The Devil's Bastards

Unholy War Series 

(A Victim Of Boko Haram's Barbarism)

Nigeria has been the front line in an unholy war for the heart and soul of Africa. Along the battlefront the two major religions of Islam and Christianity endlessly spill blood in the name of a god that seems to have looked the other way. Villages are used as urban battlefields and the open wasteland of sub-Saharan Africa acts as no-man's land. Civilians who withstand the urge to join the militants that come and go are left helpless as governments struggle to maintain control. Mutilation, open massacres, and rolling gunfights become far too common as Africa's children watch their hope for a better life go up in smoke.

And for what? So that faith can bleed out entire countries? So that religion can gain a foothold while breaking the back of Africa?

Misleading The Faithful

Amongst this senseless violence is not surprising to find militant groups that use faith to entice their terrorists into endless war. Christian groups (such as the LRA in Uganda) loosely hide behind the cross as they enlist children to die like men for a cause not their own. Islamist groups pitch Sharia Law as a solution for Africa's ailments while creating a laundry list of new ones. In Nigeria the latest bastards to join the fight got their start back in 2002.

Boko Haram, which roughly translates to "Western education is forbidden", dragged out 14th century ideals and perverted ideals of what the Qur'an teaches to create a movement in northwest Nigeria. The overly legalistic approach to Islam that would define Boko Haram in Nigeria originated with the Islamic cleric Mohammad Yusuf. Through his attempts in the 1990's the movement in Nigeria was able to gain traction by 2002. It was packaged and preached to young Muslims as a way of fighting back against the West and the Christian dominated south in Nigeria. In it's packaging any verse in the Qur'an that preached tolerance appeared to be omitted while others were perverted to justify "jihad".

Of course no good "jihad" movement gains traction by first telling it's new followers to pick up a gun and prepare for paradise. Yusuf started out by telling his followers to mock and isolate Muslims in northern Nigeria if they dared to participate in anything Yusuf saw as helping the government. This was highlighted in Yusuf's preaching that Nigeria was illegitimately run since it refused to follow strict Islamic laws (ultimately Sharia). In doing so, Yusuf would transition his message of withdrawing from Nigerian society and governmental programs to a message of Islam's supposed dominance to the secular state.

Sowing the seed of dissent, Yusuf hid behind religion as his message grew more openly sinister. "Withdraw" soon became "resist". And "resistance" soon became "violent resistance".  By the time Boko Haram had reached a reasonable following Yusuf was already preaching to his faithful a message of rebellion and terrorism. In 2009 those seeds sprang forth as Boko Haram's message came to fruition.

Killing In The Name Of...

In July of 2009 the Boko Haram followers pushed the envelop one step too far for Nigeria's police. What seemed like a petty offense (refusing to wear helmets on motorbikes) was the militants' way of antagonizing the state. It was far from the first stage of antagonism deployed by Yusuf's little anarchists. But it was the last stage before the peace broke down and open rebellion began.

When police began cracking down on Boko Haram militants the terror group let loose with all guns blazing. Like children throwing a fit, the foot soldiers of the Boko Haram movement unleashed hell in an attempt to gain attention. In this terror campaign over 800 Nigerian citizens would lose their lives to grotesquely senseless violence.

The military of Nigeria was called in so as to restore law and order. What had been a simple crime was now all out war. And as with all incidents where a corrupt government is given reason to flex it's muscles; the situation rapidly deteriorated. On one side the civilians trapped in the middle had militant thugs and on the other a military hellbent on showing who was in charge. Nobody would come out the winner here.

In the end Mohammad Yusuf would be executed publicly as the state attempted to show all of Nigeria who was in control of northwestern Nigeria. It was an act of capital punishment that would do anything but solve the problem. With one man's blood, Nigeria's government shattered any hopes of peace and radicalized a generation of Islamist. This had given a movement it's martyr.

