27 March 2017 World supplement

Facts
3
Monday, March 27, 2017
DT
Atrocious genocides in history
• Md Toufiqul Islam
Mankind is capable of great things.
Love, compassion and empathy
have allowed species to flourish
and to survive. Human are also capable
of horrible things as well genocide,
mass murder and war. While
we may like to talk about all the
great achievements of man, we can
never forget some of the most horrible
moments as well if only so we
never repeat it again. Here are some
of the worst genocide’s committed
by mankind.
Native American genocide (1492-
1900)
It is impossible to determine exactly
how many natives were present
in the Americas before the arrival
of Christopher Columbus; but even
conservative estimates usually put
the number at a minimum of one
million. In the years following 1492,
a deluge of Europeans arrived,
each wave more determined than
The holocaust
the last to seize control of the New
World’s vast natural resources. The
only thing standing in their way
were the native populations, who,
as it turned out, weren’t always
willing to share.
Zunghar genocide (1757-1758)
The Dzungar genocide was the
mass extermination of the Dzungar
people, sometimes referred
as “Zunghars”, at the hands of the
Manchu Qing dynasty of China and
the Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang.
The Dzungars were a confederation
of several Tibetan Buddhist Oirat
tribes that emerged suddenly in
the early 17th century. The Dzungar
Khanate was the last great nomadic
empire in Asia. Some scholars estimate
that about 80% of the Dzungar
population, or around 500,000
to 800,000 people, were killed by a
combination of warfare and disease
during or after the Qing conquest
in 1755–1757. After wiping out the
native population of Dzungaria,
the Qing government then resettled
Han Chinese, Hui, Uyghur, and Xibe
people on state farms in Dzungaria
along with Manchu Bannermen to
repopulate the area.
Moriori genocide (1835)
The Maori are the indigenous Polynesian
people of New Zealand.
They have dwelled in the area for
some eight hundred years. About
five hundred years ago, a group
of Maori migrated to the nearby
Chatham Islands, where they began
their own society that focused on
peaceful living. They called themselves
the Moriori.
The remaining, warlike Maori
tribes soon came into contact with
Americans and Europeans, and
while initial meetings sometimes
ended in cannibalization of the foreigners,
the Maoris highly valued
Western guns—so trade flourished.
Beginning in 1835, the now wellarmed
Maori arrived at the Chatham
Islands, where they proceeded to
murder and devour their defenceless
cousins. Those who survived
were enslaved, and forced to intermarry
with the Maori. In less than
thirty years from the moment of
contact, there were only 101 Moriori
left. The last pure-blooded Moriori
died in 1933.
Moriori genocide
Armenian genocide (1915)
The Ottoman Empire, whose centre
point during its declining years
was modern-day Turkey, was responsible
for a great many human
rights violations—none more horrifying
than the Armenian Genocide.
Beginning in 1915, while the
rest of the world was distracted
by World War One, the Ottomans
turned fiercely on the Armenians,
a Christian minority. Between 1915-
1916, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians,
or 75% of Armenians in
their historic homeland which lies
within the present-day Republic of
Turkey, were killed in massacres or
died as a consequence of military
deportations, forced marches and
mass starvation’s carried out by the
Young Turks.
The holocaust (1942-45)
Since ancient times, the Jews have
been highly persecuted by Egyptians,
Romans, and Christians alike.
But few genocides have been as
sweeping or well-documented as
the Nazi Holocaust, Adolf Hitler’s
“final solution to the Jewish question.”
It is important to understand the
socioeconomic state of Germany in
the years following World War One;
the country had acquired a massive
Native American genocide
Zunghar genocide
debt, and forced war reparations
utterly destroyed their economy.
Inflation was so bad that normal
families’ entire life savings were depleted
on few loaves of bread.
The Holocaust perpetrated
against the Jewish people by the
Nazis resulted in about 6 million
Jews killed. In other words, 67% of
the entire Jewish population in Europe.
Bangladesh atrocities
Pygmy genocide
Armenian genocide
Bangladesh atrocities (1971)
The genocide in Bangladesh began
on 26 March 1971 with the launch of
Operation Searchlight, as West Pakistan
began a military crackdown
on the Eastern wing of the nation to
suppress Bengali calls for self-determination.
During the ninemonth-long
Bangladesh war for
independence, members of the Pakistani
military and supporting Islamist
militias from Jamaat e Islami
killed an estimated up to 3,000,000
people and raped between 200,000
and 400,000 Bangladeshi women
in a systematic campaign of genocidal
rape.
Rwandan genocide (1994)
Like the Maori and Moriori, the Hutus
and the Tutsi likely originated
from common ancestors—offshoots
of the Bantu people. In fact, there
was little delineation between the
two at all before the arrival of Belgian
and German imperialists. The
Europeans divided the two groups
mostly by economic status, with
Tutsis being wealthier (the ownership
of ten cattle being the base requirement).
Indeed, if a Hutu came
into money, he could change his
status to that of a Tutsi.
An estimated 500,000–
1,000,000 Rwandans were killed
during the 100-day period from
April 7 to mid-July 1994, constituting
as many as 70% of the Tutsi and
20% of Rwanda’s total population.
Some 50 perpetrators of the genocide
have been found guilty by the
International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwandan genocide
Rwanda, but most others have not
been charged due to no witness accounts.
Another 120,000 were arrested
by Rwanda; of these, 60,000
were tried and convicted in the gacaca
court system.
Pygmy genocide (1998-2003)
The pygmy tribes are found in central
Africa, and while they comprise
several tribes, the general term
is used to describe people whose
adult males are less than fifty-nine
inches tall. Although there are several
theories as to the reason for
their tiny stature, no one has truly
pinpointed the reason.
The pygmies, who are a largely
primitive, forest dwelling people,
have suffered terribly during Congolese
civil wars fought in the region.
Pygmy representatives have
appealed desperately to the United
Nations, claiming that rebel factions
such as the Movement for the
Liberation of the Congo have been
hunting and cannibalising their
people as though they were wild
animals. There are only an estimated
500,000 pygmies remaining,
and their numbers are sharply declining
in the face of slaughter and
deforestation. •