Through her research, Burt comes to three main conclusions. First, by connecting the Genocide trial to the overall transitional justice processes in Guatemala, it is evident that the current setbacks Guatemala is experiencing are not unexpected and should be considered as backlash to the initial transitional justice success. Second, the genocide trial demonstrates a “victim-centered” approach to prosecuting human rights cases and shows how victims of sexual violence were incorporated by prosecutors to help prove that there was a genocide in Guatemala. Lastly, the Guatemalan Genocide case is historically and politically significant for the survivors and Guatemala as a whole despite the fact that the verdict was…
Annotated Bibliography Oglesby, Elizabeth. " Guatemalan Genocide." Modern Genocide: Understanding Causes and Consequences, ABC-CLIO, 2016, moderngenocide.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1764507. Accessed 11 Sept. 2016. Elizabeth Oglesby suggests that the Guatemalan Civil War led directly to the Guatemalan genocide.…
Throughout history, many racial groups have experienced oppression and injustices. Guatemala oppression towards its own indigenous population was one of them. The indigenous communities have suffered inequalities from their own government and from Ladinos. Indigenous people were like slaves to landowners and experienced a lot of injustice in the fincas. In the testimonio of I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala Elisabeth Burgos-Debray narrates Rigoberta’s struggles and oppression that many Guatemalan Indian communities have experienced.…
The question I have wanted answered since reading earlier in the year. Why does genocide occur? What conditions cause or allow it? Through watching “Watchers of the Sky”, I was able to learn many new significant things about genocide…
Many countries around the world have experienced turmoil and hardships. Whether it be terrorism, disease, or government. Cambodia and Europe experienced what is called a “genocide.” Many of their people were killed and tortured for religion, way of life, and/or ethnicity. Although the Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide bear pronounced similarities, the differences are just as striking.…
Humans, as a species, have an insatiable desire for equality. All throughout history, there are cases where people are killing their brothers and sisters just to ensure that they themselves are the ideal human model. These killings often remain hidden from those who are not present in the country where the horrible mass murders are taking place, unless it is brought to the public’s attention. The Cambodian genocide is no exception to this phenomenon. In 1975, a group called the Khmer Rouge took over the Cambodian government with the intent of creating a communist utopia (“The Cambodian Genocide”).…
After reading the Night and hearing about other stories related to genocides it is important to think about ways on how to prevent genocides in the future. Although there is not elusive way to intervene in order to stop a genocide once, it is in the extermination stage there are ways to teach citizens, religious entities and political forces how to be alert and recognize the important predictive factors that can lead a country to a genocide. Knowing how to recognize the main predictive factors allow civilians, police force, religious entities, and political forces to become active during the early stages of a genocide by working collectively on prevention strategies. It is imperative to maintain a level of attentiveness to what is happening in our…
"First you lose yourself, then you lose your dreams." Sometimes, the world worries about problems only as they arise: procrastination of the fight for world peace. By the time things happen; though, it is almost always too late to fix it. One of these problems is genocide. People can take "preventative measures" all they want, but until humanity begins paying attention to little things that happen, no problem can be solved.…
Many countries in the world face issues and factors that threaten the wellbeing of its citizens, and the country itself. Guatemala is one of these countries that seems to consistently face these threats and issues. Guatemala is a low to middle income country located in Latin America. Its inhabitants have faced and dealt with a myriad of diseases, poor political figures, economic crises, and a 36 year long civil war. Guatemalans battle with issues surrounding alcoholism, lack of education, specifically sexual education, extreme malnutrition and stunting, rape, HIV/AIDs, extreme poverty, ethnic divides and poor sanitation.…
Genocide in Human History Compared to Unwound Genocide is the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Genocide has been a prominent part of human history and changed the course of the world multiple times, creating wars and tearing down governments that had been corrupt. Usually occurring in places where people need a sense of leadership or change, the first recorded genocide was the annihilation of the inhabitants of an island called Melos which was attacked by the Athenian army in 416 BCE. Moreover, in the 20th century alone there were seventeen different genocides that were conducted by various groups and power players. ADD MORE ABOUT THE FIRST GENOCIDE…
Guatemala, which is formally named the Republic of Guatemala, is a country that lies in Central America and is bordered by Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, Belize, the Caribbean, Honduras, and El Salvador. The meaning of the name Guatemala being “land of trees,” fits perfectly seeing that the country is heavily forested and mountainous. The country of Guatemala assumes an area of 108,889 km² (42,042 sqmi) and has an estimated population of 12,701,000, which is the most populous in Central America. The languages most prevalent in Guatemala include Spanish and Amerindian languages, along with the religions including Roman Catholic, Protestant, and indigenous Mayan beliefs. The types of currency used are the Quetzal, the U.S. dollar, and others are allowed, but the GDP per capita remains U.S. $3,900.…
INTRODUCTION Cambodia, which has fewer people but larger land used to be peaceful and nonaligned. But the genocide occurred by surprise, “The dead are crying out for justice. Their voices must be heard. It is the responsibility of the survivors to speak out for those who are unable to speak, in order that the genocide and holocaust will never happen again in this world” (Pran 10). The terror shrouded the country and silently influences people’s life.…
The Cambodian Genocide The Cambodian genocide lasted from 1975-1979 and killed “approximately 1.7 million people” (Kiernan). The Cambodian genocide was run by the “Khmer Rouge regime headed by Pol Pot combined extremist ideology with ethnic animosity and a diabolical disregard for human life to produce repression, misery, and murder on a massive scale“ (Kiernan). The Khmer Rouge’s goal during this genocide was to fix society by limiting religions and races. During the genocide “Certain minority groups were singled out for persecution and even extermination” (ABC-CLIO).…
War often carries enormous human costs, but we recognize that the imperative of stopping or preventing genocide or other systematic slaughter can sometimes justify the use of military force. For that reason, Human Rights Watch has on rare occasion advocated humanitarian intervention—for example, to stop ongoing genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia. Understood as a humanitarian intervention, our purpose is not to say whether the U.S.-led coalition should have gone to war for other reasons. That, as noted, involves judgments beyond our mandate.…
There are two genocides in particular that share these characteristics: The Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust. Data produced from this study of these two genocides will be used to show that genocide cannot exist without…