Israeli Education Minister, Yossi Sarid, the first Israeli official to publicly recognize the Armenian genocide, said on Armenian Memorial Day in Jerusalem (April 24), "I am here, with you, as a human being, as a Jew, as an Israeli, and as Education Minister of the State of Israel." He also pledged to integrate the Armenian genocide in a new Israeli history curriculum. Mr. Sarid later resigned as Minister of Education for unrelated reasons. There is increasing recognition in Israel of the Armenian genocide among people of different political camps and criticism of official Israeli policy avoiding recognition, motivated in part by the Israeli strategic alliance with Turkey.

On June 9, 126 Holocaust scholars-- including Yehuda Bauer, Steven Katz, and Eli Wiesel-- in a petition published in the New York Times affirmed "the incontestable fact of the Armenian genocide and urge[d] western democracies to officially recognize it...[and] asked [them] to urge the Government and Parliament of Turkey to finally come to terms with a dark chapter of Ottoman- Turkish history...". The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has offered technical support to the new Armenian Genocide Museum in Washington, DC. [See also "Changing Minds at Microsoft...," this issue.]

The United States House of Representatives Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights held hearings on September 14 on HR 398, United States Training on and Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide Resolutions, a bill to mandate that the US officially acknowledges the Armenian genocide and educates its diplomats about it. The bill is co-sponsored by 135 House members. Genocide scholars Roger Smith (College of William and Mary/former President, Association of Genocide Scholars [AGS]) and Robert F. Melson (Purdue University/AGS) testified in favor of this bill. Melson is noted for his work on the origins of the Armenian genocide (Revolution and Genocide, 1992) and Smith for his articles on the ethics and politics of denial of the Armenian genocide. Representatives of the US State Department, the Pentagon, the Turkish Embassy and Prof. Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville, Ky.) spoke against the bill. Gunduz Suphi Aktan, the former Turkish Ambassador, warned of its negative impact on Turkey's military and political cooperation with the United States. Committee Chairman Christopher Smith (R- NJ) questioned the Turkish Ambassador as to whether he was making a threat and affirmed his support of the resolution.

1. War Crimes Tribunal (ICTWCY/R).
   
   Milan Levar, a Croatian citizen who had cooperated with the ICTY in 1997 and 1998, was found murdered at his home in Gospic, Croatia on 28 August. Mr. Levar chose not to rely on protection by the ICTY but was assured by the government of Croatia that it would protect him. He was seeking to leave the country in the two months preceding his death, his widow said. He left a letter naming his most likely killers, men he accused of committing war crimes against the Serbs of Gospic--over 100 of whom are missing. He said that they also killed Croats who objected or got in the way.

   Since his murder, Croatian authorities have detained several men in connection with war crimes and Levar's killing and arrested Gen. Tihomir Oreskov, accused of leading the killings of Serbs in Gospic. While the new Croatian government is more cooperative with the Tribunal than the previous government had been, the party of the former head of state, Gen. Tudjman, and members of the army are said to be alarmed and feeling endangered. The government sent a delegation to show respect at the funeral of Levar but the Mayor of Gospic did not attend and most townspeople kept away, supposedly from fear (Carlotta Gall, New York Times, September 17, A3).

   Zoran Soldo, a Bosnian Croat charged with war crimes against Muslims in Mostar in 1993, turned himself in to a regional court on September 13.

   On June 21, Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the Tribunal, said that she would not withdraw the indictment against President Slobodan Milosevic and opposed efforts to let him escape justice. She was responding to press rumours that the US and other governments were willing to trade the charges for his leaving office voluntarily. Misha Glenny said that "despite the furious denials from Washington and elsewhere this week, this is a serious policy....[and] a sign of desperation" (New York Times, June 23, A25). On September 7, Radovan Karadzic was reported to be sighted in a public place in the Serbian sector of Sarajevo.

   On April 4, NATO troops seized Momcilo Krajisnik on the basis of a secret indictment, arresting him on charges of war crimes and genocide, and flew him to the Hague. Krajisnik is one of the most important Serbian leaders and a close ally of Radovan Karadzic. He was arrested by French troops at his parents' home in Pale at about 3 am.

