Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

“MACHETE GENOCIDE”
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consequences for the country’s future. As things stood, enough damage had been done to
incite Albanian nationalists in both Albania and Macedonia, and in the spring of 2001
they took up arms against the Macedonian central government. Although military action
took place, peace was restored through the intervention of a NATO force, which imposed
a cease-fire on both sides. Today, Macedonia is a fully independent country, but one with
problems founded on its ethno-demographic mix. Its population is composed of a Slavic,
Orthodox majority, and a very active minority of Islamic Macedonian Albanians. Some
of the latter have sought unification with Albania, periodically threatening to harm the
state unless they are granted equal civil rights, political representation, and cultural
autonomy, including a university. Since 2001, further violence has been minimal, in part
because of concessions by the Slavic majority. The fear of violent ethnic conflict remains,
however. Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece have all looked nervously at developments
in Macedonia, which is recognized as a potentially combustible state if the ethnic
boundaries shift in the future.
“Machete Genocide.” The 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which extremist Hutu murdered
between five hundred thousand and 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu in one hundred days
between April and July of that year, has often been referred to as “the machete genocide,”
because a large part of the mass killings was done with the tens of thousands of new
machetes that the Habyrimana government had recently purchased from China.
MacKenzie, Lewis (b. 1940). Canadian general who served as chief of staff to the
United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992. His
early military career had seen him deployed to such locations as Gaza, Cyprus, and Saigon
(now Ho Chi Minh City), as well as operations in Central America. His role in Bosnia,
which began prior to the start of the Bosnian War on April 6, 1992, was an important one
in that it established much in the way of what would become standard UN procedure over
the next three years. Notably, it was MacKenzie who instituted the cardinal principle of
UNPROFOR neutrality, a principle that appeared reasonable on paper but, in reality,
discriminated against the Bosnian Muslims by virtue of their being outnumbered and outgunned
in an unequal combat situation foisted on them by the rebellion of the Bosnian
Serbs and invasion from the army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The latter
situation attracted controversy from many critics around the world, particularly as it
became clear that UNPROFOR under MacKenzie’s command was enjoying a very close
relationship with the Serbs that appeared to be something less than impartial—even
extending to MacKenzie making statements opposing Western intervention into the war.
In 1993 MacKenzie retired from the Canadian army, many said prematurely, and began
a public lecture career. It was in his role as a lecturer that he engaged in what many
viewed as his most contentious act, a two-day paid speaking tour in Washington, D.C.,
on behalf of the Serbian-American lobby group, SerbNet. MacKenzie set down his
version of his story in a memoir, Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo, published the
same year he retired.
Ma’dan People. See Marsh Arabs.
Maharero, Samuel (1856–1923). Samuel Maharero was recognized by the German
colonial authorities as the paramount chief of the Herero people of German South-West
Africa (now Namibia). Samuel (as he was generally known) was educated in German
Lutheran missionary schools, and became literate to a competent level. In late 1903, he
was one of a number of Herero leaders who learned of a proposal being considered by