by Ray Black
So determined was the contempt of Japanese soldiers for their weaker enemy, that they often documented their crimes in photographs. There was no civilised notion of mercy for these men and there is even filmed footage of Japanese soldiers practising with bayonets on live prisoners. It became usual practise to decapitate these prisoners whose heads were then lined up as ‘souvenirs’. There are photographs of soldiers standing and smiling proudly with the mutilated bodies that lay all around them. The first few weeks of atrocities were the worst, with tens of thousands of men, women and children killed as they desperately tried to flee the occupied city. The assaults on civilians were barbaric, and those trying to escape by swimming the Yangtze River, were often victims of the grenades thrown by the Japanese troops into the masses who gathered at the water’s edge. Meanwhile, Japanese soldiers were hunting down Chinese troops and anyone believed to be a member of the opposing army was shot or bayoneted. But hunting for hiding soldiers soon became an excuse for the killing of civilians at will, and while ordinary people were facing painful deaths, many buildings were burned and homes looted by the mercenary occupying army. Piles of victims were left in the city streets where Japanese soldiers would randomly bayonet bodies in an attempt to ensure that all were dead.
The Japanese soldiers would also round up their victims and douse huge crowds in petrol before setting them alight. They were particularly fond of carrying out this type of crime on the prisoners of war who they brandished as cowards. It is well known that high-ranking Japanese officials were not only aware of the atrocities being committed on the Chinese people, they were regularly taking part. In one documented incident, a pregnant woman was gang-raped by soldiers. After the woman was murdered by her captors, her dead foetus was removed and bayoneted and brought before the soldiers’ commanding officer. His response was to laugh at the misfortunes of the woman and her unborn child. This type of heinous activity was part of everyday life for the Chinese community in Nanking.
Once the Japanese felt that they had dealt with the prisoners of war and it was just a matter of rounding up stragglers, they turned their attentions to the women of Nanking. A woman-hunt ensued where the young and the old were treated as abysmally as each other. Although today the number of women estimated to have been abused by the Japanese stands at 20,000, some estimates put the number much higher at around 80,000. Gang rapes were common, with victims being shot following the savage brutality, so that they could never give evidence against the perpetrators who raped them. But families were equally humiliated and abused because the men were forced to rape their own daughters and sons were commanded to rape their mothers. Brothers were also made to rape their sisters while the entire family was made to watch the horrendous action. The Japanese soldiers took great pleasure in watching their victims suffer and it is well documented that the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure taken by the occupying army.
Foreigners who found themselves caught up in the atrocity were mainly left alone. However, the safety zone for non-Chinese residents was regularly visited by the Japanese who would take away and kill anyone they believed to be hiding in the zone. Often these were young men deemed by the Japanese to be members of the Chinese army. Around twenty Europeans and American doctors, missionaries and other individuals set up the safety zone which encompassed a two and a half square mile area that they announced was a Japanese-free zone. These unsung heroes regularly risked their own lives as they intervened to stop the execution and rape of the Chinese men, women and children around them. It is due to the records kept by these eyewitnesses at the time that the world at large would hear far more of the massacre than the Japanese would have liked. But once the Rape of Nanking had become international knowledge, the powers in Tokyo started to restrain their troops and try and limit the extent of the savagery taking place. The safety zone became home to around 30,000 Chinese people.
By January 1938, much of the massacre was over as the Japanese army requested help from other countries to clear away the rotting bodies that lined the streets of the former Chinese capital.
The New York Times made a one-page report and while most Japanese news reflected the militaristic mood of the country and celebrated the imperial army’s victories, other news reports began to surface which outlined the suffering that was going on. These came from eyewitness reports by Japanese military, who reported that the brutality shown to the communities in Nanking was aimed at the people whom the Japanese deemed as inferior. The US public were sceptical about the increased reports over the massacre, as the stories smuggled out of Nanking seemed too fantastical to be believed. The plight of the Chinese in Nanking was further overlooked by US and British authorities who were more concerned with Hitler’s movements across Europe.
The utter carnage that ensued in Nanking and went unabated for more than six weeks, resulted in the streets of the city literally running red with blood. Even nearly seventy years later relations over Nanking are uneasy between the Chinese and the Japanese. The situation was not helped by an unrepentant Japan. However, some justice was served when twenty-eight high-ranking officials, including former foreign ministers, were tried in Tokyo by an international jury for their part in the leadership behind the Nanking Massacre or Najning Datusha as it was known by the Chinese. Of the twenty-eight accused, twenty-five were eventually found guilty on one or more charges while two died during the trials and one was admitted to a mental institution. Those found guilty were sentenced to death by hanging or life imprisonment in 1948. But, by 1956, all of them had been granted parole. Many years after the massacre, Japan tried to play down the events at Nanking and books were written to offer a very different view of the situation. Some even denied that Nanking had even taken place, and even in 1990 some high-ranking Japanese officials suggested that the massacre had been fabricated. However, there has been official acknowledgement of the atrocities carried out by Japanese soldiers during World War II. This was brought about by international pressure on the Japanese to own up to their barbaric behaviour. However, apologies and compensation have not been forthcoming.
