[WARNING: This list contains images that may disturb some readers.] All too often the evil of man has shown its face to the world in the form of mass murders and slaughter. This list contains ten of the lesser known massacres. The fact that 10 lesser known massacres can be found is a sad indictment of what our powerful leaders can do when left unchecked.
The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy in French) was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants), during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of King Charles IX, the massacre took place six days after the wedding of the king’s sister to the Protestant Henry of Navarre. This was an occasion for which many of the most wealthy and prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris. Events began two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, a Huguenot military leader. Starting on 24 August 1572 (the feast of Bartholomew the Apostle) with the murder of Coligny, the massacres spread throughout Paris, and later to other cities and the countryside, lasting for several months. The exact number of fatalities is not known, but it has been estimated that over 2000 Huguenots were killed in Paris and over 3000 in the French provinces.
This poem of Abu Ishaq, written in Al-Andalus, Granada in 1066, was considered to be largely instrumental in sparking this massacre. It contains the following lines:
Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them, the breach of faith would be to let them carry on.
They have violated our covenant with them, so how can you be held guilty against the violators?
How can they have any pact when we are obscure and they are prominent?
Now we are humble, beside them, as if we were wrong and they were right!
On December 30, 1066 (9 Tevet 4827), a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, which was at that time in al-Andalus, assassinated Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred most of the Jewish population of the city. More than 1,500 Jewish families, numbering 4,000 persons, fell in one day. The image above shows a Jew reading the torah in Al-Andalus.
Batak massacre refers to the massacre of Bulgarians in Batak by Ottoman troops in 1876, at the beginning of the April Uprising. The number of victims varies from 3,000 to 5,000 according to different sources. On 30 April 1876, 8,000 Turkish soldiers, mainly Bashi-bazouk, led by Ahmet Aga Barun surrounded the city. After a first battle, the men from Batak decided to negotiate with Ahmet Aga. He promised them the withdrawal of his troops, under the condition of their disarmament. After the rebels had laid down their weapons, the Bashi-bazouk attacked the defenseless population. The majority of the victims were beheaded.
The Massacre of Thessaloniki was a retaliatory action by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 390 against the inhabitants of the Greek city of Thessaloniki, who had risen in revolt. The cause of the uprising was the order to arrest a popular wagon driver for trying to seduce and have sex with a servant of the emperor (Butherich).
The wagon driver was locked up in prison, but the citizens of Thessaloniki demanded his release. Butherich was murdered in the following turmoil, and so the Emperor intervened and ordered executions. However, the command was too little too late, and in the hippodrome in Thessaloniki angry Gothic troops massacred 7,000 people – the number is probably exaggerated, but gives a sense of the scale of the massacre. This incident aroused the wrath of the Bishop of Milan, Ambrose, and the church urged the emperor to repentance.
The Srebrenica Massacre, also known as Srebrenica Genocide, was the July 1995 killing of an estimated 8,000 Bosniak men, including at least 500 children in the region of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladic during the Bosnian War. In addition to the VRS, a paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions participated in the massacre.
So far, more than 5,600 victims of genocide have been identified through DNA analysis. Prior to the genocide, the United Nations had declared Srebrenica a UN protected “safe area”, but that did not prevent the massacre, even though 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers were present at the time. After reviewing a comprehensive report, the Dutch government resigned over this matter in 2002.
The Massacre of Elphinstone’s Army was a victory of Afghan forces led by Akbar Khan, the son of Dost Mohammad Khan, over a combined British and Indian force led by William Elphinstone in January 1842. After the British and Indian troops captured Kabul in 1839, an Afghan uprising forced the occupying garrison out of the city. The British army, consisting of 4,500 troops and 12,000 working personnel or camp-followers, left Kabul on January 6, 1842.
They attempted to reach the British garrison at Jalalabad, 90 miles away, but were immediately harassed by Afghan forces. The last remnants were eventually annihilated near Gandamak on January 13. Only one man, the assistant surgeon William Brydon, survived and managed to reach Jalalabad.
The Katyn massacre, also known as the Katyn Forest massacre, was a mass execution of Polish military officers, policemen and civilian prisoners of war ordered by Soviet authorities on March 5, 1940. The number of victims is estimated at about 22,000, with the most commonly cited number of 21,768. The victims were murdered in the Katyn forest in Russia, the Kalinin (Tver) and Kharkiv prisons and elsewhere. About 8,000 were officers taken prisoner during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, the rest being Poles arrested for allegedly being “intelligence agents, gendarmes, spies, saboteurs, landowners, factory owners, lawyers, priests, and officials.”
