Remembering Koreans massacred after Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923

As Tokyo prepares to mark the 90th anniversary on Sept. 1 of the Great Kanto Earthquake, a citizens group is trying to remind people of another tragedy that accompanied the terrible loss of life: the mindless slaughter of thousands of ethnic Koreans as rumors swirled in the capital that looting had broken out.

The Great Kanto Earthquake of Sept. 1, 1923, left an estimated 140,000 people dead. Many died in firestorms that overwhelmed open areas in which people took shelter.

On that day 90 years ago, rumors quickly spread that Korean residents in Japan had poisoned wells that provided drinking water or attempted to foment rioting through attacks of arson.

The government declared martial law, which led to a wave of killings of Koreans in the disaster areas. According to some sources, as many as 6,000 Korean people were murdered at the hands of vigilante groups comprising citizens, police and soldiers.

A member of a citizens group in Tokyo’s Sumida Ward was thunder-struck when he first heard accounts of butchery 20 years ago. Masao Nishizaki, who belongs to Hosenka, a group set up to get to the truth of what really happened, later published a book based on statements by witnesses. He later built a monument to the victims at a site of the massacre.

"I don't want people to forget the tragedy that occurred 90 years ago," he said.

The memorial he erected is at the foot of the Arakawa river bank near his home reads: "The incident deprived many Koreans who lived in Japan, having left their Japan-occupied homeland, of their precious lives without their names being acknowledged."

Nishizaki, 53, said, "It is a little known fact that many people were killed here."

In 1982, when he was a university student, Nishikazi was part of a local fact-finding survey into the massacre of Koreans after the 1923 earthquake. He listened to statements from witnesses with other members of a history study group that was started by an elementary school teacher.

One witness said, "Soldiers machine-gunned and killed about 10 (Koreans) who were lined up on the riverside."

Another said, "A vigilante group murdered them with Japanese swords and bamboo spears under a bridge."

Nishizaki was shocked by the graphic descriptions.

The group collected accounts from about 150 local witnesses, which were later compiled into a book.

About 100 Koreans were said to have been killed around the area the monument stands. Their ashes were never found. The police apparently removed the bodies so there was no evidence of the atrocity that had been committed.

Now, 90 years since the earthquake struck, it is almost impossible to find a surviving witness. The number of people who have heard about that dark chapter is also declining.

To prevent the tragic memory from fading, Nishizaki built a monument in August 2008 on a plot of land one of his friends provided.

"I thought we should leave something visible on the site of the incident to transcend history," Nishizaki explained.

Fake rumors spread again after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 through Twitter and e-mail exchanges.

Hate speech in Japan directed at specific ethnic groups continues to generate headlines.

Nishizaki is worried that the same tragedy might be repeated.http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/AJ201309010017

"If a great earthquake strikes now, can we say the same tragedy will not be repeated? As one who has listened to testimonies, I have a responsibility."

Nishizaki has been busy collecting written accounts related to massacres and false rumors recorded in celebrities' autobiographies and diaries of nameless citizens.

Each Sept. 1, the Tokyo metropolitan government organizes drills across the capital to encourage citizens to be prepared for the next Big One.

Monday 2 September 2013

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/AJ201309010017

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Zimbabwe mass graves: Horror tales from the war

66-year-old Rangadza Machiha narrates the “worst” years of his life. It is a period that he rarely wants to talk about. For him it was a time of trouble. A time spent burying dismembered bodies, cleaning and taking fingerprints of slain comrades, digging and dumping their bodies in shallow graves.

“Nhau dzerufu hadzinakidzeka idzi mfana. I was tortured, electrocuted and was put in leg irons and handcuffs for nearly three months. I want to appeal to people to remain united so that this is not repeated. It was a painful experience. Let this be history and never to be repeated. That is my appeal to the people of Zimbabwe,” Mudhara Machiha pleaded.

One thing that is true about the old man is that he still can relate his ordeal at the hands of the Rhodesian security forces 34 years ago like something that happened a fortnight ago. Indeed, that has left a deep scar in his life that he cannot wish away.

It was the war of liberation. The enemy had declared that blacks would never rule the country and was prepared to go to any length to prevent an independent Zimbabwe. The Smith regime was brutal. It left a trail of sorrow in the African family fabric. Many despicable things happened. Let’s continue to tell the tales of our liberation struggle.

Arrested at the height of the liberation struggle after the battle of Rombwe in Rusape on December 28, 1977, Machiha with others were taken to the notorious Rusape Selous Scout Camp.

“On arrival he was covered in a black sack and taken to a room for interrogation. In the room there were pictures of nationalists like Cde (Josiah) Tongogara, President Mugabe and others. These had a wanted dead or alive tag above their heads. A huge reward was placed on their heads,” he said

“I still remember that among those arrested was a freedom fighter, Cde Gafa Tichatonga, who denied knowledge of me. If he had said he knew me I could have been history by now. I was put in leg irons and tortured.

They connected electricity to my male organ and one toe. I cried and thought I would never sire a child again. This was to become a daily occurrence for the next three months,” he added.

Mudhara Machiha was only freed from the leg irons when a relative who was in CID saw him.

Pained by his condition, the policeman oiled the locks that were now rusting and unlocked the shackles. From then on he was to join those who were burying bodies at Castle Farm.

“At the burial site we had to quickly dig the shallow mass graves and cover the bodies as the soldiers who accompanied us feared attacks from the freedom fighters. The numbers differed but ranged between five and eight.

One day we buried 26 bodies in a shallow grave and they came from many areas. They were of all ages and sexes. Some had lost their limbs, heads and others torn to pieces.

“I remember freedom fighters were placed in room at the camp. We would be tasked to wash their hands and take fingerprints. Some of the policemen would puff smoke to neutralise the odour from decaying bodies.

It was a bad experience but there was nothing we could do. We had to perform the duties at gunpoint,” he said.

“Dead bodies would be brought from as far as Wedza and Ruwangwe and Nyanga to be buried in mass graves there. They would be carried in four to five trucks for burial a day and we buried them in the vlei just after that little stream in the east of Mabvazuva suburb.”

Among the names of black soldiers who tortured him most at the camp where Sergegant-Major Chisese while other had nicknames like Mbudziyadhura, Komboniyatsva, Tsvotsvotsvo and Chigadziramemba.

“I remember one known as Mari. That man was cruel, he was my tormentor-in- chief,” Mudhara Machiha says fighting back his tears. He was released on August 18 1978.

“They just told me to leave the camp. I moved to Tsanzaguru Township. I still carry the effects of the torture,” he added.

His experiences at the Rusape Selous Torture Camp tally with that of Mbuya Mazano arrested in Rukweza after fleeing the Battle of Tsanzaguru.

“We were tired after running the whole way from Rusape that I and others decided to climb a huge mango tree for cover. The homestead had a lot of such trees and it was easy to find cover in them.

It was unfortunate that a group of soldiers passed below the mango tree and two of decided to sit under the tree to rest. Because of fear, one of us fell from the tree alerting the soldiers.

“She had blown our cover. The soldiers forced us to climb down the trees before force marching us to St Baduwa where there were people who had been shot dead. We were told to climb into the trucks with the bodies and to sleep alongside the dead bodies.

At road curves blood would spill out of the trucks but we had to remain quiet fearing we would be shot,” she said.

On arrival the bodies were first dumped next to their tent at the camp before being reloaded again for burial at the “butchery”.

“We were forced again to get on the trucks for a makeshift court at the butchery. In the makeshift court there was an electric stool where prisoners of war were forced to sit while being interrogated. The soldiers would drop burning plastics on your naked bodies.

“I did not have to sit on the hot stool as one black soldier shouted; “Ibhebhi rakanaka ndiri kurida usaripise”. That was how I was spared the torture and imminent death at the butchery. Unfortunately, some of my friends who were on the truck with me were tortured and later executed.

They were put in black plastic and buried here,” she said.

Unfortunately for Gogo Mazano that was the start of worse things to come. She was to stay at the camp with soldiers taking turns to rape her. They would move around with her as their sex object.

“Imagine being raped by more than 10 people a day. If you failed to please them they would severely assault you. At one point I fell pregnant but I was beaten till I lost that pregnancy. I was admitted at hospital for nearly three months.

On discharge they came and took me back to the camp. I was only released during the ceasefire in 1979.

“It still haunts me today. It is disheartening that these people have gone scot free and are still unrepentant,” she said.

She recalls some of her tormentors were still alive but most had left the area after independence. Another victim of Rusape Selous Scout Camp Gogo Regina Doto said she was picked in Vhengere Township by a group of auxiliary troops on their way to Chiwetu Rest.

