Buscador avanzado

American forces bombed Communist positions to clear a road east of Skoun, Cambodia, in November 1970. Bettmann/Getty Images

Forty years after the American military attacked them, the people of Tropeang Phlong village in Cambodia were still traumatized.

Beginning around 1969, U.S. helicopters regularly strafed the village, according to survivors. The American choppers used the wind off their blades to blow the thatch roofs off homes, turned their machine guns on those who fled and on men and women working in the rice paddies and fired incendiary rockets that set houses ablaze. Aircraft dropped bombs and gleaming napalm canisters that tumbled end over end and bloomed into fiery explosions.

“My nephew was killed — his stomach was blown out — and my older brother was wounded by an airstrike”, Oun Hean, the village chief, told me when I visited in 2010.…  Seguir leyendo »

¿Putin y Trump en el banquillo de los acusados?

La acusación del gran jurado de Nueva York contra el expresidente norteamericano Donald Trump, por delitos vinculados al pago de dinero a la actriz de cine porno Stormy Daniels a cambio de su silencio, se produce después de la orden de arresto emitida, hace dos semanas, por la Corte Penal Internacional contra el presidente ruso, Vladimir Putin, por el crimen de guerra de deportar niños desde Ucrania. Estos casos resaltan la creciente, y potencialmente peligrosa, injerencia del derecho en la política -doméstica e internacional.

Ambos acontecimientos son revolucionarios. La acusación de Trump es la primera que se emite contra un presidente en funciones, o un expresidente, en la historia de Estados Unidos.…  Seguir leyendo »

A U.S. flag is flown over a Native American tepee erected during a protest in Washington in 2017. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

On April 24, 2015, the centennial of the start of the Armenian genocide, Armenians in Colorado stood shoulder to shoulder with indigenous peoples of the Americas on the grounds of the Colorado state Capitol for the unveiling of a memorial recognizing the Armenian genocide. A representative of the Ute Nations, some of the indigenous peoples of what is now Colorado, offered words in recognition of the common experience of Armenians and indigenous peoples.

Last weekend, Colorado’s Armenian community gathered again at the state Capitol memorial, a replica of a medieval monument recently destroyed in an ongoing act of Armenian erasure. This month’s commemoration differed from previous years.…  Seguir leyendo »

Armenians take part in a torchlight procession in Yerevan on April 23 to mark the 106th anniversary of World War I-era mass killings. (Karen Minasyan/AFP) (Afp Contributor#afp/AFP/Getty Images)

On April 24, the Biden administration will formally recognize the Armenian genocide that took place a century ago. This will be the first U.S. administration to make this designation, and it’s not without controversy.

America has long struggled with the implications associated with this deeply polarizing issue — and the domestic and international complexities involved. But the U.S. acknowledgment of a genocide that began in 1915 reflects, fundamentally, an important shift in the 2021 relationship between the U.S. and Turkey.

What happened to the Armenians?

Between 1915 and 1922, up to a million Armenians in Anatolia were killed by Ottoman authorities.…  Seguir leyendo »

President Trump declared a national emergency last Thursday — but it wasn’t about the covid-19 pandemic or police brutality or nationwide protests. Rather, the subject of the emergency declaration was the International Criminal Court, the body investigating the United States for suspected war crimes in Afghanistan.

Trump announced that the ICC represents an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” The executive order pushes back by authorizing economic and diplomatic sanctions on ICC personnel working on the Afghanistan probe and anyone who helps them.

The Trump administration has consistently and directly opposed the ICC, in contrast to the more passive opposition or even ad hoc support from previous administrations.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protesters in El Paso, Texas, call for justice over the death of Jakelin Caal in US custody, December 2018. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters

A grainy cellphone image from a small indigenous Guatemalan village shows seven-year-old Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin, wearing a blue blouse and jeans and looking diffidently into the camera with her arms hanging at her sides. Not long after the photo was taken, she accompanied her father on the over 2,000-mile journey to try and reach the US. She died while in US border patrol custody after arriving at a New Mexico port of entry to claim asylum.

Traveling with a father, like Jakelin was, accounted for the main reasons small children were regularly separated under Barack Obama (the other reason being the mass incarceration program Operation Streamline), though Donald Trump outmatched his predecessor in sheer scale if not in practice.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Rohingya refugee boy stands barefooted with others waiting to receive food at Balukhali refugee camp in Bangladesh on January 18. (Manish Swarup/AP)

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but as the United States has retreated from international leadership in the past decade, several toxic global trends have gained momentum. Democracy is steadily retreating, according to Freedom House, whose annual study documents a decline for the 12th consecutive year. Famine is threatening more people than ever: Tens of millions are at risk of starvation in countries such as Yemen, South Sudan and Somalia.

