Human rights issue in SEA

In South East Asia, there were the atrocities accompanying the war in Vietnam – not least the
My Lai massacre by US forces in 1968 in which over 500 men women and children were
murdered in three Vietnamese villages. In Indonesia, there was the massacre in 1965-66 of
500,000 or more Communist Party members, suspected sympathisers and others caught up in the
mayhem; the Dili massacre in Timor-Leste in 1991, and the terrible Indonesian-supported
violence that erupted there in 1999 following the successful independence referendum; and,
more recently, recurring cases elsewhere in the country of religiously-inspired communal
violence.

In Burma, now Myanmar, there was the appallingly bloody crackdown on domestic political
dissent in 1988, and currently – notwithstanding all the dramatic political progress that has been
made – acute concern about recurring ethnically-driven violence against Rohingya Muslims in
Arakhan/Rakhine state, and the possibility of new conflict with a number of the country’s other
ethnic minorities. There have been similarly ugly instances of group violence in the Southern
Philippines and Southern Thailand.

In South Asia, there was the brutal Pakistani response in 1971 to the self-determination struggle
in what is now independent Bangladesh; recurring outbreaks of religiously-motivated communal
violence in India; and most recently, the horrifying violence in Sri Lanka in 2009 when, in the
bloody endgame of the government’s war against the separatist Tamil Tigers, some 300,000
civilians became trapped between the advancing army and the last LTTE fighters in a tiny strip
of land in the northeast of the country. With neither side showing either restraint or compassion,
at least 10,000 civilians – possibly as many as 40,000 – died in the carnage that followed, as a
result of indiscriminate army shelling, rebel gunfire, and denial of food and medical supplies.

World:

Transcript of Genocide in Southeast Asia

Genocide in Southeast Asia

Power
On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in Phnom Penh from Lon Nol's forces and
finally secured control of Cambodia.
The Khmer Rouge spent the next 4 years in power and killed almost a quarter of the Cambodian
population.
Support
In an attempt to curb increasing regional influence of Vietnamese communists, the United States
began supporting the Khmer Rouge regime shortly after the fall of the Phnom Penh.
Foreign powers contributed to the Genocide.
Deaths
They killed more than 1.7 million people.
Nearly 20,000 mass graves and almost 200 secret prison torture centers.
Over 700,000 people estimated to have been executed.
Approximately one million people not executed died of hunger and disease.
Educated people such as students, teachers and doctors were also targeted.
They first killed members of the previous regime.
They killed the educated and upper class (doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, scientists,
students and professional people).
Torture
53% died of having their skull crushed in with repeated blows with a pick or hammer.
29% were shot.
6% were hung or strangled
5% had their throats slit
5% were beaten to death
2% were killed in disturbing public executions.
Alliance
In 1970 Prince Sihanouk was overthrown by his ministers because of policy of turning a blind
eye to the North Vietnamese troops using Cambodia to get ready for war against the United
States. The Cambodian government opposed and demanded the removal of troops. An alliance
between the Khmer Rouge and the Prince was formed and supported by the Soviet Union and
North Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge took control over the entire country.
The leader of the Cambodian genocide was communist Pol Pot.
Pol Pot was born in 1925 and joined the communist party in the 1940s.
He quickly rose to power in the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party (KPRP) and gained
control over the communist party in 1963.
He had no high school diploma.
The Khmer Rouge rose to power with Pol Pot established as it's prime minister.
His real identity was concealed.
By: Allison Traub, Sean Dahlin, Hunter Nugent, Salvador Joya
Pol Pot
Since none were killed because of race, ethnicity or religion thousands killed were considered
victims of mass murder.
Assuming Power
Upon assuming power Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge began mass evacuation of all urban centers.
All city dwellers were forced to leave their homes and move to the countryside to fulfill Pol Pot's
goal of a highly productive agricultural, rural society. Ill, disabled, very young and very old
people were also driven out. If people didn't leave quickly enough they were killed. The Khmer
Rouge banned religion, money, and personal possessions. Music and radio was also banned.
Those who didn't comply were usually executed. People could be shot for knowing foreign
languages or wearing glasses.
Vietnamese
The Khmer Rouge expelled 150,000 Vietnamese. Approximately 10,000 Vietnamese who failed
to leave were killed. Some that were killed had previously fought in Pol Pot's army.