“On arrival at the rest camp, a black cloth was tied on the faces of all the ‘prisoners’ so we would not see what was going on in the camp. Before they had started interrogating us there was the sound of gunfire and so we were again bundled into the trucks and driven to Rusape Selous Scout Camp. On arrival red cloths were tied around our eyes so that we could not see our tormentors. It was also a sign that we had to be executed,” she said.

“Whilst the Rhodesian soldiers were still contemplating what to do with us, the spirits smiled on us and they the camp was attacked by the guerrillas. The Rhodesian troops scurried for cover in the holes at the camp leaving us to face the fire.

“We took advantage of the commotion and ran for dear life back to Vhengere. That is how we survived the camp. It was only towards end of the war that the Selous Scout came to take part of the suburb to Castle Camp. It was painful to see skeletons with shoes on, functioning watches in hand but with no flesh.

“They boasted that they had killed so many. I remember one of them saying there are thousands of your brothers here. They took us to a pit near that hill where we were shown hundreds of decomposing bodies that were to be burnt.

“You see that pit, it used to be deep and that is where most of your brothers and sisters’ bodies were burnt. As they drove away, blood would spill from the trucks along the way and it was a sad sight,” she said.

“At that time, blood of the people who had been killed at the execution site flowed down the slope. There were pits everywhere in this area with bodies of people who were forced to dig their own graves, before being shot and buried there,” she said.

Thursday 23 May 2013

http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79421:horror-tales-from-the-war&catid=42:features-news&Itemid=134#.UZ1kDYdzA34

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The disappeared in Turkey: Justice central to Kurdish peace process

Justice for the thousands of state-perpetrated killings and disappearances of Kurdish civilians in the 1990s should be an essential part of the peace process under way in Turkey, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch released a video outlining the events of that era, with family members whose loved ones were killed describing the lack of justice ever since. Ongoing talks between the Turkish government and Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned leader of the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), aim to end a decades-long conflict to further human rights and democracy in Turkey.

“Justice for the crimes of the 1990s is an important element among the human rights steps to resolve the Kurdish issue,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Ending decades of impunity for security forces and other public officials for the serious human rights violations perpetrated in the 1990s will take a real commitment from the government and prosecutors.”

In the new video, families of victims talk about their long search for justice for the execution-style killings, disappearances, and deaths in custody carried out by state agents in southeast Turkey and in some of the country’s main cities in the early 1990s. The video explains that Turkey’s 20-year time limit on criminal investigations for murder means that without urgent action there may soon be procedural obstacles to pursuing prosecutions in cases from the early 1990s.

The video includes interviews with some of the many families of victims who, in the absence of domestic investigations and prosecutions, brought their cases to the European Court of Human Rights, after they were denied justice in the Turkish courts. In repeated judgments against Turkey, the European Court found violations of the right to life and a pattern of failure to conduct effective investigations. These families continue to seek the prosecution in Turkey’s courts of those who killed their relatives and want to see justice enforced at home too.

In the most recent European Court ruling on April 16, 2013, in the case of Meryem Çelik and others, the court held Turkey directly responsible for the July 1994 disappearance of 12 men who are presumed dead, and the killing of another, following a military operation in a village in Hakkari province. The court further ruled that there had been a failure to investigate the 13 cases or the circumstances leading to the death of a fourteenth man whom soldiers allegedly shot dead in the village during the operation. The court ordered compensation to the families totaling €1.4 million.

In spite of many such rulings over the years, the Turkish authorities have taken few steps to put military personnel and state officials suspected of these crimes on trial.

Many of the cases from the period 1993 to 1996 may soon reach the time limit in domestic law for prosecutions, and the responsibility falls to both government and prosecutors to overcome the barrier presented by the statute of limitations in these cases. They can take steps to set aside the statute of limitations, either as a matter of case law or through legislative changes or both. Turkey has an obligation under international law to prosecute these serious human rights crimes and to enforce the findings of the European Court judgments, Human Rights Watch said.

A Human Rights Watch report in September 2012 identified the statute of limitations as a key obstacle to accountability for these crimes.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly explained why statutes of limitations cannot be applied to prevent prosecutions of serious human rights abuses. It made the case in a legal opinion presented to the justice minister in January that a change in the law to lift the statute of limitations in these cases would allow for their future prosecution and would not violate the principle of legality in international law.

A reform package passed by Turkey’s parliament on April 11 lifted the statute of limitations on investigating and prosecuting the crime of torture. The change offers an opportunity for accountability for acts of torture by security officials in the 1980s and 1990s, for which investigation and prosecution had previously been barred.

“Following the very positive step Turkey’s parliament took in the latest reform package to end time limitations on prosecuting torture cases, the government should ensure that there are no obstacles to justice for killings and disappearances by state forces or officials,” Sinclair-Webb said.

“European Court rulings such as the most recent one concerning the disappearance of 12 villagers in Hakkari are a reminder that the Turkish authorities have a duty to hold to account military, police, and other state officials for killing and disappearing civilians at the height of the conflict with the PKK in the early 1990s,” Sinclair-Webb said. “Prosecuting the crimes of the 1990s era would also help build the foundations of lasting peace.”

Prosecutors in Ankara have invoked the European Court judgments in decisions not to bar some old investigations into political killings despite the statute of limitations, citing a failure to conduct effective investigations in the past and the need to combat impunity. While the prosecutors’ actions should be supported and represent an important step forward, they should be complemented by legal reform that abolishes the application of the statute of limitations for killings involving state officials in the same way as for torture, Human Rights Watch said.

In two cases, Human Rights Watch interviewed relatives of victims who are still seeking justice in Turkey, despite winning cases at the European Court of Human Rights.

Adnan Örhan’s father, Selim Örhan, an uncle, Hasan Örhan, and cousin, Cezayir Örhan, were detained by a unit of the Bolu Commando Regiment during a military operation against their hamlet in Çağlayan village in the Kulp district of Diyarbakır province in May 1994. After a 2002 judgment (Örhan v Turkey) in which the European Court held Turkey responsible both for their deaths and for failing to conduct an effective investigation, among other violations, the Turkish authorities took no steps to reopen the investigation to identify and prosecute those responsible.

Despite a DNA test that in 2007 identified bones discovered in a mass grave as belonging to Adnan Örhan’s father and uncle, the Diyarbakır prosecutor’s office has still not actively pursued an investigation or interviewed witnesses. Almost 19 years after the disappearances, without resolute steps to investigate, the statute of limitations in the case will expire in May 2014.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed Resul Kaya, who was among dozens of villagers whom soldiers tortured during a military operation in February 1993 against their village, Ormaniçi, in the Güçlükonak district of Şırnak province. Seven among the villagers had to have feet or toes amputated as a result of incurring frostbite and then gangrene after being made to walk through snow then to stand for many days in cold water while in detention. Kaya described to Human Rights Watch how a group of soldiers had set fire to him and attempted to burn him to death.

The villagers from Ormaniçi took a case to the European Court, which ruled in Ahmet Özkan and others v Turkey that the Turkish authorities were responsible for torturing them, for the death of one man, and for burning down their homes. Despite the ruling, no one in Turkey was subsequently put on trial for these crimes.

Kaya also told Human Rights Watch that in June 1994 in a second military operation against the village, soldiers summarily executed his father, Mehmet Kaya, and three other villagers and that there had never been any investigation into the killings. After speaking to Human Rights Watch, Resul Kaya and families of the other villagers executed in June 1994, filed a new complaint with the Cizre public prosecutor and expect to be called in the coming days to testify before the prosecutor as witnesses and plaintiffs in the case.

The third interview in the Human Rights Watch video is with Saadet Dayan and Halil Dayan, concerning the death in custody in January 1994 of Ebubekir Dayan, an imam in Cizre. Saadet Dayan, his widow, told Human Rights Watch that her husband was summoned to the police station and detained for over two weeks. She told how she went to the morgue to identify his dead body, which bore the signs of torture.

She showed Human Rights Watch the possessions her husband had with him when he was detained and that the police had returned to her with his body. For 19 years she has preserved Ebubekir’s watch and takke, the hat he wore during prayer, his comb, belt, and a box of matches.

Halil Dayan, Ebubekir Dayan’s father and himself an imam, told Human Rights Watch that the family is still seeking justice for the torture and killing of Ebubekir.

Thursday 25 April 2013

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/25/turkey-justice-central-kurdish-peace-process

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Doubt cast over Guatemala ex-dictator's genocide trial

The trial of a former dictator accused of genocide has divided the country and pitted judge against judge, becoming the biggest test yet of Guatemala's fragile justice system.

Until a few days ago, a panel of judges was nearing a verdict in the trial of Efraín Ríos Montt, who ruled Guatemala for 17 months in 1982 and 1983.

He is accused of ordering the massacre of hundreds of indigenous Mayans in this highlands region during military campaigns against leftist guerrillas. Mr. Ríos Montt maintains he is innocent.

