Genocidal Horrors Around the World

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 9, 1999 | by Stephen Goode

In the June 1999 issue of The Progressive Review, editor Sam Smith quoted from The Historical Atlas of the 20th Century and from information provided by the Transnational Foundation to give a perspective on recent genocide, where it has happened and is happening and to what extent:

Sudan, where 1.5 million-plus are dead; Rwanda, where estimates range from 500,000 to 800,000; East Timor, at least 100,000; Sri Lanka, 54,000; Tajikistan, 30,000 to 50,000; Algeria, 70,000 to 80,000; Liberia, 200,000; Chechnya, 80,000; Ethiopia-Eritrea, 10,000 in recent weeks; Iraq, 1 million; and Kosovo, 2,000 prior to the NATO bombing attacks.

Smith also quotes from Gordon Williamson's The SS to show that the Albanians had an earlier ally in their struggles against the Serbs -- the Nazis: "In April of 1944 [Heinrich] Himmler established a new Albanian volunteer division, named after the great Albanian Muslim hero Iskander Beg. The division ... drew a great number of recruits from the former Yugoslav area of Kosovo, which had been annexed by Italian-controlled Albania in 1941. The bulk of the Muslim personnel seemed only interested in settling accounts with their Serb enemies, which resulted in a number of atrocities."