Since Poland’s conscription system required every non-exempted university graduate to become a reserve officer,the Soviets were able to round up much of the Polish intelligentsia, and the Jewish, Ukrainian, Georgian and Belarusian intelligentsia of Polish citizenship.
Babi Yar is a ravine in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. In the course of two days, September 29 and 30, 1941, a special team of German Nazi SS supported by other German units, local collaborators and Ukrainian police murdered 33,771 Jewish civilians. The Babi Yar massacre is considered to be the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust.
The massacre of prisoners refers to a series of mass executions committed by the Soviet NKVD against prisoners in Poland, the Baltic states, and parts of the Soviet Union from which the Red Army was withdrawing after the German invasion in 1941. The overall death toll is estimated at around 100,000, including more than 10,000 in Western Ukraine.
The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking, was an infamous war crime committed by the Japanese military in Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938.
During the occupation of Nanking, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. Although the executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, it is claimed that a large number of innocent men were intentionally misidentified as enemy combatants and executed as the massacre gathered momentum. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread.
According to the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, estimates made at a later date indicate that the total number of civilians and prisoners of war murdered in Nanking and its vicinity during the first six weeks of the Japanese occupation was over 200,000. That these estimates are not exaggerated is borne out by the fact that burial societies and other organizations have counted more than 155,000 buried bodies.
This article is licensed under the GFDL because it contains quotations from Wikipedia.
Contributor: abhishek
jebao vam HITLER mater
Randall, (120)
Better and far more graphically and gut-wrenchingly put than the similar *shortie/quickie* I have just offered over on *the other thread*.
But Randall,
I’m sure you could cite half a dozen and more anti-war films from ‘All Quiet …’ onwards where such events as you describe are portrayed sufficiently graphically and realistically for anyone with an ounce of imagination and sensitivity to be able to *feel* themselves in the same situation. They cerainly affect me that way and leave me emotionally wrung-out afterwards.
So do such reconstructions simply represent violent fiction to others here? A form of slightly more realistic video or paintball game? Or are the events in question so far removed from their own experience and imaginative capacity that they are unable empathise? If so, Heaven help the human race. Or do they deliberately resist in case their high and remote moral judgements might be challenged and fail? (Claiming that such a response is *emotional* and clouds our rational judgement. Spare me that.)
I am from bosnia same country where sebrenica happened and its so in humane i hope all the ustahe go to hell and satan sticks a needle in their eye
I would remind visitors to this site of a shocking fact. In most advanced countries of the world legislation exists for intervention by law in cases of internal familial violence. Police have the right to enter a home and prevent anyone beating their spouse or abusing their own children, for example.
At international level we do not have an equivalent to protect minorities. There is actually no specific intervention law in the event of massacres and genocide, only retrospective judgement as crimes against humanity or war crimes. At best nations can table outraged and pious motions at the United Nations or apply sanctions, if within their power and effective. Other than that, refugees fortunate enough to escape can be accepted. Finally, given sufficient international agreement (which is never likely to be unanimous), or the independent will of individual nations, armed intervention may take place. Serious problems will often trail in the wake of that.
Offending nations resist by protesting they are *solving their own internal matters*, usually citing the victims as terrorists or some other threat to state security.
I have wondered what would have happened about Jews in Nazi Germany had WW2 been avoided. I can only conclude they would have been gassed just the same, and the world would not have been prepared to go to war over the issue. Simply look what Stalin did in the Ukraine during *peacetime*.
For my money this is one of the great challenges facing humanity. If we do not stand by and let a person beat or kill members of their own family in their own home, should the world wring its hands helplessly while states do the same or worse to countless numbers of their own often helpless citizens? What use appealing to the morality of a dictator or tyrant? If those had any sense of morality they wouldn’t be tyrants. How, too, can we ever get agreement for action between all nations of the world when every regime, however beyond the pale, is a client state or partner of others? How can we ask mothers to send their sons to die in protection of some tiny beleaguered minoity somewhere they have never heard of across the other side of the world? These are just a few of the contingent questions. Is there a solution?
These kind of horrors, and the additional horrors added by some of the posters, are exactly why, when my children were young, I didn’t leave all of their education to the schools. We talked about mans inhumanity to man. About the value of every man, no matter what his lot in life. We talked about the brutality of war, and why peace is to be treasured and kept, and why each persons life is of equal value (at that age, I didn’t get into the relative value of the most obviously evil v. the most obviously good. It’s an argument too complex for even the most intelligent and educated theologian). The obvious lesson I was teaching was moral acceptance.
It worked.
It worked for 3, now grown, people.
What would the world be like if every child were brought up to believe that everyone were just as special, just as important, just as valuable as they?
Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Of course, that will never happen. In so many countries, the racial hatred, racial blood lust, runs so deep, and has lasted for so many generations, that the very idea is foreign to them. It saddens me more than I can say. Hate as a familial gift is a dreadful idea, but one which exists and exists with pride in many areas of the world. That innocent lives are lost aren’t part of their equation.
Hatred is *not* as much a part of the human psyche as love. Hate has to be taught. Love is natural. It’s too bad, but hate seems to be easy to teach, easy to learn.
Thessaloniki was a Greek town?
Thessaloniki (more preciselly Salonika) was first time a part of Greece at the 2nd part of the 19th century. Not to mention that old democratic Greece has nothing to do with the new counry Greece established in the 19th century.
During the mentioned massacre Salonika was a part of the Roman empire, before that a part of the Macedonian empire. It was mostly populated with Macedonians and Jewish people, but also some Greek.
So what makes you think it was “Greek” town?
113. urbishat
And for the Very first place you forgot the United States Massacre of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
****
urbishat , what’s the name of this list?
10 Lesser Known Massacres.
How on earth do Hiroshima and Nagasaki qualify as lesser known?
Do you understand what “lesser” means? I recommend you check a dictionary, rather than appear this foolish next time.
110. Dine
Actually, Sabra and Shatilla was a relatively minor massacre, but that’s not my main problem with your comment. The massacre was actually committed by Lebanese Christians. They may have been allied with the IDF, but they were not part of the IDF.
129. jogiff
Lebanese Christian armed by Ariel Sharon ( Israel General) and support by Israeli army .
Please read book “Israel Case” Roger Garaudy
( He is jewish ).
Small comment: Italian ocupation of Lybia in II WW , is’nt popular topic, but many things in that war are unknown like first use airplain to bombing civils , etc…
“Small comment: Italian ocupation of Lybia in II WW , is’nt popular topic, but many things in that war are unknown like first use airplain to bombing civils , etc…”
Wrong. In the summer of 1917, German Gotha bombers were carrying out regular raids on British towns such as London.
Much earlier, on 19 January 1915, three craft of the German Naval Airship Division had bombed towns on the east coast of England killing 4 people and injuring 16 others. Aircraft bombing of towns continued throughout most of WW1.”
The Italian airforce was notorious between the wars for dropping gas bombs on tribal villages in Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
Dine,
Read what segue wrote to urbishat. With facts so hopelessly inaccurate, one wonders why you bother to post.
If you insist on citing massacres in the Levant, you would also present a better case by being slightly less selective.
By the way, those reported as killed in my previous posting were all civilians, among the very first non-combatant fatalities of air raids. It was not unusual for over 100 civilians to be killed in one nightly raid during WW1.
doink (105)
And who decides which is which?
Cheers
Lee
Dine (110)
Beside the issues already pointed out with regards your post the other major items wrong with your killings are that they are none of them single atrocities, rather each is an agglomeration of killings each forming part of a campaign of Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing.
For example to use the one I know most about (Though by no means an expert)
5. Masacres on Nort Amrerican Indians by USA Army ( from 1800 – 1900 ). Even the total of all these separate massacres barely equals some of the larger single event massacres on the list. None of the individual Massacres such as Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, Black Kettle nor even The Trail of Tears (though you might have difficulty making a case for that as fitting the definition of a massacre) compare on a numbers killed basis with those on the list.
Cheers
Lee
Kiwitaxi,
“9. Masacres on Aliende party member by general PINOCHE in CHILE”
“a campaign of Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing.”
To take (only) the case I know best. Neither. You are perfectly correct in that the killings he mentions are essentially aggregate.
However, the one above is exemplary of those that are neither
genocide or ethnic cleansing.
It was POLITICIDE. Elimination of political opponents.
(I.e. The military mind’s failure to appreciate you do not kill an idea when you kill the people who hold it. In effect *allendism* in Chile had already proven itself unworkable: the butchery was THAT unnecessary.)
Where in this list will you include campaign of Genocide or Ethnic Cleansing, that greek government did in 1949 over macedonians in the country?
Lidice (WW2) should be included to keep it alive in our collective memory.
Igor:
“Thessaloniki was a Greek town?”
Thessaloniki was, if I’m not mistaken (I rarely am) founded as a Greek colony by Greeks from… was it Cos, or Lesbos? May have even been another island, I can’t recall… anyway, founded by Greeks in, I believe, the 8th century BC.
“Thessaloniki (more preciselly Salonika) was first time a part of Greece at the 2nd part of the 19th century.”
Current (or 19th century) political boundaries are meaningless here. Especially in that part of the world. Thessaloniki was Greek and always has been Greek. The mere fact that it was part of an Ottoman province or had passed from overlord to overlord over the centuries does not negate its inherent “Greekness.” It always had a heavy Greek population and is considered “Greek.”
