It’s a hard lesson that Stalin murdered upwards of 20 million people while trying to modernize and industrialize Russia. It’s hard to see that his crimes were ecological and environmental, and those ecological crimes killed millions. It’s hard to read about gulags and secret police rounding up innocents by the thousands, for all kinds of reasons, even not clapping for his birthday. It’s even harder to accept Stalin is just the worst, most obvious example of a common theme in humanity. He’s not the only monster. He’s a pattern.
Showing posts with label Genocide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genocide. Show all posts
2022/03/11
2022/01/27
Holocaust Remembrance Day
On the morning of 27 January 1945 the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps still held some 7,000 prisoners. Over a million people deported to Auschwitz perished there. It is estimated that six million Jews were exterminated in the death camps.
2020/08/10
Uncovering Indonesia’s Act of Killing
1965-1966 Indonesian massacre, one of the worst, yet least known, mass killings since World War II, in which an estimated half a million Indonesians suspected of being Communists were murdered by soldiers and paramilitary death squads.
How ‘Jakarta’ Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing
Operação Jacarta. Yakarta Viene. Plan Yakarta. In both Spanish and Portuguese, in all three ways it was used, it’s clear what “Jakarta” meant: anticommunist mass murder and the state-organized extermination of civilians who opposed the construction of capitalist authoritarian regimes loyal to the United States. It meant forced disappearances and unrepentant state terror. And it would be employed far and wide in Latin America over the two decades that followed.
2020/04/22
The Great Terror
After Soviet geologist Yuri Bilibin’s expedition to Kolyma in 1928 he claimed that its subsoil contained more gold than the remaining territory of the entire Soviet Union. When the turbulence of the Revolution and the Civil War ended, the Soviet state was able to mine the gold in the Far East. But to reach that gold under the surface, Kolyma would need a labor force, and that’s how the Gulag camps appeared.
Depending on the prescribed sentence, the order established two categories: the first, “the most hostile elements”, was subject to death by shooting; the others, the second category, were to be imprisoned in Soviet concentration camps and prisons. The order also established a quota for each region by category, indicating that the Soviet leadership considered its victims as potential rather than actual sources of resistance and that the operation was preventive and intimidatory. It also meant that the Soviet police was not expected to provide real and convincing evidence. Eventually, regional authorities and police would significantly exceed the initial quotas.
The vory were creatures of the Gulag—imprisonment being a requirement for inclusion—and rare creatures at that. In the West, you caught glimpses of them in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and in Eugenia Ginsburg’s memoirs; in his Kolyma Tales, Varlam Shalamov discussed them at length.
“The night search, the most degrading procedure, was frequently repeated. “Get up! Get undressed! Hands up! Out into the hall! Line up against the wall.” Naked we were especially frightened. “Among the blind, the one-eyed is king,” and next to them I was still a hero—for the time being. Our hair was undone. What were they looking for? What more could they take away from us? There was something, however: they pulled out all the ties that had been holding up the nuns' skirts and our underwear.”
Depending on the prescribed sentence, the order established two categories: the first, “the most hostile elements”, was subject to death by shooting; the others, the second category, were to be imprisoned in Soviet concentration camps and prisons. The order also established a quota for each region by category, indicating that the Soviet leadership considered its victims as potential rather than actual sources of resistance and that the operation was preventive and intimidatory. It also meant that the Soviet police was not expected to provide real and convincing evidence. Eventually, regional authorities and police would significantly exceed the initial quotas.
The vory were creatures of the Gulag—imprisonment being a requirement for inclusion—and rare creatures at that. In the West, you caught glimpses of them in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and in Eugenia Ginsburg’s memoirs; in his Kolyma Tales, Varlam Shalamov discussed them at length.
“The night search, the most degrading procedure, was frequently repeated. “Get up! Get undressed! Hands up! Out into the hall! Line up against the wall.” Naked we were especially frightened. “Among the blind, the one-eyed is king,” and next to them I was still a hero—for the time being. Our hair was undone. What were they looking for? What more could they take away from us? There was something, however: they pulled out all the ties that had been holding up the nuns' skirts and our underwear.”
2020/04/19
Did Syrian Generals Watch A Chemical Attack On A Hospital?
a delegation of generals visited a command post in Hama and observed strikes on al Lataminah on the March 25, 2017, the same day of the chlorine attack on the hospital. This delegation included both General Ali Abdullah Ayoub and Brigadier Suheil al Hassan. The presence of Brigadier al-Hassan is of particular interest; he is the commander of the “Tiger Forces”, who have previously been linked with the use of helicopter-borne chlorine munitions.