Worst of all, it’s getting easier for regimes to commit — and get away with — crimes against humanity, including genocide. The tragedy of Syria, with its gassed children and bombed hospitals, is headed into its eighth year.…  Seguir leyendo »

Susan Meiselas/Magnum Photos. Soldiers searching bus passengers along the Northern Highway, El Salvador, 1980

Between errands and a family dinner one Sunday in October 2015, Professor Angelina Godoy hurried to her office at the University of Washington in Seattle to pick up a book for her teenage daughter. When she unlocked the door, it took her a moment to notice that her computer was gone. An external hard-drive had been taken, too. There was sensitive information on both of the stolen devices about a pending lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency, and a former, once-powerful Salvadoran colonel with ties to the US. In place of the computer on her desk was a hand-carved wooden cat about three inches long with its front paws extended and its back arched.…  Seguir leyendo »

Clara Jurado, en el centro de la imagen, protesta junto a otras madres de la Plaza de mayo frente a la Casa Rosada, sede de la presidencia argentina durante la década de los 80. Daniel Garcia/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

El día que el presidente Obama aterrice en Buenos Aires será la víspera de una de las fechas más traumáticas de nuestra historia. El 24 de marzo, Argentina conmemora el 40 aniversario del golpe de Estado que “desapareció” a miles de personas y causó un trauma profundo en la psique de la nación.

Hubo otras atrocidades, incluso peores, en América Latina en aquellos tiempos, como las que sucedieron durante las guerras civiles en Colombia o Guatemala. Los asesinatos en Argentina quizá fueron menos numerosos, pero se trató de una matanza masiva y premeditada.

La dictadura militar argentina organizó su genocidio en campos de exterminio, con métodos que recordaban los utilizados por los nazis (de hecho, muchos nazis encontraron asilo en Argentina después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y seguían viviendo ahí en esa época).…  Seguir leyendo »

Relatives of missing persons in Argentina demonstrating in 1977 in Buenos Aires. Credit Associated Press

When President Obama lands in Buenos Aires this week, he will be arriving on the eve of one of the most traumatic dates in our history. On March 24, Argentina commemorates the 40th anniversary of a military coup that “disappeared” thousands of people, a deep trauma in Argentina’s national psyche.

There were other, greater atrocities in South America in that era, like the ones that occurred during virtual civil wars in Colombia or Guatemala. The killings in Argentina may have been lesser in number, but this was premeditated mass murder.

Argentina’s military dictatorship organized its killings in death camps, with methods reminiscent of the Nazis’ (and many Nazis had, in fact, found asylum in Argentina after World War II and still lived there then).…  Seguir leyendo »

It's not often these days that Americans can feel proud of what Congress has done. It's even less common to see Republicans and Democrats working together for a meaningful and important purpose.

Rub your eyes and look again, because on Monday afternoon the United States House of Representatives did something that all Americans, and the entire world, should support: It unanimously approved a resolution pinning the label of "genocide" on the atrocities being committed by the Islamic State or ISIS and other groups targeting Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities.

The vote on Capitol Hill registered complete unanimity -- a stunning 393 to 0.…  Seguir leyendo »

Remember the Sand Creek Massacre

Many people think of the Civil War and America’s Indian wars as distinct subjects, one following the other. But those who study the Sand Creek Massacre know different.

On Nov. 29, 1864, as Union armies fought through Virginia and Georgia, Col. John Chivington led some 700 cavalry troops in an unprovoked attack on peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho villagers at Sand Creek in Colorado. They murdered nearly 200 women, children and older men.

Sand Creek was one of many assaults on American Indians during the war, from Patrick Edward Connor’s massacre of Shoshone villagers along the Idaho-Utah border at Bear River on Jan.…  Seguir leyendo »

As a boy growing up in China, I read in my high school history textbook about Shen Chong, a female student at Peking University who was raped by two American Marines on Christmas Eve of 1946. The official U.S. troops had been deployed to China in 1942 to help the country fight Japan and stayed on after 1945 to assist the Nationalist government, against the Communist guerrillas, in retaking territories once occupied by Japan.

Chong's rape prompted nationwide protests against American brutality and the American military presence in China and holds a prominent spot in Chinese history today.