Bastardized, Boko Haram was ready to exact it's pound of flesh. Nothing was sacred to the scorned movement. Suicide attacks began almost as soon as Yusuf was dispatched. Over the next five years this hellish movement would leave thousands of Nigerians dead as Boko Haram pursued Yusuf's dream of an Islamic state in Nigeria.

Pol Pot Style Genocide

The tactics deployed by Boko Haram became increasingly more perverse and barbaric as the members within the movement challenged each other for control. Students from colleges and grade schools became prime targets for the hedonistic leadership of Boko Haram. In September of 2013 terrorists from the movement attacked and killed 65 students at the agricultural college in Yobe state, Nigeria. These sorts of targeted massacres have also been accompanied by suicide attacks and bombings of schools across northern Nigeria.

This strategy of attacking schools follows the underlying ideal within the movement that "Western education is forbidden". In the beginning the movement would had called for it's members to simply withdraw and be completely unassociated with Nigeria's state schools. It would had encouraged it's followers to seek out Islamic schooling in place of secular education. This would had been a peaceful, if uneasy, way of pursuing a future in which northern Nigeria's youth were completely uneducated (in the modern sense). Yet today it is clear that this message has been completely perverted into one of violent destruction of all "Western" educational systems.

Today Boko Haram seeks to kill those who participate in Nigeria's state run school system. Muslims who dare to seek an education within the system are placed at a higher risk of being murdered due to Boko Haram's hardline teachings. It's devotion to a "pure Islamic" system of governance and education means that all Muslims and non-Muslims are meant to subject themselves to the Mosque rather than the state. There is no room for tolerance or freedom of choice.

Within this framework of what a Boko Haram style Nigeria would look like there is little left to the imagination as to why just this past week 43 students were gunned down. It is easy to see why Boko Haram burns schools and bombs others. It is built into the teachings of the Boko Haram movement that children who are educated by the state system are somehow polluted and a threat to the Islamic system of religious dominance. And thus why the children of Nigeria, all those who are enrolled in education, must pay in blood for Boko Haram's version of Nigeria to become a reality.

One Devil Verses The Other

Much of what Yusuf started when he created this movement was built out of capitalizing on social grievances many Muslims in Nigeria's north have felt for countless years. Yusuf simply had to pander to the existing dissidents while feeding others with a sense of having been wronged by the state. Mixing in extremist rhetoric allowed Yusuf to deepen the divide that was already growing within Nigerian society. 

The efforts made by Boko Haram to feed the anger within Nigeria's Muslim community were only further highlighted by Nigeria's government itself. Corruption within the court systems and military put increasing pressure upon all of Nigeria's population. But it was felt disproportionately in Nigeria's northern states as the government increasingly made it's Muslim population feel disenfranchised and marginalized by the state itself. 

All Boko Haram had to do was come along and give a name to the anger that was festering beneath the surface. Yusuf gave a cause behind which that anger could be harnessed. And in doing so, Yusuf created a beast that Nigeria has to this day been unable to tame. 

Crimes against humanity have become characteristic of the fight between Boko Haram and the government of Nigeria. Both parties have actively sought to demonize the other while persistently bleeding the innocent population of their security, their future, and in far too many cases... their lives. 

Nigeria's Joint Task Force (JTF) of military and police have over the years been seen as thugs themselves. The police in Nigeria have been accused of killing at will, often shooting first and asking questions later. Though many who remain sympathetic to the fight against terrorism globally see this as combating a violent jihadi organization, the tactics often galvanize support for Boko Haram rather than end the group's ability to fight. Meanwhile the civilians the police are meant to protect pay for the polices' brutality in loss of property and at times with blood. 

Yet Nigeria's government, as corrupt as it is, has no option but to find some method with which to end Boko Haram's barbarism. No modern state can be expected to tolerate having truck drivers beheaded with chainsaws on it's highways. The constant flow of blood and sustained anarchy must be ended if Nigeria expects to move forward in any manner of speaking. 