“Not to mention that old democratic Greece has nothing to do with the new counry Greece established in the 19th century.”
Well you could argue this, but in fact it’s not quite accurate. What “old democratic Greece” do you refer to? What we call “Greece” was a collection of city-states and colonies across the Aegean and all over the Mediterranean (and the Black sea as well) until united under the Philip of Macedon. Yes, the nation-states of today are different from what the collective entities and empires of ancient times, but that’s not really relevant here.
“During the mentioned massacre Salonika was a part of the Roman empire, before that a part of the Macedonian empire. It was mostly populated with Macedonians and Jewish people, but also some Greek.”
Macedonians ARE Greeks, Igor. And again, it doesn’t matter that Salonica was “part of the Roman Empire” at the time. It was still Greek. Egypt was part of the Roman empire as well… does that mean it was no longer Egyptian? Come now. An Empire is a collection of smaller political units and kingdoms. Not a nation-state such as we have today. And even today your logic doesn’t always work, when you consider all the “nationalities” existing within nation-states in Eastern Europe and so on.
“So what makes you think it was “Greek” town?”
History, and facts.
4, Katyn massacre.
We should also recall this was for long considered a Nazi atrocity, misinformation augmented not only cynically by the Soviets themselves, but also by pro-Stalinist western intelligencia and artists, albeit with more, if blind, sincerity. I believe the great Polish director, Andrzej Wajda (‘Ashes and Diamonds’, ‘K*****’), has recently made a film on the subject.
abhishek,
My admiration for your careful attempt to keep this discussion on a broad humanitarian level by avoiding contemporary onging, controversial conflicts with the exception of one token example.
Of course it would be impossible to keep those with specific present-day axes to grind away from such a topic. So here they are, attempting to polarise opinion and detracting from an outraged yet objective and all-embracing view of man’s inhumanity to man.
Randall, macedonians were never greeks and they will never be! But let’s leave that arguement aside.
I seems that nobody knows that greeks masacred around 30000 macedonians after the greek civil war (with was not a civil war at all, but a macedonian uprising). People who managed to flee at the time are still alive and living in todays Macedonia, and all over the world.
But misteriously these events are mising from world’s history. I guess that victors always write the history.
I have long been aware of the divide between countries where significant self-criticism and soul-searching in reaction to such events in their past occurs and is *allowed*, and those where such *****ysis is difficult, impossible or non-existent.
The latter, of course, by official state policy and popular consent, either consider
(a) Their nation and its allies have never committed atrocities at all,
(b) Any such individually cited events didn’t happen,
(c) If so, they were justifiable revenge or legitimate acts of war or resistance to oppression, or
(d) They were too insignificant to count.
For them, these same let-outs don’t stand as acceptable responses to accusations they make against any *enemy* they consider to have committed the same actions against their own nationals or allies.
You will certainly find examples of some of these denials and one-sided attitudes in this topic. Hopefully you will also have taken note here and elsewhere of thoughtful, often pained, criticisms by others against their own countries.
This difference seems very telling to me.
Greek masacre by the Macedonian’s children and women after the World War 2
Where is Genocide of Macedonians refuges from Civil War in 1948 in Greece when was killed 60000 Macedonians citizens ?
I woulda included the massacre at Canudos. It’s certainly significantly lesser known than a couple of the massacres on this list and it’s estimated that anywhere from 15 thousand to 30 thousand people died.
Just so’s we don’t lose sight of the fact that our worlds glorious saviour of democracy and freedom,i.e the Americans are unblemished,i have included this cowardly act during the Vietnam War.On March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam war, U.S. soldiers of Charlie Company massacred 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children and old men, in the village of My Lai (sometimes called Mai Lai) about 15 kms north of Quang Ngai.( And they fell into the dark,and the dark laughed and opened wide his arms and welcomed them )anon
And Greek masacre in Macedonia 1912/1913, and masacre in 1948 against Macedonians?
kiwiflyboy, (146).
“On March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam war, U.S. soldiers of Charlie Company massacred 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women, children and old men, in the village of My Lai (sometimes called Mai Lai) about 15 kms north of Quang Ngai.”
See my 142.
Further.
It is unlikely that any participant nation in any major war is free of such acts by individuals, whether or not part of its war policy. Two questions to ask. Is it part of the sanctioned war conduct of that nation? In this case no. Was it dealt with as a breach of discipline and crime by the nation concernmed. In this case yes.
Tell me for how many of these or other massacres you are able to supply those two answers.
How many of the nations involved in these massacres have themselves produced outraged books or films by their own nationals?
On my bookshelf I have a copy of ‘The Sinking of the Belgrano’. It is a fierce criticism by British journalists of an action by Britain during the Falklands war.