Fast-forward to the tragic shooting of 16 Afghan civilians, allegedly by an American sergeant.…  Seguir leyendo »

Dick Cheney tiene miedo de que lo vayan a pinochetear.

No es invento mío, ni la noticia ni tampoco el vocablo tan extraño, aun más peregrino en inglés que en castellano. Al que se le ocurrió retorcer el nombre del exdictador chileno para convertirlo en verbo soez, fue nada menos que el coronel Lawrence Wilkerson, quien ejerciera de jefe de gabinete de Colin Powell, y utilizó esa palabra para sugerir que Cheney teme que, como Pinochet, lo pueden someter a un juicio en el extranjero por crímenes contra la humanidad.

En efecto, desde que Pinochet fue detenido en Londres en 1988, pasando el siguiente año y medio luchando contra su extradición a España para ser juzgado como responsable de torturas durante su régimen, desde que la Cámara de los Lores determinó que era válido procesar a un jefe de Estado por violaciones de derechos humanos en un país diferente de aquel donde los abusos habían sido cometidos, el espectro de esa decisión y aquel destino ha rondado a gobernantes y exmandatarios del mundo entero.…  Seguir leyendo »

I recently returned from a week in Iraq, where I trained an elite security force unit on human rights and the law of combat operations. Discussions regarding the responsibility of commanders for the acts of their forces migrated to the issue of the United Nations' International Criminal Court. One Iraqi officer asked me, "If the United States believes in accountability over impunity, why are you not a party to the International Criminal Court?" I did not have a satisfactory answer.

The answer for public consumption is that U.S. accession to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, is not an imminent issue because U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Jeremy Morlock, an American soldier who confessed to murdering three Afghan civilians in 2009 and 2010, was sentenced Wednesday to 24 years in prison by a military judge. Four more soldiers face murder charges, and an additional seven are being held for lesser crimes. Some say the actions of Morlock and other members of his so-called “kill team” stand as a moral indictment of the war effort, but they have it backward. The U.S. government recognizes wanton killing of civilians as a war crime and responds accordingly. Had Morlock been working for the jihadists, he would be hailed as a hero.…  Seguir leyendo »

Last week, after the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court charged six senior Kenyan officials with orchestrating widespread violence following the 2007 national elections, President Obama rightly called on all Kenya’s leaders to “cooperate fully” with the court.

Similarly, declaring that “there has to be accountability,” Obama called on Sudan to cooperate with the court after it accused President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan of genocide in Darfur in July.

To its credit, this U.S. administration has repeatedly affirmed the centrality of international justice to U.S. foreign policy. But many wonder at the apparent disconnect between American support for justice abroad and Obama’s determination to “look forward not backward” at home.…  Seguir leyendo »

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Kenya last week that it is a "great regret" that the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the international tribunal established in The Hague to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The Bush administration was vilified by the international community and by human rights groups for a perceived hostility toward the court during its first term, but U.S. reservations about the ICC predated President George W. Bush and are likely to continue under President Obama. Although the Obama administration will undoubtedly make greater efforts to engage with the court, the United States is unlikely to join the ICC anytime soon.…  Seguir leyendo »

Some we see; others remain invisible to us. Some have names and faces; others we do not know. They are the victims of genocide and mass atrocities, their numbers too staggering to count.

This month was the 60th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It has been 20 years since the United States became a party to the treaty. Despite six decades of efforts to prevent and halt systematic campaigns of massacres, forced displacements and mass rapes, such atrocities persist. Why are we still lacking the necessary institutions, policies and strategies?

It is not because the public doesn’t care.…  Seguir leyendo »

Emociones contradictorias me afligen. Como el poeta Catulo al contemplar los excesos de su ex novia, siento estima y odio al mismo tiempo. El objeto de mis sentimentos confusos -sin ningún toque erótico, claro está- es el juez Baltasar Garzón. Admiro su valentía. Aprecio su gran trabajo a la hora de perseguir a los terroristas, defender los derechos humanos e iniciar el proceso contra ese monstruo que fue Pinochet. Pero odio su exhibicionismo, su arrogancia y su falta de sentido común. Por un lado, me parece bien que su última iniciativa haya fracasado, y por otro, me parece un desastre.

Por supuesto, no nos hace falta recurrir a tribunales para saber la verdad de las masacres y atrocidades que se cometieron durante la Guerra Civil española, así como los abusos de la dictadura franquista.…  Seguir leyendo »