Last week, another judge issued a surprise ruling to nullify the trial on technical grounds. That sparked a fight with the trial's presiding judge, who refused to accept it and insisted the case would go on. This week, the country's top court was weighing in as the final arbiter, with a decision likely in coming days.

The uncertainty has stirred anxiety in Guatemala, where the trial has conjured anew memories of the Cold War-era civil war that claimed some 200,000 lives over 36 years.

Perhaps as important, experts say, the case is testing Guatemala's ability to try war-crime cases.

"There are islands of democracy here, but it remains a sea of impunity," said Anita Isaacs, a political-science professor who studies Guatemala at Haverford College, near Philadelphia.



The current president, Otto Pérez Molina—himself a former commander under Mr. Ríos Montt—had been accused during the trial of also having committed war crimes, something he vigorously denies.



Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department on Tuesday said it was sending a top war-crimes diplomat, Stephen Rapp, to visit alleged victims in the case.

In recent weeks, dozens of people took the witness stand to recall military campaigns, which they said included villages burned to the ground by soldiers and dozens of abductions and killings.

Mr. Ríos Montt gave a full-throated defense of his de facto presidency, arguing that his targets were armed leftist guerrilla groups, not civilians. He had no knowledge of the worst events, his attorneys said.

The case centers on the killings of hundreds of civilians in an area called the Ixil Triangle, where the main town of Nebaj is surrounded by mountains that were inhabited by guerrilla fighters in the 1980s.

Mr. Ríos Montt entered office in 1982 after a coup and vowed to stamp out the guerrilla presence in Nebaj and surrounding towns.

He was a controversial figure both then and now, feared by rebels and many indigenous people but supported by others who felt he was turning the tide in Guatemala's long war.

Last week, a team of forensics experts began an exhumation of victims killed during Mr. Ríos Montt's tenure at a military base on the outskirts of Nebaj. Signs along the road offer Guatemalans free services for DNA testing on the remains of loved ones recovered from clandestine graves as a means of positively identifying the bodies.

Approached by a reporter during the trial, Mr. Ríos Montt declined to comment. But his attorney, Francisco Palomo, said Mr. Ríos Montt could not be held accountable for the actions of his soldiers at the time.

Mr. Palomo said that while villages had been burned and civilians were killed by soldiers during Mr. Ríos Montt's tenure, it didn't qualify as genocide and happened without his client's knowledge.

"Just as the president of the United States might not know the specifics of what his troops have done…he didn't either," Mr. Palomo said.

Guatemala's Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz, who brought the case to trial, had called the decision last week to annul the case illegal and said that she was confident of getting a conviction.

She says two military documents entered into evidence showed that Mr. Ríos Montt had knowledge of civilian massacres and suggest that they came at his orders.

"They used the words 'extermination' and 'liquidation' in their documents" when referring to the Ixil people, Ms. Paz y Paz said. "This is a strong case."

Mr. Ríos Montt's trial was many years in the making.

Charges were first brought to a Spanish judge in Madrid in 1999 by Rigoberta Menchú, an indigenous activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Ms. Menchú's father was killed by authorities while hiding in the Spanish Embassy in 1980 when Mr. Ríos Montt was a high-ranking military official.

In a recent interview, Ms. Menchú said she took the case to Spain "because here in Guatemala they didn't try war crimes." That case remains in court.

But as the investigation in Spain developed, so did Guatemala's attempts to build its own institutions.

In late 2006, it established the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as the CICIG in Spanish, a joint venture with international prosecutors and judges sponsored by the United Nations.

The CICIG's mandate—to specifically target top-level Guatemalan officials who had escaped prosecution—was a major step in clearing the way to begin war crimes trials in the country, said Ms. Isaacs, the political-science professor.

U.N. jurists also trained many of the Guatemalan prosecutors who are now involved in Mr. Ríos Montt's case.

Mr. Ríos Montt, who had returned to political life as a congressman in the 1990s, was at first shielded from prosecution under Guatemala's immunity laws.

But when his term ran out last year, prosecutors filed the charges against him.

Residents interviewed in Nebaj recently described some brutal scenes from those years involving villages destroyed and relatives lost after the arrest by soldiers.

Nicolás Corio, a community organizer who was 10-years-old when Mr. Ríos Montt took office, remembered his village being bombed by government aircraft. He said soldiers later arrived, burned the villagers' homes, destroyed corn crops and killed livestock.

Elena de Paz, 42, who testified during the trial, said soldiers abducted her mother in 1983 and she never heard from her again. Her grandparents and father had previously disappeared in military custody, she said.

"I am the only one who survived," she said, standing near the remnants of a bomb dropped in 1983. "There are people who say [Mr. Ríos Montt] is old, let him out. But he still can think, and he knows he's guilty."

Mr. Palomo said that contrary to the trial testimony, Mr. Ríos Montt still enjoys support in Nebaj. His political party, the Guatemalan Republican Front, still garners many votes there, as it did during Mr. Ríos Montt's long term in the Congress, although he never represented the area personally.

"If it were true that the military had been so bad, would they still vote for him years later?" he said.

Wednesday 24 April 2013

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323551004578437013856080192.html

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The long arc of justice in Guatemala

Thirty years ago, a "scorched earth" counterinsurgency strategy in the Quiche region of Guatemala left 1,771 Maya Ixil dead, tens of thousands displaced, and ruptured the social fabric of the community. This ruthless campaign of state repression was carried out by General Jose Efrain Rios Montt during the darkest chapter of the 36-year conflict, in which 200,000 Guatemalans died, the vast majority of whom were indigenous Mayans, and another 50,000 disappeared. Today, despite a pervasive culture of impunity in Guatemala and a veil of silence still surrounding those years, Rios Montt and Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, his chief intelligence officer, are being prosecuted in Guatemala for genocide and other crimes against humanity, a day many never thought would come.

The selection of intrepid Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz in 2010 ushered in a new era in Guatemala's struggle against impunity. Long accused of atrocities, Rios Montt enjoyed immunity from prosecution as a member of Congress for 20 years, but was charged shortly after his departure from office in 2012. His prosecution sets a historic precedent for the people of Guatemala and the global community, representing the first time a head of state stands trial in a national court for the crime of genocide.

At the front of the cavernous courtroom, three judges sit closely together, occasionally huddled in conference, along a substantial wooden bench that stretched the length of the courtroom. On the wall above hangs the Guatemalan coat of arms: crossed rifles to signify defence of territory, swords emblematic of honour, and the date of Guatemalan independence from Spain etched across a scroll upon which a quetzal is perched, all against a backdrop of bay leaf branches symbolising victory. These lofty symbols however are imbued with a more ambiguous meaning to the vast majority of Guatemalans.

One of the most savage periods in the internal conflict occurred after the bloodless coup that installed General Rios Montt as military leader on March 23, 1982. During his 17 month tenure, Rios Montt escalated and systematised a reign of terror initiated by his predecessor Lucas Garcia. By the time Rios Montt was deposed in a subsequent military coup, a grisly trail of blood laid bare his ruthless counterinsurgency strategy of murdering of men, women, children, the frail, and the elderly, accompanied by the calculated destruction of the fabric of their ancestral communities.

Unable to easily crush the small armed insurgency and the widespread popular movement among many of Guatemala's marginalised people that seemed to escalate along with the repression, Rios Montt developed a new strategy to crush the guerrillas: "If you cannot catch the fish, you must drain the sea". Based on the manipulated assumption that sympathetic indigenous populations provided logistical and ideological support for the insurgents, Rios Montt set out to decimate those communities. This strategy was developed and implemented with both tacit and overt US support: training in counter-insurgency tactics at the School of the Americas, and intelligence and military aid and assistance. Ronald Reagan continued to provide support to the Guatemalan military even after widespread reports of atrocities, claiming that "President Ríos Montt is a man of great personal integrity, and commitment... I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice".

Documents declassified during the late 90s, however, prompted then US President Bill Clinton to apologise. Recognising the evidentiary weight and power of both the declassified documents that contained categorical evidence of US complicity in the atrocities and the UN Historical Clarification Commission's nine-volume report, Clinton stated, "It is important that I state clearly that support for military forces or intelligence units which engaged in violent and widespread repression of the kind described in the report was wrong." Some critics denounced the apology as hollow and misleading for failing to acknowledge that American support for Guatemalan military repression was an intentional effort to advance its own political and economic interests, despite the unspeakable and incalculable suffering it engendered.

