Genocide Watch

Fears grow for Hmong in Thailand

By BBC News

December 25, 2009

Fears are growing for the safety of about 4,000 Hmong refugees, subject to deportation from Thailand within days.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency, Antonio Guterres, has urged Thailand to call off its plan to send the ethnic Hmong back to Laos.

The United States has expressed concern and Amnesty International said it was "appalled" by the deportation plan.

The Thai government says it will act according to the law, and a deal with Laos to send them back by 31 December.

In the past week, the army has sent dozens of large trucks to the camp and thousands of soldiers, according to reports in Thai media and phone interviews with residents in the area. (Read More).

Tribunal charges 3rd ex-Khmer Rouge with genocide

(AP) - 18 December 2009

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- A tribunal charged the Khmer Rouge's 78-year-old former head of state with genocide Friday, adding new momentum to long-delayed trials against the brutal regime that ruled Cambodia 30 years ago.

Khieu Samphan was brought before investigating judges of the U.N.-assisted tribunal, who issued the charges, making him the third former Khmer Rouge leader this week to be charged with genocide, tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said. (Read More).

Death Penalty for Gays? Uganda Debates Proposal

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

December 8, 2009

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- Proposed legislation would impose the death penalty for some gay Ugandans, and their family and friends could face up to seven years in jail if they fail to report them to authorities. Even landlords could be imprisoned for renting to homosexuals.

Gay rights activists say the bill, which has prompted growing international opposition, promotes hatred and could set back efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. They believe the bill is part of a continentwide backlash because Africa's gay community is becoming more vocal.

''It's a question of visibility,'' said David Cato, who became an activist after he was beaten up four times, arrested twice, fired from his teaching job and outed in the press because he is gay. ''When we come out and ask for our rights, they pass laws against us.'' (Read More).

Philippines, Muslim rebels resume peace talks

By JULIA ZAPPEI

The Associated Press

Monday, December 7, 2009

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- The Philippine government and a Muslim separatist group Tuesday resumed peace talks that collapsed 16 months ago, restoring formal efforts to end a decades-long rebellion that has claimed at least 120,000 lives.

Negotiators from both sides met at a Kuala Lumpur hotel for the Malaysian-brokered talks, but they were not expected to issue any information until the talks conclude Wednesday, according to a Malaysian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has been fighting for Muslim self-rule for decades in Mindanao, the southern homeland of minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic Philippines. It is the biggest of at least four Muslim rebel groups that have waged a bloody rebellion in the volatile south. (Read More).

Never Again? What the Holocaust can't teach us about modern-day genocide

Andrew Stroehlein in Foreign Policy

2 December 2009

It was cold, misty, and miserably wet the day we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, but no one wished for better weather. My companions -- mostly midlevel diplomats from more than a dozen countries around the world -- all seemed to agree that sunshine would have been almost offensive. We had come to this corner of Poland as part of a weeklong seminar on preventing genocide, which included such outings so that the participants could learn more about the details of the Holocaust. And yet, I wondered if this field trip was having its desired effect.

There is probably no more appropriate single location than Auschwitz-Birkenau for grasping the scope of the Nazi horror. But the unprecedented and unequaled nature of that horror makes it somewhat inappropriate as a useful lesson for preventing genocide today. When you're waiting for something that looks like Birkenau, it's almost too easy to say, "never again." (Read More).

On Vulnerable Ground Violence Against Minority Communities in Nineveh Province's Disputed Territories
by Human Rights Watch
November, 10 2009

At issue is the status of the disputed territories immediately south of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) region. Previous Iraqi governments "arabized" this large area of northern Iraq, expelling hundreds of thousands of Kurds and other minorities from their homes and replacing them with ethnic Arabs. After more than three decades of forced expulsions, and in the aftermath of the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein, an emboldened KRG leadership insists it is entitled to claim this land as part of the territory that Kurds have historically lived in, which stretches from the western villages of Sinjar near the Syrian border all the way to Khanaqin near the Iranian border in the east.

While Kurds and Arabs alike have claimed these contested lands, the reality on the ground differs from the ethnically exclusive narratives portrayed by their leaders. The disputed territories are historically one of the most ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse regions of Iraq, and have for centuries been inhabited by Turkmens, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks, and other minorities, as well as Kurds and Arabs. (Read More).

Delhi 1984: Memories of a massacre
By BBC News
November 1, 2009

The 25th anniversary of Indira Gandhi's assassination revives stark memories of some 3,000 Sikhs killed brutally in the orderly pogrom that followed her killing.

The wave of ethnic cleansing which raged unhindered across the country, especially in Delhi, after Mrs. Gandhi was shot dead ended only with her cremation on 2 November.

During these three days droves of Sikhs were determinedly hunted down by Hindu mobs from their homes, corralled and slaughtered like animals.

The trigger for Mrs Gandhi's killing was the storming of the Golden Temple in Sikhism's holy city Amritsar four months earlier to flush out Sikh militants fighting for an independent homeland of Khalistan or Land of the Pure.

The heavily-armed militants - many of them former soldiers - had barricaded themselves inside the temple and were dislodged only after three days of bitter fighting. Some 1,000 people, including women and children pilgrims and about 157 soldiers, died. (Read more)

Amazon tribe down to five as oldest member dies
By Survival International
October 19, 2009

'The final stages of a genocide'
The Akuntsu tribe in the Brazilian Amazon has lost its oldest member, Ururu, leaving the tribe with only five surviving members.

Ururu was the oldest member of this close-knit, tiny group and an integral part of it.

Altair Algayer, head of FUNAI's (Brazilian government Indian affairs department) team which protects the

Akuntsu's land said, 'She was a fighter, strong, and resisted until the last moment.' In addition, the oldest-surviving Akuntsu, Ururu's brother Konibu, is seriously ill.

Ururu witnessed the genocide of her people and the destruction of their rainforest home, as cattle ranchers and their gunmen moved on to indigenous lands in Rondonia state. Rondonia was opened up by government colonisation projects and the infamous BR 364 highway in the 1960s and 70s. (Read More).