In the meantime the government of Nigeria faces a war with it's own citizenry. From this point it appears to be a war of scorched earth that pits one religion against the other. It appears to be a war that divides a nation along the lines of politics and faith. A war where one party wishes to drag a country back to the 14th century while the other wishes to exploit it's populace and push for a secular state. 

There doesn't seem to be a winner in Nigeria no matter how this battle ends. All there appears to be is a country split by religious fervor and perverse ideology. Leaving it's average citizen to scrape out a living amongst the bloodshed, corruption, and oppression of politics and faith alike. 

Just One Point Along The Front Line

This installment in this series is just the start of Alder's Ledge's look at the long battle front that stretches across Africa. As we hinted at in the start of this series, we believe this battle for the soul of Africa often is characterized as the fight between Islam and Christianity for religious dominance in regions of Africa. And in looking at this struggle between the two faiths we will look at places like Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, and Niger. All the while we will be attempting to remain fair in our depictions of the problems that arise from this issue. At no point are we taking sides or attacking either faith. We are simply attempting to bring attention to an issue that many overlook.









Source Documents
(not all listed)

PBS News Hour
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/boko-haram/

Aljazeera America
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/7/nigeria-boko-haramanalysis.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/03/schools-shut-prevent-boko-haram-attacks-20143615264765350.html

The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/10642979/Boko-Haram-kill-over-100-in-village-massacre.html

Amnesty.org
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR44/038/2009/en/f09b1c15-77b4-40aa-a608-b3b01bde0fc5/afr440382009en.pdf

Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/node/101018/section/2

Where Civil Blood Makes Civil Hands Unclean

Death Toll Rising In Guinea

Religion. Politics. Tribal Vengeance. Old Mutiny.

Any of these things can be blamed for the latest spat between the Guerze and Konianke peoples. More poetic writers might be more apt to exaggerating the events to make it sound more dramatic than it really was. Yet what happened Monday in Nzerekore, Guinea was far from poetic. It was barbarism, at best.

A simple spat over supposed theft was all it took to drag a city of nearly 300,000 people into the chaos of ethnic violence. The brutal beating and murder of a Konianke youth by Guerze gas station guards was a spark. It lit a fire in the city that took two days to exhaust as police presence on the streets began to resemble military might. Law enforcement, dressed in battle gear, rode out the violence since they could not quell it through brute force.

By Wednesday morning the streets in Nzerekore resembled a war zone. Around 80 people had been wounded, including a Guerze tribal chief, and at least 54 had been killed. According to a doctor that refused to identify himself there were many more who had been either burnt beyond recognition or hacked to pieces. Leaving the official death toll limited to those that could be readily identified through ID papers or by relatives and friends.

In addition to the sudden influx of wounded and dead in Nzerekore there had been cars and homes destroyed by arson attacks and vandalism. For many these very places had been the only safe refuge they had as the rival mobs had carried out rolling battles across the city.

So what lay at the root of this latest outbreak of ethnic violence in Guinea?

Politics and Old Mutiny

In recent years the West, and Americans in particular, have come to realize that diamonds and precious metals originating in West Africa are often products of war and genocide. The term "blood diamonds" was coined and led to countless books and even an award winning movie produced in Hollywood. But the reality of what these conflict minerals actually leave behind has eluded many in Western culture. We tend not to think of the crimes these materials help fund or how many lives they cost. We really only tend to think of how we can obtain said materials without the guilt of purchasing "blood diamonds" while still affording such luxuries.

For the citizens of Sierra Leone these diamonds helped directly fund the horrific crimes of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and the RUF/Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC). These barbarians mutilated civilians, massacred their victims, and forcibly conscripted children into their ranks to serve as child soldiers. One of their most prominent purchasers was the then acting president of Liberia, Charles Taylor.

It was this bankrolling of crimes against humanity that ended up having Charles Taylor becoming the first head of state to be formally charged with such crimes in an international court since Nuremberg. This was the first case in which a tyrannical savage (former state leader) was brought to justice in decades. And yet the legacy his time in power had left upon the region would not be so easily forgotten.