After the conflict's end, the Historical Clarification Commission concluded that the military was responsible for 93 percent of the deaths, and that in four areas, the State of Guatemala committed genocide against its indigenous Mayan population. The Recovery of Historical Memory report [SP] of the Catholic Church echoed those findings. The department of Quiche was home to the Maya Ixil, considered by the military to be courageous and recalcitrant, and unusually resistant to dispossession from their ancestral lands. The military concluded that the insurgents had succeeded in the complete indoctrination of the Ixil, enjoying the support of 100 percent of the population in that area, though the reality was far more complicated and nuanced. Unable to easily suppress the resistance, the military fixated on the annihilation of the "internal enemy" through killing zones, a strategy documented by witnesses and memorialised in detailed military plans, including Operation Sofia.

'Scorched earth'

In the early days of the genocide trial, survivors of Rios Montt's "scorched earth" policy testified in harrowing detail about the abuses they suffered and the horrors they witnessed. Supporters populated the court to bear witness to the testimony of their companions, mere yards from the man accused of devastating their communities. Experts testified about their painstaking forensic work that documented causes of death and helped grieving families reclaim and rebury their loved ones. After weeks of gut-wrenching testimony, the next phase of the trial centred on demonstrating the carefully designed military plan of the Guatemalan military to "exterminate the subversive elements" of the Ixil. To achieve that goal, the military killed men, women, children, infants, aged and infirmed people, and deliberately ruptured the fabric of their communities by burning crops, slaughtering animals, destroying cultural artifacts and severing sacred spiritual connections to their ancestral lands.

The past was inextricably linked to the present, when Hugo Ramiro Leonardo Reyes, a former army mechanic, testified by video from an undisclosed location, fearing reprisal. The witness elicited audible gasps from the audience by implicating sitting president Otto Perez Molina in the crimes committed in Quiche in 1982, when he served as a field commander. This echoed other accusations from human rights groups that Perez Molina was complicit in war crimes in that region. These allegations are substantiated by a video of Major Tito, the nom de guerre of Perez Molina, standing over the bodies of guerrillas who witnesses say were tortured before being summarily executed in Nebaj in 1982. Perez Molina confirmed to the Prensa Libre in 2000 that Major Tito was his pseudonym, though he later denied the connection.

The US supported brutality was contextualised by various witnesses as occurring in the panic after the Cuban Revolution and the Cold War, when the US was particularly apprehensive about the geopolitics of the hemisphere. The US-sponsored coup in 1954 overthrew democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz, whose incipient agrarian reform efforts inflamed US concerns that Guatemalan land reform would compromise US military and political hegemony and private commercial interests in the region. Many analysts condemn the US's "wretched record of military cooperation" that led to deadly state repression against its own people throughout Central America during that era, a charge that continues to this day.

The defence endeavoured to exculpate Rios Montt on several substantive grounds, and engaged in an orchestrated strategy to delegitimise the trial. Denying that genocide occurred, defence witnesses attributed many of the atrocities to the insurgents themselves, while other deaths were characterised as unintentional collateral damage in the internal conflict for which Rios Montt bears no responsibility. Moreover, the defence argued that groups were targeted for ideological reasons, and politically motivated repression does not constitute genocide. The defence further claimed that Rios Montt did not exercise command responsibility over those on the ground in Quiche and elsewhere, and that he was unaware of and could not control rogue members of the military who perpetrated massacres. Rios Montt's own words, memorialised in an interview by Pamela Yates in 1982, came back to haunt him: while the notably less vigorous Rios Montt sat passively at the defence table, a younger, smiling and animated version played on a screen above his head, confidently declaring in response to a question of his control that "if I can't control the Army, then what am I doing here?"

A protracted trial

Amplifying the voice of the victims is important and meaningful, and their testimony has reinvigorated a historically stunted national dialogue about the dark side of Guatemala's recent past. But progressive elements of Guatemalan society are not sanguine about the transformative potential of a conviction. Survivors, lawyers, judges, witnesses and human rights defenders continue to receive threats. A conviction would clearly not be the end of the tortuous legal road on which this sordid story has travelled. Even before the trial's inception, defence attorneys have engaged in dilatory tactics and have been carefully laying the groundwork for multiple avenues of appeal, voicing their objections at every stage of the proceedings and engaging in a what critics characterise as a deliberate campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the trial. The appeals process could easily outlast an ageing Rios Montt's natural life, and would certainly endure past Paz y Paz's tenure as Attorney General.

Despite international condemnation of the genocide and the recent publicity engendered by the trial, many Guatemalans are either unaware of or deny that genocide occurred, including President Perez Molina and members of the business elite. Some who were hopeful that the public spotlight of trial would advance truth, memory and justice are sobered by the tenor of the regressive discourse it has generated. As we sat in the courtroom, the founder of the Foundation Against Terrorism was surrounded by press photographers, posing with a copy of the 20 page document he paid to distribute in the national newspaper that day. Replete with photographs, the gruesome document presents a starkly different narrative of the past, accusing the insurgents and their supporters of committing the atrocities and inflaming an already bitterly divided populace. The next day's newspaper sported a full page advertisement, decrying the trial and accusing survivors and their advocates of polarising the country and rubbing raw old wounds, a narrative many feared would incite violent reprisals. A reckoning will not come easily to Guatemala.

Some people believe that irrespective of the trial's outcome, members of ravaged Ixil communities have finally been provided with a public forum to recount their excruciating truths and honour the memory of their dead. As I sat with a group of massacre survivors around a long table draped with traditional artisanal cloths, my belief in the importance of reconciliation was deepened. The group thanked us for accompanying them in their struggles, told us they drew strength from our solidarity, and shared their stories of profound sorrow and incalculable loss. We absorbed their anguish and horror, and were humbled and inspired by their fortitude, dignity, faith and steely determination to unearth truth, preserve memory and seek justice, to honour the dead and to ensure that history never repeats itself. As tears trickled down my cheeks, a soft-spoken man across the table held my gaze, and with the poignant gesture of a gentle nod and a subtle smile, conveyed his appreciation that we had come to bear witness and affirmed our shared humanity.

The survivor's unwavering faith in ultimate justice would be tested only hours later, when the judicial process took a turn that shocked even hardened observers. The initial judge to hear the charges had just annulled the proceedings, a decision poised to cost survivors and their lawyers even more time and strain already depleted financial and emotional resources. When Judge Jazmin Barrios indicated that the proceedings would continue, prompting defence attorneys to stage a theatrical walkout, in violation of their professional and ethical responsibilities.

At the much anticipated session in court the next morning, an unflappable and resolute Judge Barrios electrified the packed courtroom as she read her eloquent and impeccably supported legal arguments, declared her commitment to uphold the rule of law, and vowed that the trial would continue. Given the legal and political manoeuvring, Judge Barrios suspended the proceedings pending a final decision from the Constitutional Court. Court observers erupted into elated applause, and gathered outside to march to the Constitutional Court, amid the rhythm of drums and banners of solidarity proclaiming that "We are all Ixils". In a process marked by irregularities and setbacks, it is hard to predict what comes next. But one thing is clear: justice may be delayed yet again, but the resilient survivors, fiercely determined lawyers and their supporters will continue to wage this struggle.

No panacea, but cathartic

While symbolically important, no one believes that Rios Montt's ultimate conviction would be a panacea. Guatemala faces seemingly insurmountable challenges, and a guilty verdict would not curtail the violence plaguing the country, nor dismantle the country's deeply entrenched structural inequality, legendary impunity, endemic racism, pervasive and severe poverty, corrupt institutions, ongoing land rights struggles, femicide, targeted killings of community leaders, or mayhem attributed to drug trafficking and gangs. But truth, collective memory and healing are essential for survivors of atrocities and for the country as a whole, as societies that do not reckon with a violent past will continue to suffer from its enduring legacy.

It is remarkable that survivors who lost everything but their humanity somehow possess the grace, courage and unshakable faith that despite everything, justice will be served. For a country with a notoriously corrupt judicial system, Judge Barrios is an inspiring beacon of integrity, impartiality, independence and professionalism. The next weeks will be perilous for human rights defenders, survivors and their supporters, as threats to unleash violent reprisals intensify. In these harrowing times, the accompaniment and solidarity of the international community can make a measurable and meaningful difference for the morale and safety of these brave and irrepressible souls.

The arc of history is long in Guatemala, but perhaps the survivors will be vindicated in their unwavering belief that charges against Rios Montt will bend the future towards justice.

Monday 22 April 2013

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/2013422115046800678.html

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HRW report: massacres in Arakan State

Evidence of official involvement in the massacres that left hundreds dead was gathered by HRW researchers at 27 different sites in Arakan State, including at four mass graves dug between June and October last year.

The report is the most comprehensive evidence yet that the Burmese government colluded in a wave of ethnic attacks and was released just hours before the EU was due to drop sanctions on the Burmese regime as a reward for reformist pledges at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

At one mass grave near the town of Sittwe, local residents took photographs of the 18 bodies dumped in a freshly dug grave. The corpses had their hands tied behind their back with plastic strips used by the police.