Scarves
Eastern Cambodians had to wear blue and white versions of the Khmer scarves. All others wore
red and white or yellow and white scarves. They were prohibited from wearing blue. Those who
wore blue scarves were given less food and had to work harder until they died. Their only crime
was living close to Vietnam.
Killing Fields
Two prime illustrations of brutality inflicted on Cambodia: Killing Fields all over the
countryside and Tuol Sleng, a prison camp in Phnom Penh where about 14,000 people entered
and less than a dozen ever survived. The Killing Fields were sites where those who failed to
survive after being sent into the fields to work and live were buried. The workers were forced to
produce huge amounts of rice and given very little to eat. What they were given was not healthy.
Families were deliberately split up and children were taught to monitor their parents and
denounce them.
S-21
S-21 was a former high school and one of 189 centers used as prisons for torture and eventual
execution. There was often no reason for people to be sent there. Upon entering S-21, prisoners
were locked up in jail cells, immobilized with iron legs and only allowed out when it was their
turn to be tortured. They were tortured until they admitted to crimes they didn't commit or admit
to being animals. Prisoners' confessions and a photo recorded by guards and are displayed on
museum walls. Over one third of the guards and torturers of S-21 were executed there.
Khmer Rouge
Political and economical beliefs of the Khmer Rouge are the roots of the genocide. The Khmer
Rouge abolished all political and civil rights. They shut down schools, hospitals, factories and
universities. They discouraged any display of affection and personal relationships. They
repeatedly interrogated their own members. They would imprison and execute them on the
slightest suspicion of treachery or sabotage.

"To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss."

Beginning
Cambodia is half the size of California. In the 1960s population was over 7 million. Under all
Buddhists were under the law of the monarch. In 1970 Prince Sihanouk was disposed in a
military coupe. The new leader was lieutenant general Lon Nol. Prince Sihanouk joined forces
with a communist organization, the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge attacked Lon Nol's army
and civil war began.

What is the Armenian Genocide? [top of list]

The atrocities committed against the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire during W.W.I are
called the Armenian Genocide. Genocide is the organized killing of a people for the express
purpose of putting an end to their collective existence. Because of its scope, genocide requires
central planning and a machinery to implement it. This makes genocide the quintessential state
crime as only a government has the resources to carry out such a scheme of destruction. The
Armenian Genocide was centrally planned and administered by the Turkish government against
the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. It was carried out during W.W.I between
the years 1915 and 1918. The Armenian people were subjected to deportation, expropriation,
abduction, torture, massacre, and starvation. The great bulk of the Armenian population was
forcibly removed from Armenia and Anatolia to Syria, where the vast majority was sent into the
desert to die of thirst and hunger. Large numbers of Armenians were methodically massacred
throughout the Ottoman Empire. Women and children were abducted and horribly abused. The
entire wealth of the Armenian people was expropriated. After only a little more than a year of
calm at the end of W.W.I, the atrocities were renewed between 1920 and 1923, and the
remaining Armenians were subjected to further massacres and expulsions. In 1915, thirty-three
years before UN Genocide Convention was adopted, the Armenian Genocide was condemned by
the international community as a crime against humanity.

Who was responsible for the Armenian Genocide? [top of list]

The decision to carry out a genocide against the Armenian people was made by the political
party in power in the Ottoman Empire. This was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)
(or Ittihad ve Terakki Jemiyeti), popularly known as the Young Turks. Three figures from the
CUP controlled the government; Mehmet Talaat, Minister of the Interior in 1915 and Grand
Vizier (Prime Minister) in 1917; Ismail Enver, Minister of War; Ahmed Jemal, Minister of the
Marine and Military Governor of Syria. This Young Turk triumvirate relied on other members of
the CUP appointed to high government posts and assigned to military commands to carry out the
Armenian Genocide. In addition to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Interior, the
Young Turks also relied on a newly-created secret outfit which they manned with convicts and
irregular troops, called the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa). Its primary function was
the carrying out of the mass slaughter of the deported Armenians. In charge of the Special
Organization was Behaeddin Shakir, a medical doctor. Moreover, ideologists such as Zia Gokalp
propagandized through the media on behalf of the CUP by promoting Pan-Turanism, the creation
of a new empire stretching from Anatolia into Central Asia whose population would be
exclusively Turkic. These concepts justified and popularized the secret CUP plans to liquidate
the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turk conspirators, other leading figures of
the wartime Ottoman government, members of the CUP Central Committee, and many
provincial administrators responsible for atrocities against the Armenians were indicted for their
crimes at the end of the war. The main culprits evaded justice by fleeing the country. Even so,
they were tried in absentia and found guilty of capital crimes. The massacres, expulsions, and
further mistreatment of the Armenians between 1920 and 1923 were carried by the Turkish
Nationalists, who represented a new political movement opposed to the Young Turks, but who
shared a common ideology of ethnic exclusivity.