During Charles Taylor's run for presidency in Liberia a savage civil war broke out. What was supposed to be a civil election process had turned into a barbaric battle for total power over the country and it's resources. Charles Taylor only "won" the election by threatening to restart the war if he was not elected. Thus the savage took power under threat of more blood shed.

So what does this have to do with the ethnic violence in Guinea?

Every since Charles Taylor's insurgency against the setting president of Liberia in December of 1989 the war criminal has drawn upon support from the Guerze tribes, known as Kpelle in Liberia. Taylor exploited the animosity that the Guerze tribal leaders had instilled in their people against the "newcomers", the Konianke people. Using this tribal divide, Taylor was able to build upon the hatred that already existed and work the tribal groups into ready-to-fight militias. This was a tactic that Taylor would again utilize during the rebellion against him in 1999 (later called The Second Liberian Civil War).

In successive struggles to maintain power the war criminal would continue to feed the hatred and distrust that fomented between the Guerze and Konianke people. In 1999's rebellious days Taylor would tell his loyalist that the Mandingo (considered to be Liberia's Konianke community) were the cause for the countries problems. Scapegoating the Konianke, Taylor then added to the accusations that Guinea was behind the rebellion in his country.

This legacy of mistrust and political hatred for one another has been left behind by corrupt politicians like Charles Taylor. It is one of the reasons that such ethnic tensions become strained to the point of violence in Guinea (and the region for that matter) during times of political elections. Any spark during these times leaves the communities of these two tribes susceptible to ethnic violence.

It is a reality in Guinea that the government has become far to aware of. In May there were more than 50 people were killed in violence resulting from ethnic and political protest ahead of the expected electoral process in Guinea. These deaths, not related to the incident above, were results of clashes between the Peuhl tribe and Malinke tribe. Yet both cases of ethic violence are heralds of the upcoming elections across the country.

Religion and Tribal Vengeance

When you talk about the "holy war" between Christians and Muslims in Africa you most often end up in Nigeria. The bitter struggle for control over the religious aspect of African society has nearly drawn a line between the Northern half of sub-Saharan Africa and the Southern half. With Arabic influences in the north and black African Muslims spreading their faith southward the battle for souls has turned into a bloody stalemate. Animist and people of local religions have been the bait for the two hungry armies as they bite at the bit in deadly head-on charges against their opposing faith. Nigeria is just the apex of this struggle.

For Guinea the clash between Islam and Christendom has left the country in a constant state of potential war. Christians in Guinea to this day hold deep prejudices against Muslims they view as "new comers" or interlopers. While Muslims in Guinea continue to find themselves as pawns in political struggles in Guinea and the surrounding area. The religious fervor on both sides however leaves the two communities far to willing and ready to fight one another at the drop of a hat.

When looking at Guinea it may not seem fair to compare it to the hellish state of affairs that is Nigeria at the moment. But it is completely understandable that the rolling battles of Guinea are just a short distance away from the entrenched wars of Nigeria. If the religious aspect of the feuds between Guerze and Konianke peoples is not formally addressed by both government and religious leaders the situation the two communities face is quite possibly more similar to Rwanda than Nigeria.

This religious divide that for the moment seems to act as an impasse is only further exacerbated by the ethnic divide. With the Guerze people compiling around 40 percent of the population in Guinea they act as the ethnic majority. And nearly since the initial independence of Guinea from France the Guerze people have been the political backbone of the country. This changed however with the succession of coups and deaths of one corrupt politician after the other. In 1984 when Lansana Conte (a member of the Susu people) took power the Christian population of Guinea found themselves under a Muslim ruler. For the Guerze community leaders the divide on religion took the forefront of the disputes between their community and the Konianke every since.