"They dropped the bodies right here," a Rohingya man, who saw the bodies being dumped and later buried told HRW. "Three bodies had gunshot wounds. Some had burns, some had stab wounds. One gunshot wound was on the forehead, one on the chest. Two men's hands were tied at the wrists in front and another one had his arms tied in the back."

More than 100 witnesses to the violence, which was speared by Buddhist monks and a nationalist political movement in the region, Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, cited repeated cases in which the police and army would arrive at the scene prior to an attack. Having reassured locals with a cordon, they would then breach promises by allowing attacks and joining in the violence. Related Articles

In the worse single massacre of the three month outbreak more than 70 people, including 28 children were hacked to death in a day long massacre at Yan Thei village.

"The policemen were telling us to go back in to the village. At that time the Arakanese were coming toward us. We were trapped," said one man. "First they said they would protect us but when the violence started they took sides with the Arakanese people."

Muslims are resented in the region as immigrants who have crossed illegally from Bengal into Burma, even though most of those affected have lived in the area for several generations. "The Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya that continues today through the denial of aid and restrictions on movement," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at HRW. "The government needs to put an immediate stop to the abuses and hold the perpetrators accountable or it will be responsible for further violence against ethnic and religious minorities in the country."

More than 125,000 were displaced in the violence last year and the UN yesterday warned those still living in camps face a catastrophe from adverse weather and poor conditions over the summer months.

"UNHCR is seriously concerned about the risks facing over 60,000 displaced people in flood-prone areas and in makeshift shelters," Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the United Nation's refugee organisation said.

"From May to September, the monsoon season is expected to unleash heavy rains and possible cyclones in Rakhine state, where more than 115,000 people remain uprooted after last year's inter-communal violence," he warned.

Abu Tahay from the National Democratic Party for Development, which represents the Rohingya, said Burma's world renowned democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi has an "obligation" to speak out against the Burmese government involvement in the attacks.

Allies of Miss Suu Kyi, who has given the Burmese government crucial international backing by refusing to join outright condemnation of the violence have acknowledge the predictament has damaged her authority.

"There was some damage to her moral authority because of this situation. Daw Suu also knows about it," Win Tin, a co-founder of her National League for Democracy said.

But experts in Burmese politics said Miss Suu Kyi cannot offend the core segment of ethnic Burmese voters who symathise with the anti-Muslim groups.

"Aung San Suu Kyi has an election to win in 2015. She risks alienating politically potent Buddhist elements among her own supporters if she appears too cosy with the Rohingya, or other Muslims," said Nicholas Farrelly of the Australian National University. "Western human rights activists and international opponents of anti-Islamic prejudice will not have a vote in who runs Myanmar in the years ahead," he said.

Monday 22 April 2013

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/10008702/Burmese-officials-filled-mass-graves-with-Muslims.html

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25th anniversary of the Halabja Massacre in Iraq

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Halabja Massacre on March 16, 1988 in which more than 5 thousand people lost their lives. On March 16 the massacre is remembered every year.

Thousands of civilians were killed in the chemical bombing attack organized on Halabja by the Iraqi army.

The victims of the Halabja Massacre are remembered every year through various activities in cities in northern Iraq with a Kurdish population.

The rope with which Ali Hasan al-Majid , Saddam Hussein's cousin who ordered the ordered the bombing of Halabja and was nicknamed “Chemical Ali,” was executed by hanging was brought to the Memorial Museum in Halapja.

In memory of the massacre’s anniversary, life stopped for five minutes in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil at 11:36, the hour at which the first bomb was dropped. As citizens stopped in place out of respect when the sirens were heard, vehicles also stopped in traffic.

The Martyr Minister of the northern Iraq region, Aram Ahmet, explained to the press that the rope used to execute “Chemical Ali” was delivered to the director of Halabja Memorial, Ala Talabani, this morning.

The massacre

It has been 25 years since the massacre that took place in the Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, who headed Iraq's Baathists. On March 16, 1988, Halabja became the scene of the largest-scale chemical attack on a civilian population in history. That morning, Iraqi warplanes flew over the city and dropped chemical bombs on the thousands of unsuspecting people living there. Nearly 5,000 people died immediately as a result of the chemical attack, and it has been estimated that a further 7,000 were injured or suffered long-term illnesses.

It seems to have occurred too far in the distant past to be remembered by those who are unfamiliar with this region, remaining a mere fact in a history book; however, it remains an ongoing pain for the people of the region.

Every person in Halabja has a sad story to tell and has lost at least one friend or relative. Most Halabjans say they experienced the apocalypse on March 16, 1988, when every soul struggled for his or her life. Children ran for shelter; some tried to flee the town only to die half way; mothers carried their children in their arms; fathers rushed towards safety -- but there was no safe haven. Those who managed to escape suffered burnt skin, skin malformations or were diagnosed with cancer. Pictures taken right after the massacre depict the chaos and support the apocalypse simile.

As one Kurdish intellect, Kendal Nezan, described Halabja: “The scene that greeted the Halabjans in the morning defied description. The streets were strewn with corpses. People had been killed instantly by chemicals in the midst of everyday acts of life. Babies still sucked their mothers' breasts. Children held their parents' hands -- frozen to the spot like a still from a motion picture. In the space of a few hours 5,000 people died. The 3,200 who no longer had families were buried in a mass grave.” The victims of the massacre do not want to forget their pain nor do they want their wounds to be scabbed over. They have the same mentality as the Khojaly victims, believing that they should continue to talk about their tragedy and keep their memories alive. For this very reason, the Halabjan people mention the massacre and their losses whenever they have gathered together to deal with the pain.

Years later, every one suffers from the poisonous gas. Some have a chronic cough; some have diseases of the lungs or stomach or eyes. Many survivors have cancer, and many more are disabled.

There are three martyrs' cemeteries in Halabja: In one of them, there are 1,500 bodies, 440 bodies are buried in the second one, and the third one has 24 bodies buried one on top of the other. And the rest of the bodies are, sadly, still missing. These cemeteries, which were arranged by the survivors of the massacre, have been turned into mausoleums frequently visited by the local people as well as the relatives of the victims. At the entrance of the cemeteries, it is written “Baath Party members cannot enter!”

Saturday 16 March 2013

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=104843

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Released photos appear to show Korean victims of past Japanese massacre as retaliation for Great Kanto earthquake

A South Korean historian on Sunday released photos apparently showing Korean victims of a Japanese massacre following a devastating earthquake nine decades ago.

The release comes just a few days after officials in Tokyo decided to remove references to the mass killing from high school textbooks.

Jeong Seong-gil, the honorary director of Keimyung University Dongsan Medical Center Museum, presented to Yonhap News Agency photos dated Sept. 1, 1923, the day that the Great Kanto Earthquake occurred. The disaster is named after the region that includes Tokyo.

After the 7.9-magnitude earthquake devastated Tokyo, Yokohama and other surrounding prefectures, Japan is known to have murdered thousands of Koreans, holding them accountable for the post-quake unrest. There were rumors that Koreans poisoned wells and committed arson and robbery to take advantage of the disaster, fueling anti-Korean sentiment in Japan.

In one photo revealed by Jeong, dozens of corpses are on the ground, with their lower bodies exposed. Next to the remains stand men holding long sticks, which appear to be either bamboo spears or metal skewers.

"Japanese people even pay respect to deceased dogs with gravestones, and they wouldn't have exposed the bottom portions of their own people," Jeong said. "It's such an atrocious act of brutality that they chose only the female bodies to strip bare."

Jeong said the men holding the sticks appeared to be Japanese vigilantes who committed mass murders.

Another photo shows corpses piled up on top of each other.

Jeong said he'd acquired these photos in Japan a few years ago and he at first decided not to make them public because they were "too gruesome and disgraceful." But Japanese officials' decision last month to remove references to the massacre from textbooks changed his mind, Jeong said.

"It's a shameful and humiliating moment in our history, but we have to protect spirits of some 6,000 Korean victims of the massacre," Jeong said. "By presenting photos and other pieces of evidence, we must expose brutal acts committed by the Japanese in the past."

The Japanese media on Jan. 25 reported that education officials in Tokyo decided to replace the sentence, "Many Koreans were massacred in the aftermath of the great earthquake," with "Tombstones commemorating Korean victims of the Great Kanto Earthquake read, 'Koreans lost their precious lives.'"

News reports said the officials were concerned that the term "massacre" would create misunderstanding.

Sunday 3 February 2013

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2013/02/03/78/0301000000AEN20130203000600315F.HTML

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Indonesia's killing fields

It was one of the bloodiest massacres of the 20th century, well hidden from the outside world - the systematic killing of communists or alleged communists in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966. Researchers estimate that between one and three million people died.