Would you care to cite me a few similar common examples at random from around the world: say Turkey, Japan, Serbia, to name but three. One criterion I insist on. Any such self-critics must be accepted and tolerated by their governments and populations at large.
Anon (148)
I’m sorry Anon I don’t quite get your point. Are you saying that because Lt Calley was tried and convicted by The US Army that My Lai is not/ should not be classified as a Massacre?
If so that is a very weird way of thinking.
Cheers
Lee
k1w1taxi, (149),
“U.S. soldiers of Charlie Company massacred 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians”
Note the word MASSACRED.
” … such acts by individuals”
Note the word ACTS, which I would have thought unambiguously refers to *massacred* and in no way denies it. Or is my syntax that confusing? I hardly know how I could have made it clearer.
Of course I bloody well consider it a bloody massacre. What the ***** else, a Teddy Bear’s Picnic? You clearly either have not read and therefore have little or no idea of my ethics in these topics, which I trust are consistent enough, or you consider me a hypocrite. I don’t excuse any actions where there is NO room for reasonable doubt, including by my own country and compatriots.
And that is exactly the point, and the only point I happen to be making. That Americans have admitted the crime in their own name and punished Calley. On the other hand there is a Turkish subject above saying that massacres amounting to subgenocide on a massive and nationally approved scale either never happened or were insignificant. That also happens to reflect the subject’s government’s posture. I cite a Turk and Turkey simply as a named example. The world is full of equivalents. I’ll offer you something yet more obscene, if you like. To feed it’s hatred of Israel the Iranian government has denied that the Holocaust existed (may still do for all I know).
Now I consider these total contrasts of attitude to be significant. Do you?
I live in Chile. Only outsiders that watch too much american television think poorly of Allende. The economic reforms Pinochet took credit for were already beginning to benefit the nation when Allende was still in power.
Don’t talk about Chilean history and call Allende a failure when it is obvious you’ve never seen the inside of the country and the land he was and still is a hero in. The people here actually lived what you think you know about, and I’ve never met anyone who has been against Allende or for Pinochet, never met anyone who doesn’t know that Chile was advancing even before the fascists took power and murdered the people who were democraticaly elected.
Fascists aided and supported by the U.S. government, of course. Like most political crimes and such in the past 20 years.
Mr Graves, (151),
I live in Chile and am married to a Chilean. I don’t want to re-iterate here what I have already posted in great detail elsewhere. Please be kind enough to check my more recent relevant comments under the ’10 Books that Screwed up the World’ topic. There you will find an opinion of Allende from myself (and my wife) which is diametrically opposed to yours, and which is backed by personal experience and our own perceptions. To intrigue you, my wife’s father was a copper miner who started out as a fervent local political communist leader of the UP when it was elected (he even wondered whether he ought to give up his catholicism!). The fall into disillusion was that great.
In fact the outside world doesn’t consider Allende a failure. It always has cited him as a saint and martyr. Politically Chile is all black and white, not grey, to those who haven’t lived here. Margaret Thatcher scratched Pinochet’s back because of their mutual self-interested action against the omnipresent territorial menace of Argentina. That is as understandable in its way as Finland allying with the Nazis against the menace of Russia.
Don’t make the error of assuming we are Pinochet apologists. He was a brutal, vicious murderer: (for all their faults against people, the UP and Allende were not killers). On top of that, a man who claims in power to know when even a leaf falls anywhere in Chile, but afterwards beams like a nice, confused old grandfather and says he didn’t know what was going on, is not fit to float with scum on a cesspit. The filthy coward let his subordinates take the full rap.
But. I do consider both Allende and Pinochet to have been 100% sincere in their ways, and as believing themselves to be acting for their extreme concepts of Chile. The problem in both cases is that word *extreme*.
You must have a very narrow circle of friends indeed. Ours includes a sprinkling of pinochetistas and communists, although the vast majority share our *plague on both your houses* attitude. Even Anita’s immediate family is still widely divided, although subliminally rather than fanatically. The present support for direct Allende-type policies is about 3% of the population. The promulgation by TVN of Salvador Allende as one of the greatest 10 Chileans has created a national furore.
I’d also be interested in your reaction to my reasons for supposing U.S. support for Pinochet was nowhere near as strong and unconditional as you state.
I am amazed to find what we would regard as such a one-sided and simplistic viewpoint from someone who is actually resident in Chile. Did you live here throughout these events?
What papers do you read?
Mr Graves. How I should love to hear a Turk expressing himself about his country’s massacre of the Armenians as you do so uninhibitedly about your country. And so on.
