After the Jewish Holocaust was shown to the world, we said “never again”. The genocide of the Jews by Nazi Germany ended in millions of deaths. In 1971, ten months of killing Bengalis by the
West Pakistan army took way. This genocide took the lives of 500,000 to 3 million people.
From 1975 to 1999, in
East Timor, a third of the East Timorese were killed by the Indonesian army after the Portuguese left the territory.
In
Cambodia, for four years (1975-1979) 1.7 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rogue.
From 1981 to 1983, the Guatemalan army killed 200,000 people of the Mayan community in what was known as the “Silent Holocaust”.
From 1992 to 1995, over 200,000 Muslims in
Bosnia were executed and 2 million became refugees.
In 1994, for a hundred days Hutus of Rwanda killed Tutsis. Overall, 800,000 people were killed. President Bush stated, “not on my watch” in relation to the Rwandan genocide.
AND NOW…
Since 2004 in the
Darfur region of
Sudan, Janjaweed troops are killing non-arabs. 400,000 people have died and the number is growing do to malnutrition, the continued violence and disease. 2.5 million people have been displaced.
The crisis in
Darfur has been happening since 2004, like many other people, I didn’t hear about it until less than a year ago.
What can we do?
EDUCATE – We can raise awareness of what is going on to get more people involved.
TAKE ACTION - There are postcards that you can send to the president in regards to the issues in
Darfur at www.millionvoicesfordarfur.org/?page=postcards. This is just one example of spreading the word. Write your congress man/woman, governor, whoever will listen. You can joing groups such as: www.standnow.org, www.genocideintervention.net or www.studentsagainstgenocide.org. I'm sure there are many more out there.
LISTEN – There is a podcast that you can listen to at http://blogs.ushmm.org/index.php/COC2. In the podcast, people that are working towards ending the genocide speak out.
REACH OUT – You can post flyers in your community with information of what is going on.
Again, history is repeating itself. Whether we call it a "genocide" or “ethnic cleansing”, innocent people are dying and we shouldn’t look the other way.
Photos by: Brian Steidle, U.S. observer to the African Union peacekeeping mission (if they show up).
hostory alwasy will repeat itself we never learn
Yes, history repeats itself. But we are suppose to learn from history to better our future.
True. that is why they teach it to us. So we don't go crazy and start killing like people in the past have. Sure it might repeat itself, but maybe we will be ready to stop it next time
I tried posting pictures, for some reason it only shows up when I go to edit.