Never before have the executioners spoken out in as much detail as in the recently-released documentary The Act of Killing. In this film, killers in North Sumatra give horrifying accounts of their executions, and even re-enact them.

The killers have always considered themselves heroes because their acts were supported by the government and large parts of society. Many executions were directly committed by the military.

In the years that followed, Indonesians were bombarded with anti-communist propaganda and, until today, most people do not know what really happened.

The film, and a recent report by the Indonesian national human rights commission that called the killings crimes against humanity, have launched a new debate on how the country should deal with this very traumatic past.

Mass graves have yet to be exhumed and victims are yet to see some kind of justice. In many villages, killers and victims' relatives are still living with the awkward reality that 'our neighbour has killed my father'.

Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen talks to former executioners and finds out why so many people - mostly Muslim youths - turned into cold-blooded killers, and why this dark episode in Indonesian history is still very sensitive and alive today.

'The Act of Killing'

By Syarina Hasibuan, producer

When a friend told me of a documentary about an executioner involved in the killing of alleged communists in 1965, I did not believe her. I had never heard of anyone confessing to this - let alone a documentary about it screening at international film festivals. I was dying to see it and, luckily enough, I was one of the first Indonesians, along with a small group of journalists, to attend a secret screening of The Act of Killing in Jakarta. We were told not to reveal the location of the screening for security reasons, which reveals just how sensitive this bloody period in Indonesian history remains today.

After I watched it I felt shocked, confused and betrayed. Shocked to find out how horrible the situation was at that time - with people living in fear and killings taking place everywhere, every day. Confused because I did not know what to think of Anwar Congo, the executioner in the film. Somehow I did not hate him because I saw him as an uneducated man, brainwashed by the government into believing that he was doing the right thing by killing all those people. It was clear that his actions haunted him for life. I felt betrayed because the government never told us the real story when I was growing up. They lied to us. And now I wanted to know more.

As an Indonesian who grew up during President Suharto's 'New Order' regime, I was taught that the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which was one of the biggest political parties in 1965, was violent and that its members did not believe in God. When I was a child, if we hated someone we used to call him or her a communist - meaning that we thought the person was evil. That is how brainwashed I was.

In elementary school every year on September 30, teachers would ask us to watch a three-and-a-half hour long government sponsored film about how the Communist Party had planned to topple the government. The film showed how, on one day in 1965, the PKI had kidnapped seven top military men in the middle of the night, killed one of them in front of his wife and children, and brought the others to a rubber plantation, where they tortured and mutilated them. Throughout it all, they were singing, dancing and shouting "Kill! Kill! Kill!". Then they threw the dead bodies into a well.

Many of the scenes in that film were too violent for elementary school students to watch. But I guess the aim was to brainwash the younger generation, to imprint the most gruesome parts of that film onto our brains so that whenever we heard of the PKI we thought of evil. And, for a long time, it worked.

I grew up not understanding what actually happened in 1965; I did not know that maybe up to three million people had been killed because they were accused of being involved in the PKI. If my parents or grandparents knew about it, they never spoke of it.

After watching The Act of Killing I felt we should make our own story about the killings. I talked to victims, executioners, witnesses and investigators to find out more about what actually happened. And the more I talked to people, the more gruesome the picture that formed in my head.

After the military accused the PKI of being behind the murder of the seven military men, PKI members all over Indonesia were hunted down, put in prison without trial, tortured or killed. Civilians and students from religious boarding schools were used as executioners. And the military released some of the most violent criminals from prisons and ordered them to carry out executions. Hundreds of dead bodies were found floating in rivers every day.

The situation was so chaotic that a person could easily be accused of being a PKI member simply because someone did not like them. Killings even happened between family members.

Ndoren is an old man who does not know his real age. He has only two teeth left, but smiles a lot. He told us he was an executioner. We went with him to Luweng Tikus, or the Rat hole as local people call it - the location where soldiers forced him to kill more than 40 people, some of whom he knew personally.

In front of the 42 metre deep hole he told us his story, continuously warning us not to go any closer. The alleged communists were brought in by the military after walking in the dark for hours, with their hands tied. They were lined up in front of the hole. Then, one by one, Ndoren hit each of them on the back of the head with a crowbar and threw them into the hole. He said they hardly struggled, as if they had already accepted that they were going to die.

The stench from the hole was so bad that villagers far away could not bear it. The hole was covered until 2002 when human rights activists opened it up and found human bones and skulls inside.

After Suharto's downfall 14 years ago, people cautiously started to speak out. Victims and human rights organisations asked the government to at least apologise for what happened. Nearly 50 years after the events of those years, the National Commission for Human Rights conducted a four-year long investigation into the case and concluded that crimes against humanity were committed and that the military was responsible.

Still nothing much changed. I am happy that elementary school students no longer have to watch the same propaganda film we were forced to endure. But Indonesia's 'killing fields' remain absent from the history books. The communists are still considered devil-like in the eyes of many Indonesians and grandchildren of Communist Party members still do not want to admit to this in public. There are still those who prefer not to talk about what happened in 1965. Why open up old wounds, they say. Let us keep it buried.

But there are also many Indonesians, like myself, who want to know what really happened. What is it that has divided our country for so long? Did the PKI really plan a coup and kill those army generals, even though their position was so strong at the time? What was it that made my fellow Indonesians so willing to kill one another that they would even execute family members?

I am happy that they have partially excavated Luweng Tikus and found the skeletons. But many others remain scattered across Indonesia. And we have a long way to go before we have all the answers we deserve. I believe that if we want to learn from the past we must know the truth about our history.

Saturday 22 December 2012

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2012/12/2012121874846805636.html

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Peru's Congress marks Putis massacre

A ceremony was held on the floor of Peru's Congress Dec. 13 to commemorate the 1984 massacre of over 100 campesinos by army troops at the village Putis, in south-central Ayacucho region.

A full Congress honored the presence of Aurelio Condoray Curo, vice president of the Putis Political Violence Survivors Association, and families from the village.

That same day, a Caravan for the Reconstruction of Putis left for the village with trucks of material aid from the Ayacucho city of Huamanga.

The efforts were promoted by lawmaker María Soledad Pérez Tello, president of the Congressional Human Rights Commission.

The local municipality of Huanta is still in the process of identifying bodies that have been unearthed from more than 40 mass graves in and around Putis.

The investigation is being overseen by a Multisectoral High-Level Commission (CMAN) created to provide reparations to the victims and survivors of the war with the Shining Path guerillas.

Condoray (also rendered Condorai) said, "Despite 28 years having transpired from this lamentable episode, the families of those massacred have still not received just reparations in health and education."

Friday 21 December 2012

http://www.ww4report.com/node/11805

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Victims' families still wait for justice, three years after Maguindanao massacre

Grace Morales knew something was wrong when a friend sent her a text message urging her to go home to listen to radio reports of a massacre close to her home in Maguindanao, a province in the conflict-torn southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

Her husband and sister, both journalists, were among 31 reporters who had accompanied the family of Esmael Mangudadatu, a rival of the politically powerful Ampatuan clan, that morning to witness the filing of his election papers for the post of provincial governor.

The trip on Nov 23, 2009 led to the election-related massacre of 57 people, described by the International Crisis Group (ICG) as “one of the worst acts of political violence in modern Philippine history, and the largest number of journalists slain on a single day ever, anywhere in the world.” About 100 armed men attacked the convoy of vehicles on a lonely stretch of highway and drove them to the top of a hill before killing them all. Several women were raped before they were killed.

Morales, who identified the bodies of her husband and sister and now heads a support and lobby group for the bereaved, says she’s still waiting for justice.

“It's already three years now and yet no one has been convicted. There are many accused who are not yet arraigned or who are still at large,” she told journalists in Bangkok on Wednesday night at the screening of a 2011 documentary on the families’ quest for justice.

“I don't understand why it happens like this,” said Morales. “As one of the families of the victims, that's what we dream of, to have justice for our loved ones who were killed by the brutish people.”

Andal Ampatuan Sr, whose family ruled poor and troubled southern Maguindanao for nearly a decade and has close ties to former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was charged with murder in February 2010, along with 196 others (members of the Ampatuan family, soldiers and police officers and members of a civilian militia).

About 100 of those charged are still at large, rights groups said, and bail proceedings have dominated the trial for the past two years.

Meanwhile, at least three witnesses have been murdered and others talk of intimidation and threats by the still powerful Ampatuan clan. Victims’ families, living hand-to-mouth, also received offers of millions of pesos to settle the case but have so far refused, Morales said.

In their latest setback, on Monday the Supreme Court denied the request of victims’ families for live media coverage of the trial.