   In March, Gen. Blaskic, a Bosnian Croat, was judged guilty of crimes against humanity for persecution of Muslim civilians in Bosnia and sentenced to 45 years imprisonment.. For complete details of indictments, trials, and appeals, see the ICTY web-site: http://www.un.org/icty/

2. Why the Victims of Srebenica have not been buried.
   
   Thousands of bodies in 4,700 white plastic bags of victims from the 1995 Srebenica massacre await burial which has been postponed because of disputes between local Serbs and Bosniaks of how the victims' memory is to be recognized collectively. Relatives of the victims want a prominent memorial but Serb leaders prefer a less visible internment. "Serb war veterans go even farther, flatly denying that any killings took place and warning of violence at a ceremony Muslim survivors plan to hold on Tuesday." A spokesperson for the international mission in Bosnia, Alexandra Stiglmeyer, said she believed that such memorialization was premature (David Rohde, New York Times, July 9, 2000, E1).

Peace Negotiations Fail. Peace negotiations led by Nelson Mandela between the Tutsi-military dominated government of Burundi and Hutu rebels failed to produce a substantive agreement specifying how fighting would be stopped and the civil war ended, although a document was signed at Arusha on August 28 which many groups did not sign. Both sides have been accused of massacres but there has been also much unnoted suffering among the 350,00 Burundians interned by the government in camps in 1999, allegedly to enable the government to protect them from the rebels, resulting from poor nutrition, overcrowding and health conditions leading to epidemics.

China's People's Daily reports that Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen proclaimed a "Two Victory" policy in a meeting with the new Ambassador of China on August 30. The first victory is "to forget the past." But this contradicts the Cambodian government's recent agreement with the United Nations to cooperate in a joint Cambodian and international genocide tribunal to try leaders of the Khmer Rouge. (Thanks go to Craig Etcheson for this posting from the People's Daily.) Hun Sen has made contradictory statements about his intentions in different contexts.

1. Immunity of Gen. Pinochet Stripped.
   
   The former dictator was stripped of his senatorial immunity on August 8, allowing him to be tried for murder, torture, and kidnapping during his regime (1973-1989) if he is deemed to be fit to stand trial. Seized by the British authorities in London in 1998 on a Spanish warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity, Gen. Pinochet was allowed to go home after several courts had ruled positively that he could be indicted there based on international jurisdiction over such crimes, but he was finally released by British authorities for health reasons.

2. Chile/US
   
   There is continuing conflict within the US administration over releasing all documents pertaining to the 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile and subsequent human rights violations. The US State Department promised to release all documents but the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has resisted full disclosure. On September 13, the National Security Advisor, Samuel R. Berger, postponed release of documents and asked the CIA to again review its documents in order to assure the "'fullest possible disclosure,'" a move which "could be read as a rebuke to George W. Tenet, the CIA director, who last month overruled his own declassification experts and announced that he would withhold certain files on Chile on the ground that they would compromise intelligence techniques still in use" (Christopher Marquis, New York Times, September 14, A12). Newly released documents from the CIA show that the former chief of Chile's secret police (DINA) under Pinochet, Gen. Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, was a CIA informer until 1977. Sepulveda was convicted in Chile in 1993 of masterminding the lethal car bombing in Washington DC in 1976 which killed Orlando Letelier (former Ambassador from Chile) and Ronni Moffit, a US citizen with him. These documents were made public in a report by the CIA to Congress in compliance with legislation written by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (Dem.NY) (Christopher Marquis, New York Times, September 19, 2000).

Human Rights Watch reported UN estimates that some 7,000 deaths have resulted from warfare in the northeastern DRC between Lendu and Hema groups, reinforced by some officers of the Ugandan People's Defense Force (UPDF) who are currently under investigation in Uganda. HRW relates the inter-ethnic conflict and killings to a division within the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-LM) supported by Uganda which has led to ethnic division in the military wing of the RCD-LM. Solomon Baldo, Senior Researcher at HRW/Africa says that "The rebel factions now fighting the Congolese government and their Ugandan backers can and should put a stop to the civilian casualties in areas under their joint control" (http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/08/drc-ltr0822.htm).

1. 55 Years After: Slave Labor Compensation Agreement Concluded, July 2000.
   
