Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

Tutsi in Rwanda. As early as 1992, Bagosora reportedly had the Rwandan army’s general staff
draw up lists of all those persons who were thought to be associated in any way with the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Ultimately, such lists were used by the military and
the Interahamwe to locate, capture, and kill Tutsi and moderate Hutu during the period of the
genocide. Beginning in early 1993, Bagosora is known to have distributed weapons to militias
and other extremist Hutu.
Bagosora was a vehement opponent of the Arusha Agreements (signed in 1993), as he
wanted nothing to do with the RPF or, for that matter, shared governance of Rwanda with
the Tutsi, let alone coexistence with the Tutsi. Bagosora publicly stated that the Tutsi
would be wiped out if the RPF continued its fight against Rwanda or if the Arusha Accords
were enforced. Bagosora is said to have been the individual who gave the order on April 7,
1994, to the military to begin the mass killing and who issued the order that roadblocks be
set up all across Rwanda so as to capture and kill fleeing Tutsi and moderate Hutu.
After the conclusion of the genocide and the victory of the antigovernment RPF,
Bagosora disappeared. On September 3, 1996, he was apprehended in Cameroon and subsequently
transferred for trial to Arusha, Tanzania.
At the hearing before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in
March 1997, he pleaded not guilty to the charge of genocide. His trial began on April 2,
2002, simultaneously with the trials of three others—Brigadier-General Gratien Kabiligi
(b. 1951), former chief of military operations in the FAR; Lieutenant-Colonel Anatole
Nsengiyumva (b. 1950), former military commander of Gisenyi Military Camp; and
Major Aloys Ntabakuze (b. 1954), former commander of the Kanombe Paracommando
Battalion, Kigali. At the time of this writing, the trial is continuing.
Baha’is in Iran. The Baha’i faith originated in Iran in 1844. Almost from the first proclamation
of the new faith by the Bab (1819–1850), and its development by Bahaullah
(1817–1892), Baha’is have been persecuted as Muslim heretics. In the 1850s and 1860s, over
twenty thousand Baha’is were put to death, with thousands more imprisoned, often for life.
Persecution and massacres continued throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
When the Islamic revolution began in Iran in 1978, discrimination, harassment, persecution,
torture, and killings increased dramatically. Baha’is were hounded from their jobs, denied
entry to colleges and universities, and forbidden employment in government service. Pensions
for the elderly were cut off completely, and Baha’is were denied the right to own businesses.
Baha’i cemeteries were confiscated and vandalized. International travel was forbidden
to Baha’is. Baha’is were also routinely killed in small groups numbered in the tens and hundreds
by the revolutionary authorities. The Bahai’is’ persecution by the fundamentalist
Islamic regime in Iran is based on their status as a breakaway movement from Islam, certainly,
but it is just as much the modernity and dynamism of the Baha’i religion that drives
fundamentalist Islam to wage its ongoing campaign of persecution within Iran. Baha’i beliefs
gravitate naturally toward pacifism, parliamentary democracy, religious toleration with regard
to other faiths, and the compatibility of science with religion. Against this, a hard-line
intolerance within Islam, born of the belief that there is but one way to salvation, has
meant the Baha’is have been a ready target for persecution. Although this has not resulted
in wholesale mass killing of the Baha’is in Iran, there can be little doubt that Iranian revolutionary
actions against the Baha’i community are aimed at its long-term destruction.
Bahutu Manifesto (March 1957). On March 24, 1957, Gregoire Kayibanda
(1924–1976), the chief editor of Rwanda’s Roman Catholic newspaper Kinyamateka,
BAHUTU MANIFESTO
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