"Our enemy is very powerful. Many members of the clans continue to hold government positions,” said Morales. The families of the victims do not have the resources to fight them as many are struggling to survive, she said.

“Most of those who died were breadwinners and those left behind are ordinary housewives with no work experience. One is a 67-year-old grandmother who suddenly found herself saddled with six grandchildren to feed,” she added.

Mindanao, where more than 120,000 people have been killed in 40 years of fighting between government forces and Muslim rebels, has some of the worst social, educational and economic indicators in the Philippines.

A 2008/2009 United Nations Development Programme report said seven of the 10 provinces with the country's worst human development ratings are in Mindanao. Around two-fifths of Mindanao's people live on about a dollar a day, against a national average of 26.5 percent.

In October, the government and the Muslim rebels reached an agreement to end a conflict which had enabled clans such as the Ampatuans to achieve positions of great local power in exchange for supporting then president Arroyo with crucial votes and armed followers.

Despite the peace deal, activists and rights groups say justice remains elusive for victims of the Maguindanao massacre.

The Philippines also remains the third most dangerous country for journalists, with 128 journalists killed since 1986 as a direct result of their work.

Seventy-nine of the killings, including those in Maguindanao, occurred during the Arroyo administration (February 2001 – June 2010) and 11 journalists have died since President Benigno Aquino came to power in February 2011, said the Centre for Media Freedom and Responsibility in the Philippines.

Thursday 16 November 2012

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/victims-families-still-wait-for-justice-three-years-after-maguindanao-massacre

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One more victim of Arkankergen massacre identified via DNA test

ASTANA. September 27. Experts of German Legal Medicine Institute have identified remains of one more soldier killed on Arkankergen border post in Kazakhstan, two more corpses remain unidentified, Kazakh Attorney General's Office reported on Thursday.

The Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences Charite in Berlin examined remains of three bodies discovered at the scene of the massacre. The results of the DNA test proved that one of the bodies belonged to Rustem Akylbayev. Unfortunately, German specialists were unable to identify other remains, because they couldn't find cells suitable for DNA test, according to A. Abdildin.

Thus two more soldiers Denis Rey and Meyrhan Imenov are still missing.

On May 30 a fire took place on Arkankergen border post on Kazakh-Chinese border. In summer 15 frontier guards serve at this post. Some 15 corpses were founded at the scene including 14 border guards and a hunter from the nearby hunting ground located near the post. The fifteenth border guard was found alive near the post. Later border guard Vladislav Chelakh confessed that he killed his colleagues and then set fire to the barracks, where they were. Chelakh named internal conflicts and clouding of consciousness as the reason of killing his colleagues. However, later he refused this confession and said the border post had been attacked. Remains of 11 killed people were earlier identified.

As was reported earlier, the burnt out building of the Arkankergen border outpost with the remains of 14 border guards and one huntsman was discovered on the 30th of May 2012.

The act of terror occurred on the night of 27-28th of May, 220 km away from the Usharal town of Almaty region.

Friday 28 September 2012

http://www.inform.kz/eng/article/2498001

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Body not found but 58th massacre victim recognized

Although his body has not been found, Reynaldo Momay, a photojournalist from General Santos City, has been formally recognized by the Department of Justice (DOJ) as the 58th victim of the “Maguindanao Massacre” in 2009.

In a DOJ resolution, Assistant State Prosecutor Bernardo Parico said the dentures recovered at the crime scene in Barangay (village) Salman in Ampatuan, Maguindanao, as well as statements of witnesses that Momay was among those killed were enough evidence to prove that he was a victim.

Momay, 63, was working for the weekly community paper Midland Review when he joined a convoy of 58 people that accompanied the wife of then Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu of Buluan town in Maguindanao to the capital, Shariff Aguak, to file his certificate of candidacy for governor on Nov. 23, 2009.

All of them, including 32 media workers, were killed allegedly by members of the Ampatuan clan and their henchmen in Sitio Masalay in Barangay Salman, 3.5 kilometers from the national highway in Ampatuan town. Some were buried along with three vehicles, while others were shot in the head.

Murder charges have been filed against 197 people, including former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr., former Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and former Datu Unsay mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., in Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221.

Only 96, however, have been arrested and detained, and 78 of them have already been arraigned.

New set of charges

With Momay’s inclusion as the 58th victim, state prosecutors filed a new set of charges on Monday. The court’s clerk, Jimmy Cardines, received the revised complaint.

The additional information could mean that all 78 accused, previously arraigned for 57 counts of murder, have to go through an arraignment for the 58th count. Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes has yet to acknowledge the DOJ information and rule on whether those previously arraigned would have to make their pleas of guilty or not guilty on the 58th count.

Without an earlier proof of his death, Momay’s name was not counted among the official victims in legal proceedings of the case. As such, the court has been hearing only 57 counts of murder.

In the DOJ resolution issued on July 12 but filed in court only on Friday, Parico said the evidence was sufficient that Momay was murdered and recommended that the 96 respondents in the massacre case be additionally indicted for Momay’s death.

Daughter’s complaint

In January, the photojournalist’s daughter, Ma. Reynafe Momay-Castillo, filed a murder complaint against the massacre suspects, saying Momay was part of the ambushed convoy of media men and relatives of Mangudadatu.

Castillo said her father had called a friend before the massacre and confirmed that he was in a vehicle along with other journalists on their way to Shariff Aguak.

Momay’s body was never found, although a forensics expert from the Commission on Human Rights claimed to have recovered parts of his dentures. Castillo said the expert had concluded that the dentures did not belong to any of the 57 bodies recovered from the massacre site.

The herbalist who made the dentures identified them as her father’s, Castillo said. She added that there were witnesses who would testify that he was among the journalists who joined the convoy.

As of Tuesday night, Momay’s relatives could not be reached for comment. Castillo left the country last month and joined her mother in the United States

Wednesday 26 September 2012

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/277580/body-not-found-but-58th-massacre-victim-recognized

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The Pathribal Aftermath

Pathribal was a part of three successive and related killings which claimed 50 lives between March 20 and April 3, 2000. On March 20, unidentified gunmen killed 35 Sikhs at Chittisinghpora followed by the Pathribal killings on March 25 and then the killing of nine civilians at Brakpora on April 3 who were part of a protest over the Pathribal killings. Vakil Manzoor recounts.

On 25 March 2000, Indian military forces killed five men in (Vuzkhah Zontangri peak) Pathribal village of Anantnag district, claiming that the victims were “foreign militants” responsible for the attacks on Sikhs in South Kashmir’s Chittisinghpora.

Official reports claimed that security forces after a gunfight, blew up the hut where the ‘militants’ were hiding, and had retrieved five bodies that had been charred beyond recognition. The bodies were buried without any postmortem examination.

Over the following days, local villagers began to protest, claiming that the men were ordinary civilians who had been killed in a fake encounter. According to them, the police between March 21 and 24 of 2000, had detained many men.

On 30 March, authorities in Anantnag relented to growing public pressure and agreed to exhume the bodies and conduct an investigation into the deaths.

On 5 April 2000, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah ordered the exhumation of the bodies killed in Pathribal. DNA samples were collected from the 5 bodies, as well as 15 relatives of the missing young men, and were submitted to forensic laboratories in Kolkata and Hyderabad.

However, in March 2002 it was discovered that the DNA samples taken from the bodies of the Pathribal victims (all of whom were men) had been tampered with. According to reports, samples had in fact been collected from females.

Later, experts collected fresh samples in April 2002 from Kolkata and Hyderabad. That verified the five people killed in Pathribal were locals and not foreign militants as claimed by the police.

In January 2003 the case was handed to the CBI by the state government. The CBI investigation alleged that officials of 7 Rashtriya Rifles had in fact staged the fake encounter wherein they had killed the five innocent civilians and later on labeled them as “foreign militants”.

25-year-old youth Zahoor Ahmad Dalal was among the five persons killed. The other four civilians killed in the fake encounter included Muhammad Yousuf Malik of Halan Verinag, Bashir Ahmed Bhat of Halan Verinag, Juma Khan (son of Faqeerullah Khan) of Brari Angan and Juma Khan (son of Ameerullah Khan) of Brari Angan.

Zahoor Ahamd Dalal

For the last 10 years, the house of Raja Bano (mother of Zahoor Dalal) is locked and she is living with her brother in a nearby house. She doesn’t talk much of her son but says in a low voice. “I have kept every belonging including the clothing of Zahoor locked in almirah and each time he comes in my dreams, he asks me to donate them to poor,” says Raja.

Nazir Ahmad Dalal identified the maroon sweater and the shirt of his nephew as soon as the first grave was opened. The villagers had buried the half-burnt clothes of Dalal as well.

Zahoor Ahamd Dalal was picked up just outside their home at Mominabad.