In the coming election this divide between religion and politics has narrowed even more. With the Konianke people backing Alpha Conde and the Guerze people backing the opposition the religious views of Conde are at the forefront of the political struggle. The Konianke only comprise somewhere around 30 percent of the population, so it is clear as to why they would back Conde. After all, Alpha Conde is a Mulsim from their own ethnic group. So it is seen that he would assure their community some stability in this long standing war between the two religious parties involved.

For the Guerze community leaders the presidency of Alpha Conde would be yet another Islamic leader who could reinstate a junta style government. The fears of living under Islam are palpable in the way these community leaders address the issue. Hate and vitriol spill from both sides, yet it is more prevalent in a community that seems to believe they have more to lose than their opponent.

Endless Misery

It is impossible for somebody in my position to adequately address the issues these two ethnic groups face in this upcoming election. It would be arrogant to say that I fully understand the nature to the conflict that exist between them. Yet at the same time I can honestly say that if neither side makes drastic changes in the way they view the other then the misery that has been Guinea's past will continue to be its future. Without compromise and some form of strong leadership, whether that be political or religious, an accusation of theft will always risk countless days of senseless violence and bloodshed.

As for the government of Guinea, there are serious steps ahead in the path to social and political reforms that are desperately needed. There is a clear hunger for democratic reforms amongst the people of this country. Yet whenever they show up to make their voices heard they have been met with religious and racial violence. It is a problem that everyone is watching yet no one seems willing to address.

If social and political reforms are not carried out immediately under the next president the country of Guinea should face more stringent criticism and economic reprisals from the UN and Western world. A government that would tolerate the senseless violence that has become the hallmarks of its electoral process cannot be treated with kid gloves. If we would not tolerate it within our own borders we must not make excuses for it when such atrocities are imposed upon other people.

In Guinea the endless misery of religious, ethnic, and political violence has been rewarded by a world that remains silent.

Want to learn more about this issue and others covered by Alder's Ledge? 

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Source Documents
(note not all sources are listed)

Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/07/201371711358547118.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/05/2013531131553623253.html

Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/17/guinea-violence-toll-idUSL6N0FN41520130717
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/17/guinea-violence-idUSL6N0FN3ZR20130717

All Africa
http://allafrica.com/stories/201307170237.html

Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/17/death-toll-in-guinea-ethnic-violence-rises-above-50-medic/

Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/topic/international-justice/charles-taylor
http://www.hrw.org/node/106418
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/guinea1209web_0.pdf

Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/0119/What-s-behind-Christian-Muslim-fighting-in-Nigeria

BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23335719

The People From Nowhere

Forced To Live Nowhere
(part of Footsteps In The Dark series)

(Eritrea's Human Rights Record Turns Out Thousands Of Refugees)

Slavery...

Abuse...

Rape...

The list of what an Eritrean refugee has to look forward to is tragic at best. Many of these victims of government indifference have no way of seeking justice. They often find themselves trapped between fences (literally) as the world argues about who should help them. All the while they did not choose to be there. This was not their way of taking the easy way out of an already hellish situation back home. For many Eritrean refugees their story begins with human trafficking, kidnapping, and/or a handful of other methods of exploitation. 

On the Sinai peninsula between Africa and the Middle East the story of the Eritrean refugee plays out every day. Bedouin criminal gangs traffic Eritrean hostages across the Sinai in hopes of extorting cash payments from impoverished families back in Eritrea. When the families obviously cannot pay the extortion the rate asked does not come down. Instead the victims are tortured, some to the point of death. Those who survive are sold to other Bedouins to be used as slaves. Other survivors are at times told to run... to head toward Israel and get out of the Bedouins' sight. 

For the runners the wretched fate that has been handed to them has only just begun. A life that many could never imagine has just gotten worse. And yet for these refugees the journey to a better life in their eyes has just begun. 

At the border with Israel the Eritrean refugees are greeted with barbed wire, landmines, and border guards on either side of the fence. If the hot sand and lack of water don't kill them the possibility always lingers just beneath their feet and in the hands of the guards both in front and behind them. This long stretch of wire is the Eritrean refugees' version of limbo. 

