Transcript Truth and Reconciliation - San Ramon Valley High School

Truth and Reconciliation
South Africa and Rwanda
• 1994: Hutus kill Tutsis
• Gacaca Courts: truth over punishment
(except for leaders)
Britain
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1) “The Troubles”: approx. 3,500 killed (1,857 civilians)
Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein
Bloody Sunday: 30 January 1972: 26 civil-rights protestors shot
by British soldiers
– 2010: Saville Inquiry: “unjustified and unjustifiable;”
possible criminal investigation
1981 prison hunger strikes: Bobby Sands (elected MP, died of
starvation)
1998: Good Friday Agreement shift power in Northern
Ireland to locals
2007 elections: Sinn Fein and Democratic Unionist Party form
coalition gov’t, British troops end occupation
2009 truth and reconciliation commission w/lenient sentences
for crimes associated with Troubles
2) 2009-2011: Iraq Inquiry
– Wikileaks release cable: “[John] Day [British defense dept.
official] also promised that the UK had "put measures in
place to protect your interests" during the UK inquiry into
the causes of the Iraq war. He noted that Iraq seems no
longer to be a major issue in the U.S., but he said it would
become a big issue -- a "feeding frenzy" -- in the UK "when
the inquiry takes off."
China
• Tiananmen Square Protests, 1989
• Death of Hu Yaobang (Party Secretary
until student protests 1987 steps
down; headed economic + political
reforms of Deng in 1980s) + political
corruption + economic problems
(inflation) + collapse communism East
Europe protests calling for economic
+ political liberalization
• Party freezes: is this what Deng wants?
(Deng had “resigned”; leadership by
committee; Zhao Ziyang backed
protestors against Politburo)
• “June 4th Incident” PLA units move in
(“Tank Man”)
– “May 35th Incidents”
Google Image Search: “tiananmen square protests”
China
Britain
Mexico
• 1) 1968: student uprisings around the world
(Paris)
• Summer Olympics in Mexico City: opening up
of Mexico under PRI 10,000 students
organize at Tlatelolco Plaza (after earlier
protests + violence)
• Oct 2 military moves in sniper kills
general massacre
• Election of Vincente Fox serious
investigation + prosecutions; reveals Mexican
gov’t snipers killed the general
– Minor support by US for Mexican gov’t in crack
down
• 2) Zapatistas: 1994: “war” against Mexican
state, corporate intrusions into Chiapas
(NAFTA: small corn farmers put out of
business), marginalization of indigenous
– Subcommandante Marcos
• Zapatistas : IRA :: PRD : Sinn Fein
Nigeria
• 1992: Ogonis, led by Ken Saro Wiwa, demand
royalty payments for oil ($10 billion) violence
• 1994 crackdown 2,000 civilian deaths,
100,000 displaced people + execution “Ogoni
Nine”
• Shell paid Nigerian military to shut down
protests (2002 class action lawsuit filed;
accusations of Chevron playing similar role)
• 2000: Niger Delta Development Commission to
build up the region
• 2008-9 Crackdown; June 2009 amnesty for
those who surrendered their weapons
Russia
• Khruschev’s 1956
“Secret Speech”: antiStalin cult of personality
+ crimes; “Gulag
Archipelago”
– Putin rebuilding Stalin’s
reputation
• Chechnya: widespread
human rights violations
during series of wars
1990s-2000s; murder of
reporters with “trial” of
killers (stooges)