Guatemala – An American Genocide – September 1999

Published on May 16, 2012

Beneath the lush green hills of Guatemala lie one hundred thousand corpses, the victims of a genocide funded by the US Government.
Around a newly discovered mass grave crowd the weeping relatives of Guatemala’s lost generation of Mayan Indians. 20 years ago these Mayan men, women and children were condemned as communist guerrillas and massacred. Until now these killings have been blamed on insurgents and vigilantes. But the army-issue bullets being extracted from these skulls by US forensic archaeologists tell a different story. The 400 newly discovered massacre sites are the handiwork of the Guatemalan Army, but they did not act alone — the CIA told them how to do it.
Fearful of Red-spread right on America’s doorstep the Reagan administration armed and trained Guatemala’s army to stamp-out the communist threat. Veterans of the Reagan administration make no apology for their political agenda. “It seemed clear to us that if you had a Nicaragua in Guatemala, what you’ve got is… a Soviet style government with secret police agents on the border of Mexico”, explains Eliot Abrahms, the then Assistant Secretary of State. Anything was justified to contain the threat, including as is now revealed, turning a blind eye to genocide.
Recently released CIA manuals issued to the army explain how to murder people, they even explain how to enter a room with ten people sitting round a table and murder them one by one. These instructions were used against not only guerrillas but countless Indian civilians with Washington’s full knowledge. “The well-documented belief that all Ixil Indians are pro-guerrilla has created a situation in which the army can be expected to give no quarter to combatants and non-combatants alike,” details one wire from Guatemala to Washington. After analysing the documents released by the CIA on Clinton’s orders Kate Doyle is clear that the US are responsible for the horrors perpetrated by Guatemala’s army. “The United States created the killing machine that went on to murder and torture hundreds of thousands of people.” At a time when Pinochet, Chile’s notorious dictator, faces the courts for atrocities, Guatemala is still living with theirs. Over the years 45,000 Guatemalans, guerrillas but also students and professors, priests and social workers – have simply disappeared. Last March, President Clinton apologised for America’s support for repressive regimes. But for the relatives of the victims who are presented every day with the gruesome consequences of their country’s past, a mere acknowledgement of responsibility is not enough.
ABC Australia

Genocide: Worse Than War | Full-length documentary | PBS

Uploaded on Jun 4, 2010

This film is also available at http://to.pbs.org/hMZzq0 Watch Daniel Goldhagen’s ground-breaking documentary focused on the worldwide phenomenon of genocide, which premiered on PBS on April 14, 2010. To see this and other full-length PBS videos go to http://video.pbs.org. Please support your local PBS station at http://www.pbs.org/support

“By the most fundamental measure — the number of people killed — the perpetrators of mass murder since the beginning of the twentieth century have taken the lives of more people than have died in military conflict. So genocide is worse than war,” reiterates Goldhagen. “This is a little-known fact that should be a central focus of international politics, because once you know it, the world, international politics, and what we need to do all begin to look substantially different from how they are typically conceived.”

WORSE THAN WAR documents Goldhagen¹s travels, teachings, and interviews in nine countries around the world, bringing viewers on an unprecedented journey of insight and analysis. In a film that is highly cinematic and evocative throughout, he speaks with victims, perpetrators, witnesses, politicians, diplomats, historians, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists, all with the purpose of explaining and understanding the critical features of genocide and how to finally stop it.

Rwandan Genocide – Rwanda

Uploaded on Jan 16, 2008

June 2004
Special Assignment takes a look at the genocide in Rwanda and where those who were responsible are now.

UNREPENTANT – CANADA’S GENOCIDE (documentary)

INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. (excerpt) “…This documentary reveals Canada’s darkest secret – the deliberate extermination of indigenous (Native American) peoples and the theft of their land under the guise of religion. This never before told history as seen through the eyes of this former minister (Kevin Annett) who blew the whistle on his own church, after he learned of thousands of murders in its Indian Residential Schools…”

The Armenian Genocide

Uploaded on Jun 29, 2011

The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանություն) refers to the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was implemented through wholesale massacres and deportations, with the deportations consisting of forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees. The total number of resulting Armenian deaths is generally held to have been between one and one and a half million. Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Greeks, and some scholars consider those events to be part of the same policy of extermination.

It is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, as scholars point to the systematic, organized manner in which the killings were carried out to eliminate the Armenians, and it is the second most-studied case of genocide after the Holocaust. The word genocide was coined in order to describe these events.

The starting date of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace. The majority of Armenian diaspora communities were founded as a result of the Armenian genocide.

The Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, denies the word genocide is an accurate description of the events (see Denial of the Armenian Genocide). In recent years, it has faced repeated calls to accept the events as genocide. To date, twenty countries have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept this view.
(wikipedia)

orginal: vimeo.com/4289718

Children of Genocide – Cambodia

Uploaded on Aug 6, 2007

April 1995
Cambodia is a still deeply scarred by Pol Pot’s holocaust.

More than a million people may have died during his reign. The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were at the heart of the circumstances which brought the USA into the Vietnam War – one of the cruellest of the Cold War disputes. This feature paints a picture of a people still struggling to forget the devastation of Pot’s own special brand of social reform. Mental illness is rife and neighbour still fears neighbour.

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

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