For these refugees their part in an over forty year history of Eritrean refugees has only just begun. For the Eritrean refugees who aren't taken to the Sinai and never have the hope of entering Israel there is another version of limbo. 

In camps just over the border in the Sudan the Eritrean refugees attempt to hide from human traffickers who would send them north into Egypt. At Kilo 26 Camp some 12,500 Eritrean refugees wait till the day they can return home. These refugees are among the 130,000+ Eritrean refugees in camps all across the border with Sudan. All of them are subjected to over the border raids, kidnapping, and human trafficking. And yet around 22,000 Eritrean refugees have crossed the border since November of 2003.

Life in camps in Sudan is difficult, if not impossible at times, for the Eritrean refugees. They are reliant upon UN and other foreign aid in a country where human rights abuses are already common. When they attempt to make themselves more self reliant in the Sudan they open themselves up to new threats of exploitation and attack. For most the dream of returning home is the only thing they have keeping them alive. And yet for over a decade now they have been living as the people from nowhere with nowhere to go. 

So for us in the West the question should have already arisen as to why and how this many refugees could be fleeing a tiny country such as Eritrea in the first place.

The protracted hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea have created running battles in which innocent civilians are made intentional "collateral damage". Fighting between the two sides often ends up becoming so bitterly entrenched that any member of the opposite state is considered fair game for war weary soldiers. Battlefields spill over into villages and urban areas. Rape and summary executions were all to common when open hostilities existed. Now the uneasy peace still sees militant acts between factions of the two sides. War is never to far from reality along the border between the two states. 

Then when you add the horrific human rights record of the Eritrean state itself to the matter the reality of becoming a refugee is almost all the Eritrean people have left. Eritrean men and boys often "disappear" never to be heard from or seen alive again. Women and girls are subject to rape by government forces and police. This is then complicated by unjust taxation and extortion by government officials. 

For the Eritrean refugees clinging to the wire along the border with Israel there is only the hope of life beyond the oppression they have come to know back home. This longing for freedom is so embedded in human nature that the Eritrean people would risk death to just get a peek at it. And yet if caught staring upon its beauty, these Eritrean people face prison in Egypt and Israel alike. 

These are the people from nowhere...

These are the people with nowhere left to run.

Source Documents

(Note note all sources are listed)

IBT

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/455019/20130409/eritrean-sinai-refugees-egypt-sudan.htm

Amnesty International 

http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/egypt-sudan-kidnap-and-trafficking-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-must-be-stop

UNHCR 

http://www.unhcr.org/46cc4a974.html

Cheap Never Cost So Much

Exploitation of the New Holocaust
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)

(The Hell of Eastern Congo)

In 2012 the genocide in the Congo surpassed the estimated deaths of Jews in the Holocaust. The fact that the world remains silent has left some of us cynical jaded souls asking if the victims in the Congo were just born the wrong color? Would the world care more if these 6,100,000 souls been cared for a little more if they had just been born white? 

In 1994 the Hutu militias and Hutu civilians who had been defeated after committing genocide in neighboring Rwanda fled into what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their presence there brought forth the sins they had committed in Rwanda. With their bloody hands came the crimes that had driven them from their homeland. Every since 1996 the Congo has been paying the price of war and genocide. 

Rebel armies rape, pillage, and torture innocent civilians daily in Eastern Congo and the Northern Congo. Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a Hutu extremist group, continues to terrorize the eastern areas of the Congo. The Lord's Resistance Army, despite President Obama's claims, continue to force famine upon the northern areas of the Congo and abduct innocent children. 

In recent years organizations like "Invisible Children" have taken up the cause of the victims of groups like The Lord's Resistance Army. But even these good intentioned organizations fail to recognize that the use of children soldiers is just a symptom of genocide in the region. Those who support organizations like "Invisible Children" also seem blind to the fact that an estimated 45,000 people die each month in the Congo. This estimation includes more than just children and women (though women and children do suffer disproportionately). It includes all Congolese citizens who refuse to support and participate in the killing of their neighbors and families. 