2020/03/01
Namibia still waiting for a German apology
Tens of thousands of members of the two ethnic groups were killed in the genocide in German South West Africa after they rebelled against colonial rule. The Herero and Nama also lost their livestock and land. Until today, many live in bitter poverty.
2018/12/10
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided
to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.
2018/04/15
I hardly can believe that the war criminal Bashar al-Assad will be not arrested
Military help over the past three years from Russia and Iran, which also backs Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Shi’ite Muslim militias in Iraq, has allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to crush the rebel threat to topple him.
For the parent of a murdered Syrian child, the current western focus on the exact method of murder must feel strange. As if Assad was well within his rights to slaughter innocents using regular bombs, and his only offence was to use chlorine or sarin, inflicting a death so painful the footage is unbearable to watch. So unless there’s a plan for action once guilt is established, demanding an investigation sounds a lot like an excuse to do nothing in the hope that soon we’ll all be talking about something else.
Syria will be one of the battlefields, most likely the key battlefield, in which that confrontation plays itself out. As clashes between Israel and Iran mount, it is hard to see this White House staying out of the fight.
For the parent of a murdered Syrian child, the current western focus on the exact method of murder must feel strange. As if Assad was well within his rights to slaughter innocents using regular bombs, and his only offence was to use chlorine or sarin, inflicting a death so painful the footage is unbearable to watch. So unless there’s a plan for action once guilt is established, demanding an investigation sounds a lot like an excuse to do nothing in the hope that soon we’ll all be talking about something else.
Syria will be one of the battlefields, most likely the key battlefield, in which that confrontation plays itself out. As clashes between Israel and Iran mount, it is hard to see this White House staying out of the fight.
2015/10/27
Tibet protesters’ ‘heavy handed’ arrest in UK!
Apart from arresting them on Oct 20 for protesting against the visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping with waving of Tibetan flags, the Met Police of UK’s capital London have raided the homes of Tibetan women Sonam Choden (31) and Jamphel Lhamo (33) and charged them with conspiracy to protest under the country’s Public Order Act 1986. London-based Chinese democracy activist Shao Jiang, a survivor of the 1989 Tiananmen square massacre and who was also arrested on Oct 20, too had his home raided.
2012/01/30
Hard to swallow?
How it was possible?
Perhaps the contemporary art is transformed in a mere financial product where the artist/PR count more than the "product" itself. When musiciens work hard, year after year, sometimes to achieve very little, here, in the contemporary art world, relations - artists/gallerists/curators - and the arranged image of the artist - is whats make things move further. Little surprise if Damien Hirst is "the artist" in the city of the city... It still real great artists in the world today, so we can just to compare - but the point is how it was possible to someone like Hirst get where he is now: at Tate Modern. We can just to reduce it to the british art and to the british society - where two guys were able to make a huge business with Hirst's objects and collections of objects?
Anguish in Azerbaijan
Baku, set to host the Eurovision Song Contest in just over a month, is rapidly trying to become a modern city. To do so, it is forcibly removing residents from their homes to make way for slick new skyscrapers and other development projects. Those who try to stay bear the brunt of the government's wrath.
Web freedom faces greatest threat
Threats range from governments trying to control citizens to the rise of Facebook and Apple-style 'walled gardens'.
As concerned global citizens, we urge you to immediately drop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Our democracy and civil liberties are under threat from the excessive and unnecessary Internet surveillance powers it grants.
Google says it increasingly fields requests from government agencies trying to use their power to suppress political opinions and other material they don't like.
Rebellion in the Nuba Mountains *As concerned global citizens, we urge you to immediately drop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Our democracy and civil liberties are under threat from the excessive and unnecessary Internet surveillance powers it grants.
Google says it increasingly fields requests from government agencies trying to use their power to suppress political opinions and other material they don't like.
Syrian regime accused
The UN has accused the Syrian regime of "crimes against humanity" – including the use of snipers against small children – and has drawn up a list of senior officials who should face investigation, reportedly including President Bashar al-Assad. guardian
Patients tortured by medical staff
A video leaked from a military hospital in the embattled Syrian city of Homs has revealed horrific images of patients receiving torture, instead of treatment, by medical staff. alarabiya
A fleeing refugee tells Channel 4 News of "total genocide" and sexual violence allegedly committed by Syrian soldiers in and around the besieged city of Jisr al-Shughour. channel4
Assad is keeping his troops in the dark. To prevent them from defecting, the soldiers are deployed to new locations every few days, primarily in the sprawling, poor northern suburbs of the capital city -- with no mobile phones and no knowledge of where they are.
