganda will receive proper reburial, Rwanda's ambassador said Sunday.

The bodies will be exhumed from the shores of Lake Victoria and reburied in three permanent mass graves, Ambassador Ignatius Kamali said on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide.

Posted in genocide, Rwanda

Turkey Warns Obama Against 'Genocide' Recognition

$Ottoman soldiers pose beside Armenians they executed in 1915. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan says there is a \"risk\" that US President Barack Obama will recognise the massacre of Armenians a century ago as genocide. (AFP)$

ANKARA - Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said Sunday there was a "risk" that US President Barack Obama would recognise the massacre of Armenians a century ago as genocide.

But Babacan said in an interview with the NTV television channel that such a move would only impede efforts to reconcile Turkey and Armenia.

Obama, who is expected to visit Turkey in April, said several times during his election campaign that he would recognise the 1915-1917 massacres under the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Posted in genocide

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 26, 2009
5:48 PM

CONTACT: Beyond Nuclear
Linda Gunter, Media Director, 301.455.5655 (cell) 301.270.2209 (o)

Indigenous Leaders Call for End to Discriminatory and Deadly Uranium Mining

Radioactively contaminated air, water and land has led to genocide

TAKOMA PARK, Md. - February 26 - A group of activist leaders from indigenous communities, including Native American, Australian Aboriginal and Touareg from Niger - spoke out in Washington, DC today against the disproportionate discrimination against Native peoples caused by uranium mining. The group also included a prominent French nuclear scientist and the actor, James Cromwell. They called for an end to uranium mining and the nuclear power programs uranium fuels.

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Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.

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Posted in Activism, genocide, Indigenous peoples, mining, nuclear power, pollution

Columbus and Israel: Thought for Israel's Election Day

In the first chapter of his now-classic A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn writes about some of the rhetorical stratagems historians have employed in their accounts of Christopher Columbus, resulting in that explorer's burnished legacy and interminable celebration.

Posted in genocide, Politics, Israel/Palestine

Cambodia Marks Khmer Rouge Fall

$People hold up a banner showing a dove, the symbol of peace, as Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen (R), President of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) Chea Sim (C) and senior party member Heng Samrin (L) pass by in a car at the National Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh on January 7, 2009, to mark the 30th anniversary of the toppling of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. Some 1.7 million people are believed to have died in the \"Killing Fields\" of the ultra-Maoist guerrillas, whose four year reign of terror was brought to an end in 1979 by invading troops from neighboring Vietnam. (Reuters/Chor Sokunthea/Cambodia)$

Tens of thousands of Cambodians have packed into a stadium in Phnom Penh to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the murderous Khmer Rouge.

Senate President Chea Sim lauded "those who sacrificed their lives to save us from genocide", when Vietnamese-led forces ousted the regime in 1979.

Up to two million people died over the four years of Khmer Rouge rule.

But none of its surviving leaders have yet faced justice, triggering criticism of foot-dragging by the government.

Posted in genocide, Cambodia