North Korean famines

North Korea does not just make the headlines for missile and nuclear bomb tests, it is also well-known for famines. Though there is plenty of money for military hardware, the hardline Communist regime often struggles to feed its own people.

In such a secretive country, it is hard to be sure which was its most disastrous famine, but there were fears that one in the first decade of the 21^st century may have killed up to 3.5 million people, with tens of thousands fleeing into China, and women being sold as brides or forced into brothels and illegal sweatshops.

A decade earlier, in 1994, defectors were reporting things had got so bad that old people were going out into the fields to die so their families would not have to feed them. As floods and drought struck in 1995-97, the government had to appeal for international help while it appeared to be channelling what food there was to the army of one million and party activists.

In 1998, a visiting research team from the US State Congress estimated that at least 900,000 had died of starvation over the previous 3 years, though it reckoned the real figure might be as high as 2.4 million. Malnutrition was also widespread.

For more see A Disastrous History of the World. See also my posts of 22 September 2010, 26 May 2011 and 31 January 2016.

Burundi - forgotten tragedy

Burundi is in the throes of an attempted military coup. Trouble started when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he was seeking a third term. Opponents said this breached the constitution, and now rival groups of soldiers are vying for control.

While everyone has heard of the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, in which 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists in 1994, less well known is Burundi’s civil war, which raged from 1993 to 2005, and in which up to 300,000 died.

Before the country got independence in 1962, Belgium, the colonial power, had ruled through a Tutsi elite, and after independence, a series of Tutsi military regimes held power. In 1993, the country’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi extremists.

As many as 150,000 Tutsi were killed in retribution. In 1994, another Hutu president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, died in the same plane crash that killed President Habyarimana of Rwanda, the event that triggered the genocide there.  The Burundian civil war dragged on for another decade, until a power-sharing agreement was reached in 2005 with President Nkurunziza, a Hutu, taking charge.

For Rwanda genocide, see my blogs of 29 May 2011, 31 March and 1 June 2012, 1 June 2013, and 15 March 2014.

Who killed who in Rwanda?

Twenty years after the genocide in Rwanda in which up to a million people were murdered in 100 days, the Rwandan government wants to prosecute the BBC over a television programme which challenges the accepted view of what happened.

The conventional wisdom is that Hutu extremists massacred mainly Tutsis as well as some Hutu moderates. The programme, Rwanda: the Untold Story, includes contributions from an academic who argues that there were only about 500,000 Tutsis in the country, and that 300,000 survived, so most of the victims must have been Hutus.

Prof Allan Stam paints a picture of a general breakdown in law and order, and says most of the victims may have been Hutus. When he presented his findings, the government rejected them, and he was asked to leave the country.

The genocide was sparked by the mysterious shooting down of the president's private jet. The programme includes allegations that Rwanda's current president, Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, was behind the attack, but he has always denied such allegations, and blamed Hutu extremists.

Rwanda + 20

This week Rwanda has been marking the 20^th anniversary of the genocide of 1994, in which 800,000 people were murdered in just 100 days – the fastest mass murder in history.

While the Nazis favoured industrial methods of extermination, this one was carried out with low-tech weapons, notably the machete, though some victims were allowed to be shot instead, if they paid. The murderers were Hutu supremacists; their victims Tutsis and sometimes moderate Hutus.

A United Nations international tribunal based in Tanzania has tried more than 70 people in connection with the events of 1994. So far, 29 have been convicted. Another 11 trials are in progress, and 14 people are in detention awaiting trial, while 13 suspects are still at large.

Although last month, a French court sent Rwanda’s former spy chief to gaol for 25 years for his part in the genocide, the Rwandan government still accuses France of complicity in the killings, and France’s Justice Minister cancelled her plans to attend the commemorations in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Rwanda genocide - first conviction in France

For the first time, a French court has handed down a prison sentence for involvement in the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Former spy chief Pascal Simbikangwa, aged 54, has been sent to gaol for 25 years.

He was found guilty of being involved in genocide and crimes against humanity. Simbikangwa, who was paralysed in a car crash, was arrested in 2008 while living under an alias on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte.

The convicted man, who rose to be third in command of Rwanda's intelligence services, was accused of supplying arms and issuing instructions to Hutu militia who were manning road blocks and killing Tutsi men, women and children as well as moderate Hutus. At least 800,000 people perished in just 100 days.

Rwanda’s current government has long accused France of helping in the genocide. (It was an ally of the Rwandan regime at the time.) But now the French are investigating another two dozen cases linked to the genocide.

Rwanda 1994 genocide - more arrests

Five Rwandan men have been arrested by police in the UK on suspicion of involvement in the 1994 genocide in their country, following an extradition request from prosecutors in Rwanda, who want them to face charges of crimes against humanity.

The five lived all over the country – in Manchester, Bedford, London, Essex and Kent.   In 2009, four of them, who all denied any involvement in the genocide, won a legal battle to stop their extradition after senior judges ruled that they might not get a fair trial.   Three are former mayors.

 

Welcoming the arrests, Rwanda's chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, said Rwanda had made ‘significant progress’ on addressing concerns about fair trials since 2009.  The men are due to appear in court on June 5.