How many people died in the Armenian Genocide? [top of list]

It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. There
were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of W.W.I.
Well over a million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of thousands were butchered outright.
Many others died of starvation, exhaustion, and epidemics which ravaged the concentration
camps. Among the Armenians living along the periphery of the Ottoman Empire many at first
escaped the fate of their countrymen in the central provinces of Turkey. Tens of thousands in the
east fled to the Russian border to lead a precarious existence as refugees. The majority of the
Armenians in Constantinople, the capital city, were spared deportation. In 1918, however, the
Young Turk regime took the war into the Caucasus, where approximately 1,800,000 Armenians
lived under Russian dominion. Ottoman forces advancing through East Armenia and Azerbaijan
here too engaged in systematic massacres. The expulsions and massacres carried by the
Nationalist Turks between 1920 and 1922 added tens of thousands of more victims. By 1923 the
entire landmass of Asia Minor and historic West Armenia had been expunged of its Armenian
population. The destruction of the Armenian communities in this part of the world was total.
Were there witnesses to the Armenian Genocide? [top of list]
There were many witnesses to the Armenian Genocide. Although the Young Turk government
took precautions and imposed restrictions on reporting and photographing, there were lots of
foreigners in the Ottoman Empire who witnessed the deportations. Foremost among them were
U.S. diplomatic representatives and American missionaries. They were first to send news to the
outside world about the unfolding genocide. Some of their reports made headline news in the
American and Western media. Also reporting on the atrocities committed against the Armenians
were many German eyewitnesses. The Germans were allies of the Turks in W.W.I. Numerous
German officers held important military assignments in the Ottoman Empire. Some among them
condoned the Young Turk policy. Others confidentially reported to their superiors in Germany
about the slaughter of the Armenian civilian population. Many Russians saw for themselves the
devastation wreaked upon the Armenian communities when the Russian Army occupied parts of
Anatolia. Many Arabs in Syria where most of the deportees were sent saw for themselves the
appalling condition to which the Armenian survivors had been reduced. Lastly, many Turkish
officials were witnesses as participants in the Armenian Genocide. A number of them gave
testimony under oath during the post-war tribunals convened to try the Young Turk conspirators
who organized the Armenian Genocide.

What was the response of the international community to the Armenian Genocide? [top of
list]
The international community condemned the Armenian Genocide. In May 1915, Great Britain,
France, and Russia advised the Young Turk leaders that they would be held personally
responsible for this crime against humanity. There was a strong public outcry in the United
States against the mistreatment of the Armenians. At the end of the war, the Allied victors
demanded that the Ottoman government prosecute the Young Turks accused of wartime crimes.
Relief efforts were also mounted to save "the starving Armenians." The American, British, and
German governments sponsored the preparation of reports on the atrocities and numerous
accounts were published. On the other hand, despite the moral outrage of the international
community, no strong actions were taken against the Ottoman Empire either to sanction its brutal
policies or to salvage the Armenian people from the grip of extermination. Moreover, no steps
were taken to require the postwar Turkish governments to make restitution to the Armenian
people for their immense material and human losses.

Why is the Armenian Genocide commemorated on April 24? [top of list]

On the night of April 24, 1915, the Turkish government placed under arrest over 200 Armenian
community leaders in Constantinople. Hundreds more were apprehended soon after. They were
all sent to prison in the interior of Anatolia, where most were summarily executed. The Young
Turk regime had long been planning the Armenian Genocide and reports of atrocities being
committed against the Armenians in the eastern war zones had been filtering in during the first
months of 1915. The Ministry of War had already acted on the government's plan by disarming
the Armenian recruits in the Ottoman Army, reducing them to labor battalions and working them
under conditions equaling slavery. The incapacitation and methodic reduction of the Armenian
male population, as well as the summary arrest and execution of the Armenian leadership
marked the earliest stages of the Armenian Genocide. These acts were committed under the
cover of a news blackout on account of the war and the government proceeded to implement its
plans to liquidate the Armenian population with secrecy. Therefore, the Young Turks regime's
true intentions went undetected until the arrests of April 24. As the persons seized that night
included the most prominent public figures of the Armenian community in the capital city of the
Ottoman Empire, everyone was alerted about the dimensions of the policies being entertained
and implemented by the Turkish government. Their death presaged the murder of an ancient
civilization. April 24 is, therefore, commemorated as the date of the unfolding of the Armenian
Genocide.

Are the Armenian massacres acknowledged today as a Genocide according to the United
Nations Genocide Convention? [top of list]
The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
describes genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group." Clearly this definition applies in the case of the atrocities
committed against the Armenians. Because the U.N. Convention was adopted in 1948, thirty
years after the Armenian Genocide, Armenians worldwide have sought from their respective
governments formal acknowledgment of the crimes committed during W.W.I. Countries like
France, Argentina, Greece, and Russia, where the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and their
descendants live, have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide. However, as a matter of
policy, the present-day Republic of Turkey adamantly denies that a genocide was committed
against the Armenians during W.W.I. Moreover, Turkey dismisses the evidence about the
atrocities as mere allegations and regularly obstructs efforts for acknowledgment. Affirming the
truth about the Armenian Genocide, therefore, has become an issue of international significance.
The recurrence of genocide in the twentieth century has made the reaffirmation of the historic
acknowledgment of the criminal mistreatment of the Armenians by Turkey all the more a
compelling obligation for the international community.