Russia, a longtime Assad ally, was giving Assad diplomatic cover to intensify his crackdown
The reports from Syria of the deliberate savagery of government forces as they shell, torture and shoot civilians from areas that have dared to protest against them is unbearable to read or to watch. In the city of Homs, families just like yours or mine are trapped in a city which is being shelled from early morning until darkness falls. Buildings are being obliterated as terrified inhabitants hide in cellars. There is no water or electricity and people are running out of medicines and food.
Certainly the massacre at Houla on Friday was horrible even by the standards of this conflict: more than 100 people killed, many of them young children. They join the estimated 13,000 Syrians who have died in the past 15 months, most at the hands of the regime.
A fleeing refugee tells Channel 4 News of "total genocide" and sexual violence allegedly committed by Syrian soldiers in and around the besieged city of Jisr al-Shughour. channel4
Assad is keeping his troops in the dark. To prevent them from defecting, the soldiers are deployed to new locations every few days, primarily in the sprawling, poor northern suburbs of the capital city -- with no mobile phones and no knowledge of where they are.
Russia, a longtime Assad ally, was giving Assad diplomatic cover to intensify his crackdown
The reports from Syria of the deliberate savagery of government forces as they shell, torture and shoot civilians from areas that have dared to protest against them is unbearable to read or to watch. In the city of Homs, families just like yours or mine are trapped in a city which is being shelled from early morning until darkness falls. Buildings are being obliterated as terrified inhabitants hide in cellars. There is no water or electricity and people are running out of medicines and food.
Iran to execute five Ahwazis
Putin's Mafia State
The West must speak out against this thug - Economic growth based on gas and oil can no longer compensate for the lose of industry, education and dignity that comes from living in a mafia state. (Garry Kasparov in The Times)
Putin mingles with Berlusconi (Bunga-Bunga)
How did Vladimir Putin afford his £450,000 watch collection?
Putin's 'Luxurious Life' Set Out By Activists
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alehina – all members of the anarchic Pussy Riot punk band – have been in prison since March, held on charges of hooliganism which could eventually mean a seven-year sentence.
Ukraine Is Becoming Increasingly Authoritarian
Murder and power, Chinese style
The son of the premier Wen Jiabao, a supposed "liberal" opposed to Bo, has been linked to a dollars 100m investment fund, a story kept out of Chinese newspapers. Wen's wife is a lover of expensive jewellery. A secret US diplomatic cable, quoted by WikiLeaks, suggests influence is for sale by the Wen family.
President Hu Jintao's son has been linked to a controversial telecoms deal in Africa. When a young man died in a black Ferrari crash in Beijing last month, rumours soon had it that he was the illegitimate son of the politburo stalwart Jia Qinglin, who is said to have large property interests. And so it goes on.
Chang welcomes Bo’s downfall: “I think it’s a very good thing this guy fell because he was a huge promoter of Mao, and he did it in a very cynical way. This guy was portraying himself as an anti-corruption zealot. He was torturing people, executing people, for alleged gangsterism — true or not, these cases aren’t going through any legal process — and yet was himself very corrupt. He was one of the top guys, you can see how murky it is. Anyone who promotes the Mao era as the era most free of corruption, who knows Mao was responsible for the death of well over 70 million Chinese ... it makes my blood boil.”
Falun Gong practitioners have heard 610 Office, labor-camp, and prison staff repeat certain policies over and over: “Being beaten to death will count as suicide.” “Cremate the body immediately.” “Ruin their reputations, exhaust their finances, and destroy them physically.”
‘Partnership’ in which one partner robs the other
Joseph Stiglitz characterizes the Obama administration’s vast transfer of money and pubic debt to the banks as a “privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a ‘partnership’ in which one partner robs the other.”
Far away from funding industrial growth and development
Banking has moved so far away from funding industrial growth and economic development that it now benefits primarily at the economy’s expense in a predator and extractive way, not by making productive loans. This is now the great problem confronting our time. Banks now lend mainly to other financial institutions, hedge funds, corporate raiders, insurance companies and real estate, and engage in their own speculation in foreign currency, interest-rate arbitrage, and computer-driven trading programs. Industrial firms bypass the banking system by financing new capital investment out of their own retained earnings, and meet their liquidity needs by issuing their own commercial paper directly. Yet to keep the bank casino winning, global bankers now want governments not only to bail them out but to enable them to renew their failed business plan – and to keep the present debts in place so that creditors will not have to take a loss. Michael Hudson
New Labour imitated Mrs Thatcher in much of her rhetoric and some of her ideas. The trouble was that they learned only half the lesson. They confused the creation of wealth, of which she was a passionate advocate, with the wisdom of the wealthy, about which she was sceptical.
The Governor of the Bank of England ... launched a stinging attack on the culture of the industry he oversees, condemning bankers for high pay, immoral practices and providing shoddy service to customers.
2012/01/23
How much longer and how many deaths?