Rwanda’s genocide has the dubious distinction of being the fastest in human history.   In just 100 days, at least 800,000 people – mainly Tutsis – were murdered by Hutu extremists.

 

Two war criminals sentenced

Two convicted war criminals have received long prison sentences.    The former president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, has been sent to gaol for 50 years for aiding and abetting rebels in Sierra Leone during the civil war of 1991-2002.

The judge at The Hague acknowledged that Taylor had never set foot in Sierra Leone, but declared he had ‘been found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes in human history.’   

The former president backed rebels from the Revolutionary United Front, who killed tens of thousands of people, employing a strategy of murder, rape, and hacking off limbs. Taylor, who is 64, says he will appeal.  

Meanwhile, in Rwanda, Callixte Nzabonimana, a former youth minister, has been found guilty by a court in Tanzania of genocide and other crimes during the 100 days of madness in 1994, which saw 800,000 people murdered.   He was imprisoned for life, but he too says he will appeal.

Rwanda genocide - more extraditions

For the first time, a French court has agreed to extradite a suspect facing charges relating to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.     51 year old Claude Muhayimana is accused of taking part in genocide and crimes against humanity.     Mr Muhayimana, a local government worker, denies the charges, and the French government could still block his removal.

At least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered by Hutu extremists in just 100 days – the fastest mass murder in history.     France was heavily criticised at the time for trying to prop up the Rwandan government that had encouraged the killings.

Earlier this month Leon Mugesera arrived in Rwanda to face charges stemming from a rabble-rousing anti-Tutsi speech he made in 1992.   The former university don had been resisting extradition from Canada for the last 16 years.

Mugesera had referred to Tutsis as cockroaches, and said they should be exterminated, adding: ‘Know that the person whose throat you do not cut now will be the one who will cut yours.’

Lightning strikes

Eighteen children and a teacher have been killed after lightning struck a school in the Masindi area of Uganda.     It is the second time the Runyanya Primary School has been hit.    In 2001, a lightning strike injured three people.

Across Uganda, another 12 people have been killed by lightning during the last week.   Meterologists say the reason for the strikes is a surge of moist air coming through the Congo Basin, but the government has also admitted that many buildings are not fitted with lightning conductors.

Perhaps the deadliest ever incident involving a lightning strike came in 1769 at Brescia in Italy, when the Church of St Nazaire was struck, setting fire to 100 tons of gunpowder stored in its vaults.    The resulting explosion is said to have destroyed a sixth of the city, and killed 3,000 people.

More recently, in November 1994, fuel tanks were struck at Dronka in central Egypt.     469 people died in the explosion that followed.

Woman gaoled for Rwanda genocide

The first woman convicted in connection with the 1994 Rwanda genocide has been sent to gaol for life.     Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, aged 65, was the minister for family and women’s development (!).    Her son, Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, and four other people were also convicted.

When Hutus began murdering Tutsis in other parts of the country, the Butare region, by the Burundi border, was for a short time a haven of peace.    Then Nyiramasuhuko, a former social worker, ordered the local governor to get killing.    When he refused, he was sacked and then killed.

The convicted woman brought in militias from the capital, Kigali, and, with the help of her son, organised mass murder and the kidnap and rape of women and girls.   She and her son often manned the roadblocks at which Tutsis were detained.

When the Rwandan Patriotic Front deposed the genocidal government in July 1994, Nyiramasuhuko fled, but was arrested in Kenya in 1997.   Altogether, 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in just 100 days.   (See also my blogs of April 9, 2009, Dec 11, 2010, May 9 and 29, 2011 etc)

War crimes arrests - Serbia and Rwanda

Supporters of suspected war criminal, Ratko Mladic, are due to march in Belgrade today to try to stop him being extradited to the Hague to face trial.   The former Bosnian Serb army chief is accused of being responsible for the murder of about 7,500 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, as well as other crimes. 

Serbia’s failure to arrest Gen Mladic for 16 years means that he is now aged 69, and his lawyers have been trying to resist having him handed over to the court on grounds of ill health.    An appeal will be heard tomorrow.    Meanwhile, the Serbian war crimes prosecutor says that anyone who helped to shield Gen Mladic from justice could find themselves in serious trouble.

The general’s political boss, Radavan Karadzic, is already awaiting trial at the Hague after being arrested in 2008.    The former Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, died during his trial in 2006.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most notorious leaders of the Rwandan Hutu militia during the 1994 genocide has been arrested.   Bernard Munyagishari was wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Rwanda genocide - preserving history

An archive of the Rwanda genocide of 1994 has just opened at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in the country’s capital. It includes thousands of documents, photographs and video and sound recordings collected from survivors, witnesses and perpetrators of the mass murder.

It’s a joint initiative by the Rwandan government and the Aegis Trust, which works to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity, and the memorial site is on slopes above mass graves believed to hold the bodies of up to a quarter of a million victims.

The site’s director, himself a survivor of the genocide says that many people in Rwanda still deny the genocide, and that the archive will help ‘fight them with facts.’ The Aegis Trust is also working with the UK’s University of Nottingham to create a comprehensive map of Rwanda’s genocide sites. So far more than 1,000 have been identified in Kigali alone.