   Germany concluded an agreement for 10 billion deutschmarks (about $5 billion) in compensation to slave laborers and forced laborers drawn from occupied Europe during World War 2. The agreement, mediated by German and US officials, assures German industries and banks of immunity from future US lawsuits. German companies and American companies with German subsidiaries are to contribute half the sum. German Protestant churches also admitted they used forced labor (after a disclosure that 26 Protestant and 2 Catholic parishes in Berlin ran a camp using 100 forced laborers for work in graveyards) and agreed to contribute $4.9 million to the fund. The German Catholic Church said it would set up its own fund. Slave laborers (generally drawn from extermination and concentration camps) are to receive one-time payments of 15,000 marks (about $7,500) and forced laborers (forcibly seized from occupied countries and paid wages inferior to that of German workers) will get 5,000 marks (about $2,500).

2. Rationalizing Genocide Rewarded.
   
   Roger Cohen's story on the award of the Konrad Adenauer Prize for literature in June to Ernst Nolte was titled, "Hitler Apologist Wins German Honor, and a Storm Breaks Out" (New York Times, June 21, 2000; all following quotes are from the NYT). In his acceptance speech, Nolte denounced the "collective accusation" against Germany since 1945 and argued that since Nazism was the "'strongest of all counter forces to Bolshevism', a movement with wide Jewish support, Hitler may have had 'rational' reasons for attacking the Jews." The prize is awarded by the Deutschland Foundation (Munich) which is close to the right wing of the Christian Democratic Party but not considered revisionist. Charles Maier (History Department, Harvard University) said that "'The award of the prize to Nolte was a clear political statement intended to promote the view that there is no particular stigma to Nazism in the light of what some Germans now call the 'Red Holocaust' in the Soviet Union. It's exculpatory in the German context. It's also really scandalous" (New York Times, June 21, 2000).

3. Attacks on Immigrants and Jews Stir Minister to Denounce Silent Majority.
   
   Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on July 31 condemned Germans for appearing to condone hatred of foreigners, tolerating such crimes as the bombing in Dusseldorf, the attack on African asylum seekers in Eisenach by neo-Nazi skinheads shouting "Sieg Heil", and the killing of an African immigrant in Dessau. He said that neo-Nazi groups are keeping blacklists including German Jewish citizens, such as well-known actors. Attacks have not been restricted to East Germany; in West Germany, gravestones in Jewish cemetaries have also been desecrated and a bomb found outside the home of a Jewish family in Bavaria. The German government is to begin in September an advertising campaign for tolerance and is considering other measures.

1. Military Bias Reinforces Ethnic/Religious Violence.
   
   In the Molluccas (or Malaku Islands), where over 4,000 people have been killed in fighting between Christians and Muslims since January 1999, the Indonesian military, rather than trying to keep the peace, usually intervenes on the side of the community in which they are billeted. Stanley Crouch, an expert on the Indonesian military, explains that the military are primarily concerned with making money (often by selling weapons), ave no training in quelling disorders with minimal force, and are not prepared to be a neutral force. There is also a tradition of tolerance of troops running amok, becoming "emotional" (Seth Mydans, New York Times, August 22, 2000, A11). The Indonesia Human Rights Commission has called for sending international peacekeepers into the Molluccas.

   Violence also continues in Aceh and Irian Jaya. A leading candidate for governor of Aceh and prominent Islamic university rector, Tengku Safwan Idris, who was known for opposing a military response to the independence movemement, was assassinated on September 16, bringing the total of persons killed in Aceh since an internationally brokered cease-fire was concluded in May to 120 persons.

2. Start of Trials Accounting for Past Offenses
   
   Gen. Suharto, the former dictator who came into office in 1965 in a coup (believed to be in response to an attempted coup attributed to the communist party) which led to the killing of an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 alleged communists, has been indicted for corruption. The Suharto family greatly enriched themselves during his regime. His lawyer came before the court on August 29 (Gen. Suharto was not there) to explain that the general is physically unfit to stand trial. Some Indonesians would like to see him indicted for grave human rights abuses. Opinions among past internees, human rights activists and researchers are divided about the benefits and risks of confronting the past through prosecutions.

   The first human rights trial ended in Aceh in May with verdicts against 24 soldiers and one civilian implicated in the killings of a Muslim cleric and teacher and over 50 of his students and followers in July 1999. Human Rights Watch welcomed the trial but expressed dismay about the absence of charges against military commanders who gave the orders (hrw-news, May 17).