Hey Anon,don’t get your tits in a tangle because others are just expressing their thoughts,perhaps it might be of interest to you to find out that cowardly Calley only served 3 YEARS of his sentence,that almost suggests that the good ol US of A ,war office, sanctions this type of MASSACRE !!!!
Well speaking of lesser known massacares, or genocides for that matter I think the liberation war of 1971 deserves a place here. The Paki army committed numerous crimes against Bengali civilians in that war after Bangladesh declared their independence. I don’t know why this particular war always gets overlooked when the death toll was supposedly 3 million( that’s half the Jews who were killed by the Nazis). I got to know about the details and it really was a heinous affair.
There were some massacares here which are already well known and well publicised one would have to say. The writer did a good job but could’ve done better by including genocides which still remain in the dark of today’s information aware people. I would strongly recommend including the Liberation war of 1971 in lists like this.
Ro, (154),
Quite agree. I’ve already noted there is nothing for the main body of Africa, where appalling massacres have taken place and almost certainly are taking place. Perhaps there should be another list called ‘Unknown Massacres’.
Kiwiflyboy,
I would say you were quite definitely challenging me rather than simply expressing random thoughts, two quite different kettles of fish. Therefore I was legitimately untwisting my tits wot you had twisted. O.K. admittedly you did phrase it as a question. But you also implied strongly I might not have considered it a massacre. Do that and sorry, I’m gonna react, buddy. I wouldn’t put that to anyone unless they had made an unambiguous statement to the effect, like our Turlish friend above.
Well, I’m not going to defend letting Calley out. Again, I should say that happens just about everywhere too, not just in the U.S. However, I haven’t made a study of Calley, so don’t know and can’t say on what grounds he was freed. You obviously have and can. What I will say without fear or favour is that in too many countries the Calleys not only get away with it, they get promoted and get a medal for that sort of action. Deny that if you will, or make of it what you will. I’m a realist and a cynic, so I regard any kind of progress as better than none at all. Otherwise Germany, which acknowledges and deeply regrets with shame it’s war record, is no different from Japan, which doesn’t.
Correction: Turkish friend
Anon.
Thank You for your reply. I can only plead a Spoon moment due to an excess of oven cleaner fumes prepping for a flat inspection.
Cheers
Lee
k1w1taxi,
You’re welcome.
I know, it happens all the time in the best of circles. Don’t get addicted though. They say ther’s no cure for oven cleaner, you go roast turkey. (Sorry couldn’t resist that.)
Cheers
The Word:
“Randall, macedonians were never greeks and they will never be! But let’s leave that arguement aside.”
Good idea, “the word,” because you’d lose that one hands down.
omg randall,
ppl like you make the base of every massacre and genocide or holocaust or call it what you like. Those kind of things happen cuz some1 like YOU thinks he can tell OTHERS that they are something they are NOT. PERIOD! your fact (which is more of a pure fiction) is something we Macedonians have seen a lot. Uneducated *****s tampering OUR (Macedonian) history. OUR language which we kindly gave to others (Serbians, Bulgarians and many others in Europe). and OUR holy Macedonian orthodox church. People like YOU will always try to “persuade” other ppl to change their feelings with force. you are lost in this conversation cuz you are taking the wrong side. go support some other genocide and leave US Macedonians alone.
how can YOU in the name of god, tell ME what i am?
why do you think you have the right to do it?
every single 3year old child on this planet knows that Macedonians aren’t Greeks.
Whoa!!
Just typed out a reply to Ljupco and got an error message. Did a page refresh and got a whole new format. Nice Look but what a surprise.
Anyway, Ljupco. I doubt that a single 3 year old outside Macedonia knows about, or cares about, the Macedonians and their relationship with the Greeks.
If you were just trying to use stupid excessive hyperbole to make a point then all you really succeed in doing is to undermine any possible legitimacy in your argument.
It is EXACTLY the sort of statement that will ensure Randall chews you up and spits you out.
Cheers
Lee
160 Ljupco
You have a point, but raised it in a poor fashion, Randall is an arrogant bully and will have a field day with your comments.
152 155 Anon
I agree, there were whole shades of grey in what Pinochet did with Chile. Codelco and others prospered and raised the living standards of the general populace. As you correctly point out though, he was a murdering turd.
There have been many massacres in Africa that never received the historical reporting that they deserve. The disgraceful behavior of the Italians in Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia bear far more telling, the early uses of aerial bombardment of civilians was appalling in the extreme.
SK,
Having delivered you verdict on Randall, which would surely find some degree or other of accord, I wonder if you’d consider a rider or corollary? One that might be supported by at least some of those who agreed with you as well as by others. It certainly is by myself.
I.e. that some past and present in LV have not only asked for what they get from Randall, but probably deserve more.