Raja Begum says, “Now the world knows we were not lying. Our stand has been vindicated. The guilt of the officials involved has been proved beyond any shade of doubt.”

Juma khan
Roshan Jan, had no doubts left that her husband, Juma Khan was no more. “Main nay uski thudi aur nak pehchan lee (I identified his bearded, chin and nose),’’ she says. When asked whether she has any doubts left regarding the identity of her husband’s body as there is just half of the face left, she screamed, `I have lived my entire life with him, how can I make a mistake in identifying him?’’

Roshan Jan had come all the way from village Brariangan for the identification. Her son was among the eight villagers killed in the police firing upon the demonstrating villagers, who were seeking exhumation of these bodies.

She says the Army came in the night on March 24 and asked him to accompany them. They were not aggressive. They told us they wanted my husband to guide them through the hilly track. So we happily let him go. Our relative from Pathribal Moulvi Qasim identified the dead body of my father and he informed us about that. They (army) buried these dead bodies at different places.

Bashir Ahmad Bhat
A second grave was dug up at Chogam where Ghulam Rasool Bhat, whose brother Bashir Ahmad Bhat was also missing, says it was his brother’s body lying in the grave. The rest of the graves, spread over a radius of 2 to 3 km in the Pathribal area where the security forces had claimed to have killed five “foreign guerrillas” involved in the March 20 massacre of 35 Sikhs at Chittisinghpora.

He was arrested from Islamabad. He went there to collect money from the borrowers. It was 24th March, Friday. Around 7:45 pm they were arrested in the Shirpora area of Anantnag. We came to know about them only after my brother went to Islamabad on the very next morning. He asked shopkeepers about Bashir.

On 24th they were arrested and the same day they were killed and on the next morning their pictures were shown on newspaper and televisions. We staged protest for 13 consecutive days. No local was allowed to enter the graveyard. Their corpses indeed spoke how they had been tortured. We couldn’t identify them. One family recognized their son only after they saw the remaining of trousers and warmer. I recognized when I saw hand of one corpse, I shouted it is my brother.

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

http://nvras.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/pathribal-aftermath.html

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Chixoy Dam-Rio Negro Massacres: Justice Delayed 30 years and Counting

As part of an all night Mayan ceremony (March 13-14, 2012), a Mayan priest reads off, page after page, the names of each and every one of the close to 450 Mayan Achi children, women and men from the remote village of Rio Negro, victims of the 1982 "Rio Negro massacres."

Along with a delegation of Americans and Canadians, I have come here to spend the night and participate in commemoration activities on the 30th anniversary of the March 13, 1982 massacre of 177 children and women, this being the second of four large scale massacres in 1982 carried out in conjunction with the Chixoy Dam "development" project.

PROFITS & IMPUNITY FOR THE WORLD BANK & INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

From 1975-1985, the World Bank (WB) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) spear-headed this "development" project, investing 100s of millions of dollars into the Guatemalan military regimes of those years. The 1982 Rio Negro massacres (February 12, March 13, May 14, September 18) were planned and carried out by the military regime, forcing local "civil defense patrols" to do most of the brutal killing, so as to forcibly (and obviously illegally) evict the Rio Negro villagers, and some 25 other remote villages up-river from where the Chixoy Dam wall was built. The massacres were, in effect, the eviction of the Rio Negro village and sent a message to all other villages that if they did not clear out, ... !



Early in the evening, Juan de Dios (on the left) and Carlos Chen help prepare the monument, altar and place of the commemoration. This is the very spot where the bodies of 177 children and women were dumped by the soldiers and patrollers after brutally killing them (strangling some, smashing children against the rocks, beating some to death, raping young women and girls before killing them, etc).

Since 1993, Carlos Chen has been at the forefront of courageous and tireless efforts for truth, memory and justice. In 1993, the original exhumation team (the EAFG) carried out a mass grave exhumation at this site. Carlos lost his first wife (pregnant at the time) and two young children in the massacre that took place at this spot. Since 2005, Juan de Dios has spearheaded, with Carlos, the Chixoy Dam reparations and justice campaign, with the group COCAHICH (Coordinator of Chixoy Dam harmed communities).



Just after mid-night, a Mayan priest initiates the Mayan ceremony part of the commemoration activities that will continue until 6am. Through the night, hundreds of surviving family and community members (young and old) of the victims of the Rio Negro massacres cry and talk with their dead loved ones, talk, eat and laugh, commemorating the names and lives of the victims of the Chixoy Dam "development" project.

"No more violence against humanity."

In early 1983, the Chixoy Dam basin was filled and the dam soon after began to operate. Years later, the Guatemalan regimes paid back the loans plus interest to the WB and IDB - both made profits.

To date, the WB and IDB publicly deny any responsibility for the brutal repression and illegal forced evictions; no justice has been done for the Rio Negro massacres; no reparations or compensation have been made to the 32 Mayan villages that suffered, in various degrees, the harms and violations caused by the Chixoy dam project. Today, most of the survivors live in various conditions of poverty and extreme poverty.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

http://rightsaction.org/action-content/chixoy-dam-rio-negro-massacres-justice-delayed-30-years-and-counting

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Batang Kali relatives edge closer to the truth about 'Britain's My Lai massacre'

Lawyers representing relatives of 24 unarmed victims who died at Batang Kali, Malaysia, in December 1948 have finally been provided with key Foreign Office correspondence about past investigations and Cabinet Office guidance on when inquiries should be held.

Even Buckingham Palace has been pulled into the furore surrounding the fate of the villagers, who were rounded up on a large rubber-tapping estate in the colonial government's counter-insurgency operation against communists, known historically as the Malayan Emergency.

A petition to the Queen about the deaths has been handed to the British high commissioner in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and the royal household has replied. The palace, however, has declined to release the text of the letter.

The Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence have always insisted the villagers were shot while trying to escape detention. The incident has been described by some as the "British My Lai massacre", after the US troop killings in Vietnam.

The Malaysian relatives' hopes have been boosted by a group of Kenyan survivors, mostly now in their 80s, who won the right last summer to sue the British government for damages over claims of torture during the 1950s Mau Mau uprising. A judicial review of the government's repeated refusal to hold a public inquiry into the alleged massacre at Batang Kali is likely to be heard in the spring.

The Foreign Office has refused, so far, to release any additional documents from its still unreleased colonial-era archive. The depository at Hanslope Park, near Milton Keynes, contains thousands of files not yet handed over to the National Archives.

Previously unseen evidence of atrocities from Kenya did eventually emerge from the Foreign Office store, but the Malaysian files have so far remained closed despite repeated requests. The Foreign Office has promised to review the material, although it says it will take time.

Much of what occurred in Batang Kali is agreed. On 11 December 1948, a patrol of Scots Guards surrounded and entered the village, which lies north of the capital. The male villagers were separated. That evening, one of the men was shot by soldiers; the next day a further 23 died. None of the victims were armed and no weapons were found before the killings.

Some of the Scots Guards involved in the incident approached a Sunday newspaper in the 1970s with accounts that disputed the official version of a thwarted escape. Scotland Yard detectives subsequently interviewed the men but were prevented from flying out to Malaysia.

Solicitors have, unusually, been given access to the police files. Soldiers have also been contacted again by the lawyers but none is expected to give evidence unless a public inquiry is ordered.

John Halford, of Bindmans solicitors in London, who is representing the Batang Kali families, said: "We are not asking for anyone to be prosecuted. The surviving soldiers are too old for it to be considered appropriate. But the families want the state to take responsibility for the actions. It's necessary to get to the bottom of what happened. Extrajudicial executions by British troops have not ceased. There are recent examples [Iraq]. These are people who have been wronged and had no remedy at all.

"There should be some resolution. These were extrajudicial killings of civilians that were pre-planned. The Dutch government has now agreed to pay families from Indonesia reparations for a colonial-era massacre that occurred around the same time, in 1947.

"Although [government] solicitors have confirmed that there is material relating to Batang Kali in their secret archives, they say it's not relevant. They won't let us look at it. There was an announcement that it would be publicly accessible, but that commitment hasn't been honoured."

The Foreign Office said: "This event happened over 60 years ago. Accounts of what happened conflict and virtually all the witnesses are dead. In these circumstances it is very unlikely a public inquiry could come up with recommendations which would help to prevent any recurrence."

The FO added: "The families of those who died have chosen to take legal action to challenge this decision and so it would be inappropriate to comment further now that legal proceedings are under way."

On the question of making public the relevant files at the Hanslope Park archives, it said: "The Foreign Office … holds 8,800 files from 37 former British administrations, including Malaya. The government plans to make as much of this material as possible available to the wider public, and has confirmed that the files will be reviewed. This review process may take some time."

Owen Bowcott
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/25/malaysia-military

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