3. Violence in West Timor by East Timorese Militias.
   
   The Indonesian military and militias still control the destiny of 120,000 East Timorese whom they transported to camps in West Timor before the entry of Australian peacekeepers in September 1999. UN aid workers withdrew from West Timor on September 6 following the killing of three UN workers by militia members. . Human Rights Watch on August 17 called for the Indonesian army to disband the militias. If they do not, HRW asks donor countries to renew the ban on military sales to Indonesia imposed in September 1999 during the army and militia terror there. The United Nations Security Council has asked Indonesia to reign in the militias in West Timor and bring in fresh troops and some diplomats have suggested bringing in independent peacekeepers, a proposal rejected by Indonesia. In mid-September, the US Secretary of Defense and the head of the World Bank also issued warnings to Indonesia to disarm the miitias.

   Although a United Nations Commission of Inquiry and an Indonesian Commission on East Timor have concluded that the Indonesian military was responsible for the terror, killings and forced expulsions in East Timor last September, no high officer has been indicted. General Wiranto, Indonesian military chief at the time, has resigned.

Iraq still refuses to allow the UN to monitor whether it has dismantled facilities for production of chemical and biological weapons, despite several resolutions by the UN Security Council and the UNSC's change in the monitoring regime to accomodate Iraqi protests. Sadam Hussein has not been indicted for genocide despite the efforts of human rights NGOs and the documentation amassed (see Human Rights Watch, Iraq's Crime of Genocide, 1995).

Iraq also refuses to let independent experts into the country to assess the living conditions of Iraqis and has turned down medicine and relief offers from nongovernmental organizations. Since last December, Iraq has been permitted to sell unlimited amounts of oil at high current international prices to pay for civilian needs. It is estimated that Iraq has sold $32 billion of oil since 1996 under the oil for food program and spent $1 billion for medical supplies and more than $6 billion for food. There is also evidence that Iraq has been exporting medical supplies and food (wheat and beans) from the oil sales program.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, enjoined by the Security Council to survey the effect of the embargo, told the council that "I am not in a position to submit to the Security Council finalized arrangements...the government of Iraq has indicated that it does not intend to cooperate with or issue visas to such experts" (Barbara Crossette, New York Times, September 12, 2000, A1).

HRW and five other organizations appealed to the UN Security Council on August 4 to change the sanctions regime because of its unintended consequences--"pervasive life-threatening public health conditions for millions..."--and to "devise means which directly impact those in power, not the ordinary citizens who already suffer under their repression."

While it may be that the frequency of inter-group murders has diminished (there were about 500 in the year ending in July, 2000), there is no security for Albanians or Serbs in parts of Kosovo controlled by the other group. The situation is particularly acute in the divided city of Mitrovica. Dennis McNamara, a retiring UN administrator in Kosovo, criticized the UN for not having a firm policy from the start toward vengeance killings and not being willing to put in enough resources, saying that on such a mission we should "be prepared to invest as much money and effort in winning the peace as in fighting the war" (Stephen Erlanger, New York Times, July 2, 2000). The United Nations administration, in turn, criticizes NATO members for not giving them the funds needed for policing and a judicial system. The United States and NATO alllies (occupying different zones) are divided about strategy and tactics and the US is inhibited by its fears of getting into situations which may lead to US casualties during an election year.

A report of an United States Army investigation of human rights abuses by the US 82nd Airborne Division--instigated by charges following the rape and murder of an 11-year old Albanian girl by a member of that division (sentenced to life by a military court)-- faulted the training and supervision of the division. "The report accused the soldiers' commanders in Kosovo of displaying a 'propensity toward Serb favoritism' and an overly hostile attitude toward Kosovo's Albanians. It concluded that they either knew or should have known about complaints that soldiers were using excessive force and mistreating women by groping their breasts and buttocks during searches....The report detailed several incidents in which soldiers beat or threatened Albanian men and indecently assaulted women" (Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, September 19, 2000, A10).

Bernard Kouchner, UN administrator of Kosovo, reported a foiled attempt by arrested Yugoslav agents to infiltrate and destabilize Kosovo prior to the elections in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on September 24 (BBC, September 19). There is no long-term solution to the political question in sight.