Author Iris Chang was inspired to write the story of Nanking when she heard from her parents, who escaped China via Taiwan, before settling in the USA, how the Japanese ‘. . . sliced babies not just in half but in thirds and fourths’, and she describes in the introduction to The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, how the events during the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938 were a ‘metaphor for unspeakable evil’.
Genocide in Rwanda
Between 6 April and mid-July 1994, the Tutsi people of Rwanda were the victims of one of the most heinous acts of genocide to be carried out in the modern world. As early as 1990, there was evidence to support the fact that the political, military and administrative leadership of Rwanda were plotting the demise of this ethnic community. The population didn’t stand a chance against the factors that were being put into place and, by 1993, more than eighty-five tons of munitions had been distributed to another ethnic people, the Hutu. The Hutu – armed with machetes and other agricultural tools – were incited by a vicious hate campaign in the media. The world at large was shocked by the devastating events that would follow. However, governments across the globe ignored, or remained apathetic to, the plight of these innocent people and a conservative estimate is that more than 800,000 Tutsi people, or seventy-seven per cent of the population died during the atrocity.
Six hundred years ago the Hutus and Tutsis used to live in harmony. The Tutsis were a tall race of warriors who moved south from Ethiopia and invaded the homeland of the Hutus. Although not so many in number, the Tutsis managed to overpower the Hutus who, as a result, agreed to raise crops for the Tutsis in return for their protection. For many years the two groups managed to live almost as one, speaking the same language, intermarrying and obeying an almost god-like Tutsi king. That was until independence came along and that changed everything. The monarchy was dissolved and the Belgiums, who had ruled the area, with
drew. This left a large void which both the Tutsis and Hutus wanted to fill and fighting broke out between the two tribes. The fighting eventually exploded into a civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed.
Today, there are around two and a half million Tutsi living in Rwanda and Burundi across central Africa and this group currently holds political power. Their history is complicated and the word Tutsi has evolved over the centuries to have many different meanings. Some refer to the Tutsi as people who have more than ten cows and a long European-looking nose, as opposed to the Hutu who have less than ten cows and a shorter, blunt nose. Other theories describe Tutsi people as having been associated with the ruling classes and the king, mwami, of Rwanda, and some document them as more impoverished than their fellow Hutus. Whatever their origins, the Tutsi and the moderate Hutu sympathisers that supported them, were categorically unprepared for the atrocity that would befall them.
There were mounting tensions across Rwanda during the early 1990s, fuelled by factions from both the established Tutsi, who are thought to have emigrated to the country around the sixteenth century, and the Hutu who are descended from the pygmy Twa populations who originally inhabited the land. By the end of the twentieth century, the Hutu were increasing their stronghold over Rwanda and Civil War broke out. Since 1962, Rwanda had enjoyed self-government and elections had advanced the Parmehutu, the Hutu political party. This, combined with the dissatisfaction of the Tutsis, who found themselves increasingly confined to refugee camps, led to the formation of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by expatriate Paul Kagame who demanded the right for Tutsis to be given equal status.
In October 1990, the RPF invaded Rwanda from neighbouring Uganda, which led the Rwandan government to believe that the Tutsi wanted to take back political power. World government reaction to the events taking place was ambiguous and as violence and tension increased President Juvénal Habyarimana gave orders for the Tutsi to be immediately repressed. He justified his acts by claiming that the Tutsi wanted to enslave the Hutu people. For three years, between 1990 and 1993, the Kangura, a political journal, became instrumental in the rising ethnic violence and hatred.
The civil war ended on August 4, 1993, when the RPF and the government of Rwanda signed the Arusha Accords, and Habyarimana lost many of his powers which went to the newly formed coalition government. But the Committee for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), led by Habyarimana, was strongly opposed to sharing power with the RPF and refused to sign the accords. New terms were agreed, but by then, the RPF were unhappy with the proposals and they too refused to comply with the new conditions.
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), along with top government ministers and newspapers, further instigated a campaign of hatred and fear. Training programmes were quickly set up to ensure that radical groups of Hutu people were prepared for battle and two factions – known as Interahamwe and Impuzamagambi – were established by secret meetings of government leaders and youth group organisations. Weapons arrived en masse and in January 1994, the UN Force Commander, General Roméo Dallaire, notified Major-General Maurice Baril, Chief of the Defence Staff, that large caches of arms were available for the extermination of the Tutsis. The general asked for peacekeeping forces to be deployed, but none were sent. Demonstrations broke out in an attempt to remove the occupying Belgian forces and provoke the RPF. The killings that followed were well organised and involved a militia estimated at around 30,000. There were representatives of the militia in every neighbourhood across Rwanda and numbers were approximately one militia to every Tutsi family. Some troops carried AK-47 assault rifles, which were particularly easy to acquire, while other weapons, including hand grenades, didn’t even require the militia to complete any paperwork. Many members of both the Interahamwe and Impuzamagambi were armed only with machetes, while government cabinet meetings openly discussed the forthcoming atrocity. In her book, Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwanda Genocide, journalist Linda Melvern cites that Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, General Augustin Bizimungu and other leading officials, including Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, were all aware of, and responsible for, what happened next.
