Regents Review: Human Rights Violations

Do Now: define human rights

• Yugoslavia was a multinational state created after WWI.

• People who live there: Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholics) and Albanians (Muslims).

• After fall of communism created their own nations: Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.

• In Bosnia and Herzegovina Serbs tried to remove non-Serbs by force.

• Bosnians became refugees. Many others brutalized or killed.

• Policy of ethnic cleansing.

• Yugoslav President Milosevic (a Serb) used army to prevent non-Serbs from breaking away from Yugoslavia.

• Supported ethnic cleansing.

• Sent troops against Albanians in Kosovo who demanded self rule.

• Serbs began a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Muslim Kosovars.

• Milosevic refused NATO peace plan.

• Milosevic arrested and tried.

• Died in jail

Genocide in Rwanda

• Population of 7 million: 85% Hutu and 14% Tutsi.

• In 1994 Hutu extremists supported by the government began to murder the Tutsis.

• 500,000 killed

History of Violence

• Two groups are very similar: same language and traditions.

• Belgian colonists divided them according to ethnicity. Carry identity cards.

• Belgians considered Tutsis superior and gave better jobs and education.

• Hutu resentment caused riots in 1959- 20,000 Tutsis killed

continued

• 1962- Rwanda granted independence.

• Hutus took their place. Tutsis used as a scapegoat in every crisis.

Building Up To Genocide

• Tutsi refugees formed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

• RPF goal- overthrow the government and return to their homeland.

• April 1994 President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down.

• Presidential guard began a campaign of retribution.

• Slaughter of Tutsis began.

Aftermath

• July 1995 RPF captured the capital. The government collapsed and RPF declared a ceasefire.

• A multiethnic government has been formed and all refugees are free to return to Rwanda.

Apartheid in South Africa

Apartheid

• System of separation of the races. Apartheid enforced segregation.

• Blacks had to live in homelands.

• Separate trains, beaches, schools and other public facilities.

• Interracial marriages banned.

• Blacks had to carry I.D. cards.

African National Congress

• ANC launched boycotts and practiced non-violent civil disobedience.

• Nelson Mandela was ANC leader- jailed for 27 years.

• Desmond Tutu- black Anglican bishop convinced nations to impose economic sanctions.

F.W. de Klerk

• Became President of South Africa in 1989.• De Klerk legalized the ANC and released

Mandela from jail.• Abandoned apartheid and ended

segregation laws.• 1994- Mandela becomes the first black

President of South Africa.• Mandela and DeKlerk win Nobel Peace

Prize.

Tiananmen’s Square

China

Tiananmen’s Square

• Deng allowed for greater economic freedoms.

• Students traveled abroad and studied in Europe and U.S.

• May 1989 student protestors entered Tiananmen’s Square to protest for more rights and freedoms.

• Pro-Democracy demonstration.

Deng’s Response

• Students refused to disperse.• Deng sent in troops and tanks.• Thousands of Chinese students

were killed or wounded.• Deng wanted to maintain

control.• 1990’s efforts to get China to

end human rights violations failed.

One Child Policy

China

Mao Zedong

• Mao wanted people to have many children.

• Children raised in communist ideology.

• Said “each child is born with one stomach and two hands.”

• When Deng comes to power the population is 1.1 billion.

Deng’s One Child Policy

• Deng’s policy to limit population growth.• Incentives- couples who sign a pledge get

better housing and medical care.• Penalties- heavily fined, home can be

destroyed, take your job away. • Peer pressure- couples who have more

than one child turned in by neighbors.• Education- posters, distribute birth control. • Forced sterilization policy.

The Sudan- Darfur

• For 21 years tensions between Arab Muslims in the North and Christian Africans in the South.

• Competing for scarce natural resources.

• Arab Muslims dominate the government.

• February 2003- Government backed groups known as Janjaweed terrorize Africans.

• Destroy villages, maiming men, ransacking food supplies and block international assistance.

• Janjaweed carryout systematic campaigns of rape against women.

• Attempt to humiliate the women and their families and weaken tribal ethnic lines.

• Government is carrying out ethnic cleansing.

• More than 2 million killed.

• 1.2 million displaced from their homes.

• 200,000 fled to Chad.• 405 villages

destroyed.• UN estimates

350,000 will die this year from disease and starvation.