Dharamsala (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Chinese security forces have killed at least five Tibetans and injured another 40 on the second day of protests that have erupted in the prefecture of Kardze (Ganzi in Chinese), Sichuan Province. According to Tibetan sources, the police fired on demonstrators in Serthar (Seda, in Chinese), where martial law has been imposed. "The Tibetans - said a source - are confined to their homes and police fire on anyone who ventures into the streets."
...
Lobsang Sangay, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government in exile, has appealed to the international community to "intervene to halt renewed bloodshed." "How much longer - he said - and how many other tragic deaths are needed before the world take a firm moral stance? The silence of the international community sends a clear message to China: that its repressive and violent measures to contain the tensions in Tibetan areas are acceptable. "
So far, the United States has only expressed "serious concerns" about violence in Sichuan. Washington is preparing to receive the visit of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in February. asianews
The third period begins with the first quarter of the 18th century, when Chinese suzerainty over Tibet was fully established and the last of the Tartar kings of the dynasty of Gushi Khan was killed by a General of the Jungar Tartars - an incident wich transferred the sovereignty of Tibet to the Dalai Lama, who was till then a mere hierarch of the Gelugpa Church. It is within this period that Tibet has enjoyed unprecedented peace under the benign sway of the boly Bodhisatvas, and its language has become the lingua franca of Higher Asia.
Sarat Chandra Das in An Tibetan-English Dictionary
Armenian Genocide
Historians say that 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman empire between 1915 and 1923, during a forced resettlement. "The overwhelming historical evidence demonstrates that what took place in 1915 was genocide," writes Henri Barkey, a Turkey scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, who nevertheless opposes the house resolution as a needless political manoeuvre.
The killings are considered one of the first instances of genocide in the 20th century. guardian
My "pro-Tibet" blog
2011/12/15
2010/12/10
Afghan women still suffer
Bibi Aisha, the Afghan girl whose nose and ears were cut off by her husband, was a "lucky victim" because she survived her attack and got help, a top human rights official in the country said yesterday.
While Aisha escaped her abusive family, the deputy chairman of the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission said many women in similar circumstances were less lucky.
“For sure, we have hundreds of Bibi Aishas in Afghanistan,” Ahmad Fahim Hakim said. taipeitimes
Rwanda to unveil Genocide Archive
An ambitious hi-tech project to make the Rwandan genocide one of the most thoroughly documented mass killings ever will be unveiled in Kigali today.
The Genocide Archive of Rwanda will serve as a "unified repository" for all information related to the 1994 massacres, which saw about 800,000 people killed in 100 days, mostly from the minority Tutsi population. Guardian
WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer 'used dirty tricks
Cables say drug giant hired investigators to find evidence of corruption on Nigerian attorney general to persuade him to drop legal action. Guardian
Vatican refused to engage with child sex abuse inquiry
Leaked cable lays bare how Irish government was forced to grant Vatican officials immunity from testifying to Murphy commission. Guardian
CABLEGATE
Bibi Aisha, the Afghan girl whose nose and ears were cut off by her husband, was a "lucky victim" because she survived her attack and got help, a top human rights official in the country said yesterday.
While Aisha escaped her abusive family, the deputy chairman of the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission said many women in similar circumstances were less lucky.
“For sure, we have hundreds of Bibi Aishas in Afghanistan,” Ahmad Fahim Hakim said. taipeitimes
Rwanda to unveil Genocide Archive
An ambitious hi-tech project to make the Rwandan genocide one of the most thoroughly documented mass killings ever will be unveiled in Kigali today.
The Genocide Archive of Rwanda will serve as a "unified repository" for all information related to the 1994 massacres, which saw about 800,000 people killed in 100 days, mostly from the minority Tutsi population. Guardian
WikiLeaks cables: Pfizer 'used dirty tricks
Cables say drug giant hired investigators to find evidence of corruption on Nigerian attorney general to persuade him to drop legal action. Guardian
Vatican refused to engage with child sex abuse inquiry
Leaked cable lays bare how Irish government was forced to grant Vatican officials immunity from testifying to Murphy commission. Guardian
CABLEGATE
2010/03/19
Uncomfortable Truth
Deportations have powerful symbolism in modern European history. The notion that the government of a would-be member state of the EU might propose the forced collective expulsion from its territory of a specified nationality ought to be unthinkable.
Yet that course was casually threatened yesterday by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, against 100,000 Armenian migrants. The Times
Deportations have powerful symbolism in modern European history. The notion that the government of a would-be member state of the EU might propose the forced collective expulsion from its territory of a specified nationality ought to be unthinkable.
Yet that course was casually threatened yesterday by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, against 100,000 Armenian migrants. The Times
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