A point about nationality:
If a full-blooded Mapuche from the south of Chile were to insist he and his race have always belonged to their own nation and are not Chileans, I could not and should not argue with him. A significant enough number do take that position. Argument will not win hearts and minds in such cases. I might point out that rightly or wrongly his government (which he would not accept as his) considers him Chilean, so does a vast majority of other Chileans, even of his own ethnic people (traitors!). He is counted as Chilean in national census figures and in numerous other stats. The world at large considers him a Chilean. But if he rejects all that and doesn’t feel himself to be Chilean?
Thank you for your short but informed comment on Chile.
If I may add a bit more to your outline:
Without building up the economy, and relying blindly on the basis of the copper market (which collapsed), Allende diffused and lost national reserves on massive social reform before creating a stable financial base.
Pinochet learned from the historical nitrate and copper crises and built a broad and varied base into the Chilean economy, a strategy that is sensibly adopted to this day. His policy led to economic recovery and a stable standard of living for all.
Allende blanket reforms dismantled Chilean agriculture and to a significant extent handed it over to people who were incapable of managing it (and at worst only wished to exploit it sahort-term): equivalent to expecting an air hostess to fly an aircraft, or a nurse to perform an operation.
Under Pinochet agriculture was developed as one of the supporting pillars of the economy.
Whatever his personal intention, Allende’s regime set class against class and destroyed the fragile social fabric of Chile.
Pinochet maintained that division, but evolved it more into a direct political struggle, incorporating monstrous brutality. However, his ruthless grip ensured there was little social upheaval.
It’s so easy to see how Pinochet, the rigid military mind, followed his training to fight an enemy relentlessly until it is totally defeated. He had no concept of the political and religious subtelties of the necessity to avoid creating martyrs at all costs. Also that the best way in politics is to demonstrate how your opponent has created his own mess and dropped in it. Pinochet’s crassest stupidity was to believe you can kill an idea by killing its proponents. That never has, never will and never could work. Where Marx’s predictions are failing is not through war, but because they are rejected as unworkable and unwanted.
My late ex-communist father-in-law stated that had he merely confined himself to the economy and maintaining order with minimum force, Pinochet would have been one of Chile’s greatest national heroes, and would surely have been elected democratically in any plebiscite. Of course, he would always have attracted critics for de-throning democracy, but probably his approbation would have stood a lot nearer Tito’s than Franco’s.
Allende worship is perhaps as much based on Pinochet hatred as evaluation of Allende himself. What if he had lived to take personal responsibility, a question often asked of Kennedy?
These are, of course, no more than my own *****yses and personal opinions, even where shared by others, but I believe they stand up against the events in question.
Forgot the final parallel ironies.
Allende banked on decisive Soviet support which never came.
Pinochet banked on ad inf. *western* support for his brutality on the basis of the communist threat. The communist threat fell through and the support evaporated
130: Dine
So what if they were allied with Israel? The US was allied with the Communists, that doesn’t mean that we are responsible for the Great Purges. Sometimes you have to work with the lesser evil, and as bad as Sabra and Shatilla were, things like that were not too uncommon.
for Igor (comment #127)
I’m from Thessaloniki and I can assure you that this city has always been Greek regardless of the various minorities and occupiers that have passed through.
Macedonia itself located in northern Greece.
Anon:
Thank you for the support…
I am, unfortunately, deeply engaged in business here at the university and will be, probably, for several days at least–remember, it’s the start of the Fall semester. So I’m up to my eyes in it.
Randall,
Pleasure.
If necessary I’ll try to hold any fort of mutual interest to us that needs my stumbling aid until you return (refreshed?) into the breach once more. Or until the eyes no longer have it.
Here is what Oric (commander of the Muslim forces within Srebrenica) did to Serb civilians prior to 1995 which provoked the Srebrenica massacre:
http://www.serbianna.com/features/srebrenica/
The amount of Serb civilians killed by Oric number around 3,500.
In contrast, the majority of those killed by RSV were prisoners of war and 1,000 of the 8,000 died before the massacre (but they‘re name were added to bolster the number of massacred for propaganda purposes.)
Deucaon, I really don’t think that SerbiAnna is a totally reliable source.
nope, not disturbed…
Naser Oric , commander from Srebrenica was on HAG and he is
free of many accusation. He is Bosnia. He never hide , and
he stand up for truth.
On HAG relevant number is 180 serbs civils.
In HAG massacre is Srebrenica is valuated as GENOCIDE on
Bosniacs peoples.
@jogiff
Documented evidence (videos and pictures) doesn’t lie regardless of which website it is hosted on.