1. Which Party Triggered the Genocide?
   
   A Danish Newspaper, Aktuelt, reported on 17 April that Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunal on War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia/Rwanda, is re-opening the investigation of the plane crash killing the Rwandan president on 6 April, 1994 which was used as a trigger to implement plans for genocide in Rwanda. Three informants from the current Rwandan government, dominated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), claimed that the leader of the RPF, General Paul Kagame--now President of Rwanda-- was behind the downing of the plane. A previous investigation under the former chief prosecutor, Louise Arbour, was opened and closed in 1997, and the report shelved by the UN. "If it is the RPF that shot down the plane, the history of the Genocide must be rewritten...If indeed the RPF shot down the plane, rather than being victim of the Hutu militias, the RPF entered into an unholy alliance with the murderers, while the Tutsis inside Rwanda therefore constituted nothing more than a bargaining chip for the rebel movement. And the chip--denoting almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus inside Rwanda--was sacrificed on the alter of power" (Gunnar Willum and Bjorn Willum, "The Rwanda Genocide Seen in a New Light," Aktuelt [Denmark], 17 April, 2000; translation by B. Willum).

2. Continued Gross Human Rights Abuses in Rwanda.
   
   Human Rights Watch charged on April 27 that the Rwandan government, under the pretext of security, is responsible for assassination, murder, arbitrary detention, torture and other abuses by the Rwandan Patriotic Army and members of a government- backed miitia called the Local Defense Force. "This report shows that human rights abuse in Rwanda goes beyond the ethnic conflict between Hutu and Tutsi," said Alison Des Forges, consultant to Human Rights Watch/Africa. "The Tutsi-led government is now targeting Tutsi survivors of the 1994 genocide because they are supposedly political opponents." The report is available online at: http://hrw.org/reports/2000/rwanda/

The United Kingdom stressed its continued military commitment to Sierra Leone after a successful action against rebels holding UK hostages on September 9, resulting in the death of 25 rebels and one UK soldier. The United States changed policy in August, planning to send American soldiers to Nigeria to help train and equip seven West African batallions (5,000-6,000 troops) to back up the elected government of Sierra Leone and deter the rebels who have perpetrated crimes against humanity (such as amputating limbs from civilians) and seized diamond mines. This was said to be in response to international and Congressional criticism of US inaction. Previously, the US was sharply criticized for asking exorbitant rates for the use of Pentagon aircraft to transport soldiers from other countries to fight the rebels.

The United Nations has embargoed diamonds from Sierra Leone (the principal source of rebels' revenue) but they have been easily marketed through Liberia (President Charles Taylor is an ally of the rebels) and diamond traders are considering a method of certification. Burkina Faso has also been accused by Human Rights Watch (March 30, 2000) of assisting illegal arms transfers to Sierra Leone and Angola.

The United Nations Security Council has authorized setting up of an international court for perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone but this has not yet been implemented as of September 1.

The trial in Senegal of Hissene Habre, former head of Chad in the 1980's begun in May was dropped in July. The trial which built on the Pinochet precedent of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity was instigated by human rights activists in Chad and Senegal and assisted by western human rights organizations. Charges were dismissed in July after the President removed the investigating judge and substituted another judge, the head of the indicting chamber. The three judge indicting chamber ruled that Senegal had no jurisdiction to pursue charges that Habre was guilty of massive torture during his 1982-1990 rule in Chad because the crimes were not committed in Senegal. Human rights organizations argued that this decision defied obligations under the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture ratified by Senegal in 1986. .

Sudan's government has been accused of genocide, war crimes and enslavement (documented by human rights organizations and by the US Refugee Committee), most recently by the US House of Representatives which in HR Resolution 75, charged the government with "deliberately and systematically committing genocide in southern Sudan." Bowing to international pressure generated largely by organizations redeeming slaves, the government has recognized abduction (by Arab tribal paramilitaries sponsored by the government) as slavery and established a committee to investigate slavery in the North and bring slaves back to their homes in the South. This commission says it has reunited 170 persons out of an estimated 50,000 still held in captivity (BBC, May 31, 2000).

Although nominated by the Organization of African Unity for a contested African seat on the United Nations Security Council, Sudan was defeated by Mauritius after four ballots. (See USCIRF story this issue.)

The Swiss government in July approved a plan to settle claims of Holocaust survivors to compensate them for money they had deposited or that Germany had looted and stored in those banks. A report of an independent panel headed by Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Bank, estimated that 54,000 Swiss accounts were probably linked to Holocaust victims. As of May 2000, 550,000 people returned questionnaires attesting that they were claimants. Problems remain in the continued noncooperation of private and cantonal Swiss banks who have not put their records into the central Swiss database.