What makes the Congo genocide unique however is not the religion or race of the victims. This is a genocide that challenges the definition of genocide itself. This is a genocide that targets those who happen to be in the way. They happen to live on land that is rich in resources and minerals that are far to precious for the Western world to ignore. Instead it is the victim that is ignored while the diamonds, gold, silver, and lumber are pillaged by rabid governments in the developed world. 

This is where the color of the victims skin seems to show the tale tale signs of willful ignorance and neglect by the Western world. 

It is expected of China and Russia that they would support regimes like that in the Sudan and Iran when they exploit their citizens to boost the private wealth of those in charge of the victimized country. Communism does not preach to the impoverished the core values of human rights. It does not teach its citizens that all people are equated equal and with inalienable rights endowed to them by G-d. It only teaches its citizens that their own welfare is important and that the desire of the masses must be met despite the suffering of the few. 

So why is it that the United States and Canada alike seem far to willing to allow companies who operate within their borders to exploit and prop up genocidal regimes like those in the Congo? 

This year President Obama lifted sanctions on American based companies doing business in Myanmar. It is unfortunate that Mr. Obama never had to bother with lifting sanctions on American businesses that would prevent them from doing business in the Congo. Instead American mining companies and natural resource purchasing companies in the United States have long been doing their business with Congo based war lords. And in Canada the government decided to drop a piece of legislation that would have blocked Canadian businesses who currently import Congolese resources. 

This failure to pass any from of sanctions against the Congolese war lords has allowed for Western cash to continue to fund genocide in the Congo. This constant flow has boosted the flow of blood in the worlds second poorest nation. At the same time the 24 trillion US dollars worth of resources continues to be picked clean as greed fuels the flames of the hellish genocide it supports. 

If we are ever going to see action taken to stop the killing in the Congo we must first force action in the governments of the Americas and Europe. We can no longer accept the word of companies when they assure us that the products we buy are not "blood diamonds" or "conflict minerals". These same companies still take your cash and send it to the killing fields so that they can use middle men to traffic the cheap resources back into the Western markets. Only actual laws and bills can put an end to the cash that fuels the genocides in developing nations like the Congo. 

This callousness to the suffering of Congolese citizens by Western markets leaves me jaded only that much more. And once again it leaves me asking... do these six million dead receive little acknowledgement simply because they aren't white? Or is it our greed that blinds us to the blood stains on our own hands? 

Bloody Past

The First Genocide of the 20Th Century.

"I destroy the African tribes with streams of blood... Only following this cleansing can something new emerge, which will remain..." German General Trotha.

Many people who have studied the genocides of the 20Th century have long begun with the Armenian Genocide. It seems appropriate to start with the World War One Holocaust. Yet the first genocide of the 20Th century was actually committed by the same country that would carry out the infamous World War Two Holocaust.

In the race for supremacy in Africa Germany began its fight to subdue the tribes of Namibia in South West Africa. Its empire there was one riddled with violence. And in most cases this violence was intended not for the maintaining of peace but the expulsion of less desirable tribes.

The Herero and Namaqua were two tribes that the German government decided were less than desirable. These two tribes had a long history of being warriors and proud defenders of their territories and possessions. And those two things, land and animals, were not allowed to be kept from white German "settlers". After all, in Namibia Germany would develop the ideas that would lead to the Holocaust itself.

Lebensraum was first put into action in Namibia as German settlers pushed further and further into tribal lands. The idea behind the Nazi's most exploited of ideas was that the Father Land had a right to spread its legs so to speak. The people who happened to live on this new German land simply had to be enslaved or expelled. And the food grown here was to be used to grow Germany... not Namibia.

The starvation and lack of ability to find water for themselves and their cattle would be the straw to break the camel's back for the Herero. In 1904 the Herero decided that expulsion and starvation were no longer an option. They became a people who wanted, or actually needed, their country back.