@Dine
The Hague tribunal is a sham. Especially after all Serb politicians/officers there are convicted for being apart of a “Join Criminal Enterprise” (i.e. command responsibility) when the same rule doesn’t apply to Croat, Muslim or Albanian commanders/politicians despite there being videos of them giving orders to commit crimes (and a video of Oric bragging to a reporter about how he slaughtered 100 Serb civilians in a single raid.) Now unless you admit that the killing of 3,500 Serb civilians before 1995 constitutes a “genocide” then you are a bloody hypocrite. And the term “Bosniak” is an Austrian propaganda term used to legitimise the presence of Turkish colonizers on the Serb nation of Bosnia.
“The Word:
“Randall, macedonians were never greeks and they will never be! But let’s leave that arguement aside.”
Good idea, “the word,” because you’d lose that one hands down.”
Randall, keep on thinking like that!
Since the greeks themselfs said that the Mecedonians were barbarians, it’s obvious that they can not be greeks! The original meaning of barbarian is “one who does not speak greek” or in the modern equvavilent “one who just says bla bla bla”. This is a fact, and all of the killings that the greeks did in 1912 and 1948 are also a fact. Greeks should be grateful that the ancint macedonians dicided to spread the greek language (but not the culture) around the known world and put this silly argument aside. But have in mind that back then greek was like english today.
I would have thought that 1, 3 and 6 were fairly well-known about. My mistake….
“The word”
Do you actually believe any of this?
“..ince the greeks themselfs said that the Mecedonians were barbarians, it’s obvious that they can not be greeks!..”
Actually, Alexander the Great also used this phrase. Therefore, you seem to be a little misinformed.
This so called “Macedonia nation” that you are talking about, along with the alleged massacres is fiction. Please pursue this matter further (only) at unclyclopedia.org ( http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page ).
ligeia, (175),
“I would have thought that 1, 3 and 6 were fairly well-known about. My mistake….”
To that I would add 4.
Tele….
Keep on ignoring 3 milion people and you will see what will happen!
) Very soon Greece will have to return the properties (or pay huge amounts of money) of those “fictional” people (as you say) who were chased out by the greek soldiers when this “fictional” masacre happened. Or you will say then that that thing never happened! 
)
Answer to Deucaon
I am Bosniac and I am not Turk or Serbs.All time of war I was here in Bosnia. Former Yugoslavia are founded from 6 – republics. Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegowina,Monte Negro and two autonomus area Kosovo and Vojvodina. This bloody war is Serbs politicals attend to take they imagine teritory that accommodating mostly all republics except Slovenia by Yugoslav Army. This army spend all arms to destroy cities like Vukovae, Dubrovnik , Sarajevo , Srebrenica, Tesanj, Mostar etc….
Around Srebrenica Serbs army had about 200 tanks , and many heavy artillery, etc..
Oric and his solders are armed just with guns that they take from Serbs soldiers in combat. In Hag are presented all clues but nowhere any clues about massacres on Serbs civilians. If you have please , put they names on internet.
For all bosniac victims UN expert take DNA *****isys and they have name.
In the name of victims – Sunday bloody sundey.
the word:
In fact, the ancient Greeks did NOT view the Macedonians as barbarians–for one thing, because the ancient Macedonians DID speak Greek. But the Greeks recognized the Macedonians as less respectable cousins of theirs, poorer relations which they looked down upon the way we slick New Yorkers look down upon people from Arkansas or Tennessee. I don’t say this was fair, but it’s how the Greeks saw the Macedonians.
Remember, “the word,” MODERN Macedonian (the language) has nothing to do with ancient Macedonian. Modern Macedonian is a Slavic language, most closely related to Bulgarian, I think. It doesn’t enter into the area that is Macedonia until the 6th century AD.
But Macedonians themselves, the people who have been there all along, were and are, ethnically, far more closely Greek than Slavic.
What Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander spread around the ancient world was GREEK language and GREEK culture because they themselves, as ancient Macedonians, were close cousins of the Greeks.
But enough of this quibbling. Here’s a recommendation from a so-called “ignorant” American. Why don’t you freaking clowns in the Balkans STOP with this ***** of massacring and hating and oppressing each other and instead of acting like violent children, settle down and LIVE with each other? Hmmmm? Howzabout that for an idea?
We’ll all WESTERNERS, pal. We are all, in that sense, cousins and brothers and sisters and so forth. I have never understood freaking Europeans and their unending need to divide themselves into smaller and smaller nationalities whose sole purpose, it seems, is to hate each other. Get off it and grow up. Nationalism leads to barbarism, not civilization. Stop thinking of yourself as a goddamned Macedonian or Slav or whatever the ***** you think you are, and think of yourself as a EUROPEAN and a WESTERNER. Then join the rest of us in shopping at the Gap and sipping a latte at Starbucks.
Sheesh.