[First published May 8, 2005 Note for regular visitors: The {right} sidebar now provides a link to an archive in which I have organized together and by topic all my posts on different blogs, and website commentaries]
A few indigestible tidbits before the main course.
The democide deaths in Darfur, Sudan, have now probably exceeded 400,000, and perhaps twice the deaths from the Great Tsunami that was such oh-my-God!-news months ago. Meanwhile, with killing slowness, an underarmed, undermanned African Union force has been sent there to prevent the killing and assure peace, and now will be increased to about 12,000 troops by next year. This is not even the minimum required to stop the killing.
Dictatorial Ethiopia is suffering from another famine. The UN says that without food aid as many as 300,000 children will die. The UN has called for international help, again, as it has to help those starving under other thug regimes. Shouldn’t we also apply the “Never Again” to famine, and call also for the end to these killing. Criminal regimes? As I’ve commented before, democracies never have had a famine.
In Northern Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army has been slaughtering peasants and caused about 2,000,000 people to flee their villages. Worst of all, it “has reportedly abducted more than 20,000 children. Some are forced to fight, some to carry bags, others to have sex with the fighters. By way of initiation, many are obliged to club, stamp or bite to death their friends and relatives, and then to lick their brains, drink their blood and even eat their boiled flesh.” (link here) The International Court of Justice is about to issue an arrest warrant for the head of this rebel army, but local leaders oppose this as prolonging the conflict. Instead, they say, “if the rebels confess their guilt and undergo cleansing rituals, they will be accepted back into their communities.”
And then in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, over 31,000 a month die from civil war, democide, and associated disease and famine, which means that by now the toll has arisen to about 3,900,000 in six years. It is ruled by another thug regime
Then there is VJ day, and the end of World War II, which has occasioned both platitudes for the fighting spirit of Russian troops and the head shaking over their losses in the war. I did a lot of research on Soviet losses during the war. From a variety of official and unofficial sources, I estimated that the Soviets lost 7,000,000 men and women in battle, and 19,625,000 in total when I add the 3,000,000 Soviet POWs murdered, and those killed during the Nazi occupation.
But, which is seldom recognized in the outpouring of comments on the war, Stalin is responsible for the deaths by deportation, in camps, by summary execution, and through such extraordinary wartime measures as forcing prisoners to clear minefields with their feet, of around 10,000,000 citizens. Dead by Stalin and not Hitler! Then their were the mass murders carried out through Eastern Europe and occupied Germany by the Red Army and KGB, foreign deportation dead, and the mass of foreign POWs dying in Soviet camps. These dead would add another 3,000,000 to the total.
So, the Soviet’s (the use of “Russian” for Soviets is not correct, since a large number of different national groups had been forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, such as Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians, Armenian, etc.) lost about 13,000,000 to Hitler’s democide. And Stalin’s democide amounted to about 13,000,000 citizens and foreigners.
Overall, Hitler murdered about 21,000,000 people, and Stalin about 43,000,000. No one in recorded history, as far as I could determine, has murdered more during his rule. And yet, . . . try to relax and take two deep breaths to get ready for this . . . in Volgograd, once named Stalingrad, authorities will unveil a statue of . . . Stalin!
But wait, got more. The All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center took a poll, in answer to which half the respondants were positive toward Stalin’s “role in the life of the country” — 20% very positive, 30% some what positive, and ONLY 12% very negative. If anything displays the kind of education and information Russians are getting, this is it.
All this reflects the gradual takeover of Russia by present and former military and security chiefs, the refusal to publicize the tyranny and mass murders of Stalin, the turning a blind eye to the complicity of present and past officials in Stalin’s murders, and the public regret about the fall of the Soviet Union (I think President Putin called it “catastrophic”). As now is well known, Russia is has become an authoritarian state with a democratic veneer. Elections, yes, but the Putin regime now controls the major media and hassles and hamstrings opposition parties.
Oh yes, one more thing. When the Allies set aside May 8, 1945, to celebrate their victory over Germany, Algeria was then a French colony. Understandably, with all the celebration about victory and freedom, the Algerians tried, with the permission of the sous-prefet, to demonstrate for independence. Although a peaceful demonstration, they were fired on by troops and legionnaires, after which the military carried out a street-by-street, house-by-house massacre of any Algerians they could lay hands on and if they could not they would, for example, drop grenades down chimneys. About 45,000 Algerians were massacred (link here), of which are shown two heads below. Thanks to Gary Busch for the email tip and photo below.
Link of Note
”Outside View: Dictators must go” (4/19/05) By Herbutus Hoffman
Hoffman is president and founder of the World Security Network. While recognizing President Bush’s Forward Strategy of Freedom, he says,
Western foreign policy is for the most part reactionary, rather than proactive in “shaping a better world.” Foreign policy is for the most part a mix of lifeless bureaucracy and fear, almost always reactive and never preventative. Foreign policy too often contains a shot of cynicism as its actors secretly flirt with the 43 global dictators regardless of their character, only because they happen to be in power or because they bring the promise of new business.
Democratically legitimized politicians continue to hesitate when they ought to take action against them on behalf of oppressed people in other countries. . . .
It is perfectly clear for all to see: today’s Europe is secure only because there is now more freedom and democracy than there was 20 years ago. . . .
The United States is rich and powerful because it gave its citizens freedom more than 200 years ago. West Germany was rich, East Germany poor. North Korea is extremely poor, South Korea rich. Vietnam is poor, Thailand rich. . . .
Let’s start a new approach with fresh, new thought, combined with optimism for a new progressive foreign policy — with imagination a la Einstein — to promote democratic development and to get rid of the last 43 dictators in the word by 2025, now!
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