In the battles that would follow the Herero and Namaqua quickly found themselves at the mercy of the German army. Unable to sustain their rebellion the two tribes were being taken prisoners by the thousands. Those who tried to run were forced into the arid lands at civilization's edge and denied water. The water holes they could find were often poisoned by the German army in an attempt to kill the rebels in hiding.

"I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Hereros. The Hereros are German subjects no longer. They have killed, stolen, cut off the ears and other parts of the body of wounded soldiers, and now are too cowardly to want to fight any longer. I announce to the people that whoever hands me one of the chiefs shall receive 1,000 marks, and 5,000 marks for Samuel Maherero. The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube' (cannon). Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people." General Trotha.

General Trotha failed to mention that he had by this time already killed nearly all the Herero who had ever carried a weapon. His goal in making this declaration to the Herero was to further intimidate the starving Herero still hiding in the arid bushland. He simply was conducting the orders to remove the "undesirables" from German held territory.

The Generals own men and other Germans had already recorded his "German soldiers of good repute" brutal attacks on the said "rebels".

"I was present when the Herero were defeated in a battle in the vicinity of Waterberg. After the battle all men, women, and children who fell into German hands, wounded or otherwise, were mercilessly put to death. Then the Germans set off in pursuit of the rest, and all those found by the wayside and in the sandveld were shot down and bayoneted to death. The mass of the Herero men were unarmed and thus unable to offer resistance. They were just trying to get away with their cattle." Jan Cloete, German guide.

As for the Herero who were captured, if allowed to surrender, death would have been a better option.

The second part of the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua came when Germans employed their second most infamous idea... the Konzentrationslager, concentration camps. And the camps they built were the early models that would be seen in the beginning of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Mortality rates in these camps would begin around 45% and then quickly spike.

Shark Island was the most infamous of these camps. It was used for forced labor and later for medical experimentation. Those who died here were told that they would be turned into food for the sharks... hence the name of the camp. Those who lived were constantly reminded that they were not citizens of their own homeland. They were even more so reminded that they were not considered human to their captors.

Food in the camps was limited to uncooked rice and salt. German prison guards denied the Herero pots to cook the rice and refused to allow the prisoners to build cooking fires. As a result the prisoners slowly starved and died of dysentery. While still living they were forced to work on German chain gangs.

"There are hundreds of them, mostly women and children and a few old men ... when they fall they are sjamboked by the soldiers in charge of the gang, with full force, until they get up ... On one occasion I saw a woman carrying a child of under a year old slung at her back, and with a heavy sack of grain on her head ... she fell. The corporal sjamboked her for certainly more than four minutes and sjamboked the baby as well ... the woman struggled slowly to her feet, and went on with her load. She did not utter a sound the whole time, but the baby cried very hard." Percival Griffith.

Medical experimentation included mainly the forced sterilization, injection with small pox, typhus, and tuberculosis. Herero women who had been raped and later gave birth were forced to hand their "mulatto" children over to people like Eugen Fisher who would study them as his test subjects; all the while calling them "Rehoboth bastards" and "of lesser racial quality". The studies Fisher did upon these children were the same studies later done on the Jews and Roma.

Fisher would take his subjects away to study their eyes, the length of their noses, the width of their skulls, and the proportions of their bodies. When finished with them he would have them killed. It was at the end of his studies that Fisher decided that genocide was the only solution for "lesser racial quality" individuals. He noted, "whoever thinks thoroughly the notion of race, can not arrive at a different conclusion".

In the end the German involvement in Africa would come to a close with the beginning of World War One. Until then the Herero and Namaqua would be continually subjected to the genocidal ambitions of the German government and its settlers. It wouldn't be till nearly a hundred years later that the German government, let alone its people, would even admit that "perhaps genocide may have occurred" in Namibia.

As for the rest of the world the genocide in Namibia is somewhat forgotten. Much like other genocides this one has fallen away from our history books due to the depressing reality of what horrible things we have done to one another.