The Rwanda genocide, during which Hutu extremists murdered moderate Hutus and Tutsis was the most rapid in history, with 800,000 people murdered in 100 days. (See also my blogs of Jan 23, March 1, 4, 23; April 9, July 16, May 6, Sept 3, 9, 23; Oct 8, 30; Dec 15, 2009, 25 Feb, 2010.)

Another African genocide?

The mainly-Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front is justly praised for ending the genocide in that country in 1994, after 800,000 people had been slaughtered by Hutu extremists in just 100 days – the fastest mass murder in history. The story is chronicled in the film Hotel Rwanda.

Now though, the Tutsis find themselves accused in a leaked United Nations report of genocide in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. When the genocidal Rwandan government was overthrown, more than two million Hutus are thought to have fled into the Congo, where some resumed attacks on Tutsis.

The Rwandan government then began backing Tutsi militias, who eventually overthrew the regime in Kinshasa. Other countries got involved – Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola – with the suspicion that they were trying to get their hands on a share of the Congo’s immense mineral wealth, and at least 5 million people died.

The leaked report accuses the Rwandans of killing tens of thousands of Hutu men, women and children. Rwanda has dismissed the findings as “insane”, and threatened to pull out of UN peace-keeping missions, which could be quite a blow for the organisation. The current commander of the joint UN-African Union mission in Darfur is a Rwandan.

(See also A Disastrous History of the World and my blogs of Jan 23, March 23, Sept 23, Oct 30, Dec 15, 2009 and Feb 25, 2010)

France and Rwanda - an apology

President Sarkozy has apologised for the behaviour of France and other countries during the Rwanda genocide of 1994. It is the first official visit to the country by a French president since the killings.

France had been heavily criticised for appearing to side with the Hutu government, who were carrying out the killings, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by the current president Paul Kagame, started to wrest control of the country from them.

In 2006, Rwanda and France broke off diplomatic relations when a French judge accused President Kagame of being involved in shooting down a plane carrying the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana – the incident that sparked off the genocide. Kagame argues that the aircraft was shot down by Hutu extremists, who had certainly been enraged at what they regarded as Habyarimana’s over-conciliatory policy to Tutsis, and extremist Hutu media had been predicting the president’s death.

The Rwandan genocide was the fastest mass murder in history, with about 800,000 people killed in just 100 days. See also my blogs of 23 Jan, 1 and 4 March, 9 April, 16 July, 23 Sept, 8 and 30 Oct, 15 Dec - all 2009.

Rwanda genocide - a journalist gaoled

A Rwandan journalist has been gaoled for life for encouraging Hutus to slaughter Tutsis during the 1994 genocide in the country which saw 800,000 people massacred in just 100 days.

Valerie Bemeriki was a leading broadcaster on Radio Mille Collines which played a key role in inciting and orchestrating the slaughter. Two senior executives from the station had already been imprisoned.

Ms Bemeriki is alleged to have urged Hutu extremists not to shoot “these cockroaches” but instead hack them to pieces with a machete. And it is said that some victims actually had to pay their murderers to kill them by the bullet.

Meanwhile Rwanda has accused other African states of harbouring genocide suspects. It claims “hundreds” are sheltering in Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. See also my blogs of March 1, 4, April 9, July 16, Sept 23, Oct 8, 30.

Rwanda - the long arm of justice

The latest war criminal to be gaoled for his role in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 was imprisoned in faraway Canada. Desire Munyaneza, who will spend at least 25 years behind bars, was convicted in the first case brought under Canada’s War Crimes Act, which allows people to be tried for crimes they committed abroad.

Munyaneza, whose lawyer says he will appeal, was accused of leading a militia whose members raped and killed dozens of Tutsis, and of orchestrating a massacre of 300-400 in a church. Astonishingly during the 100 day genocide, in which 800,000 people died, more victims were said to have been murdered in churches than in any other kind of building. Earlier this year, a former priest was convicted for his part in the genocide (see my blog of March 1).

The Rwandan had sought asylum in Canada, but was arrested in 2005. The United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has so far completed 47 cases (six defendants were acquitted). There are 26 cases in progress and another three people are awaiting trial.

See also my blogs of January 23, March 4, March 23 April 9, July 16, Sept 23, and Oct 8.

Rwanda genocide - fresh arrest

Another suspect has been handed over to the UN tribunal investigating the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Gregoire Ndahimana, a former mayor, was one of a dozen indicted people still at large.

He was arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo last month, and is accused of responsibility for the massacre of 2,000 Tutsis sheltering in a church. During the mass murder, more victims are said to have perished in churches than in any other kind of building.

Last week, Michel Bagaragaza, who had headed Rwanda’s tea industry, admitted complicity in the massacre of Tutsis and moderate Hutus, bringing to 47 the number of cases that the court has dealt with.

The Rwanda genocide was the fastest campaign of mass murder in history, with 800,000 people slaughtered in just 100 days. (see also my blogs of January 23, March 1, 4, 23, 25, April 9 and July 16)