The catalyst for the mass genocide took place when a plane carrying Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu President, was shot down over Kigali on April 6, 1994, and both men were killed. Rumours were rife and Paul Kagame of the RPF was blamed for the shooting, although other stories stated that Hutu extremists within Habyarimana’s own circle were responsible. It is still not known with any certainty who ordered the attack on the plane. But the death of two presidents was enough to set off mass destruction, and Tutsi and moderate Hutus knew that they would become sitting targets. Local radio stations gave a coded message for Hutus to ‘Cut the tall trees’. It was the signal that every extremist Hutu militiaman had been waiting for – it literally meant ‘begin killing’. Tutsis were rounded up and executed by the military and Hutu militia groups. Political moderates were also captured regardless of their ethnic background, and many nations evacuated their staff from Kigali and closed down their embassies as the violence across the country increased. People were urged by radio stations to stay in their homes, while other reports over the networks talked of vitriolic attacks against the Tutsis and their moderate supporters. The network of cleverly devised roadblocks appeared in their hundreds and escape was both dangerous and futile.
From the centre of Kigali violence quickly swept across the country. In Nyarubuye, radio broadcasts and visits from local officials incited the populous to kill their neighbours. Those who refused were killed and there was very little choice for Hutus who wanted to survive. It was kill, or be killed, and many fled to nearby churches to escape death. However, clergy and other church officials were unable to stop the rampage and in Ntarama, where 5,000 people sought refuge in the church, only twenty-five people survived. In what became a bloodbath, many ordinary citizens were killed by their neighbours in their own towns and villages, aided by militia. Death was usually delivered by a blow from a machete and many victims of the genocide were chopped into pieces by their attackers. Some were luckier and were killed by a bullet.
In the Catholic church of Kivumu, more than 1,500 Tutsis who were hiding there, were killed when the militia bulldozed the building. Those trying to escape faced the machete or rifle, while at a school in Kigali, the escaping Tutsis thought they’d be safe until the Belgian soldiers protecting them were ordered to withdraw and the militia and armed forces stormed the building killing everyone inside including hundreds of children. In the church at Gikondo, a mass was held on April 9, 1994, where more than 500 frightened men, women and children were hiding. While the mass took place, shots outside and exploding grenades could be heard. The church doors were flung open by soldiers of the Presidential Guard who demanded to see everyone’s identity. A priest confronted the soldiers and said that the church housed Christian worshippers, but the soldiers continued their mission. Hutu worshippers were requested to leave the building. Not long after, 100 or so militia entered the church and began hacking at the congregation with their machetes, taking off limbs and slashing the faces of terrified people who were desperately trying to protect their children by hiding under the pews. For two hours the killing continued and even small children and babies were butchered. Unarmed UN military observers were present in Gikondo that day and the bodies stretched for more than one kilometre. As the killings began, Major Jerzy Maczka from the UN desperately tried to call for help, but the network was jammed and his pleas went unheeded being forced him to watch as the massacre unfolded with a gun held to his throat. In the Gikondo region alone, it was estimated that 10,000 people died in just two days.
Philippe Gaillard from Switzerland was present in Gikondo following the massacre, helping to look for survivors. He was responsible for realising that what was taking place was actually genocide. Seeing all the evidence and proof, he was shocked by the determination of the militia to exterminate this particular gro
up of people. The killers had made no efforts to hide who they were and their victims had been slain in broad daylight. There was no doubt in Gaillard’s mind that this was genocide on a phenomenal scale. The killings continued for a further two and a half months and Tutsis everywhere were in danger. The military, police, extremist Hutus and others were dogmatic in their search and destruction of a helpless people. As the major news networks across the globe reported on the atrocities being carried out, governments were reluctant to help or apathetic about the plight of the Tutsis.
The new Rwandan government tried hard to minimise an international scandal and the Rwandan ambassador, who had a seat on the Security Council, argued that the reports of genocide were widely exaggerated. France, who was responsible for training many of the militia in camps across the country, was also adamant that international intervention wouldn’t be necessary. However, when the UN finally admitted that genocide ‘may’ have taken place and the Red Cross had estimated that more than 500,000 Tutsis had died in April 1994, the UN agreed to send 5,500 troops to the country and also requested a number of armoured personnel carriers from the US. The high cost of both troops and armoured vehicles led to arguments which delayed their deployment.
In June, with still no sign of back-up, the Security Council authorised French forces to be deployed on humanitarian grounds. The French were accused of the massacre of further Tutsis in the confusion that followed deployment. The RPF renewed civil war against the Hutu government and forces were sent into Rwanda from Uganda and Tanzania. The civil war and the continuing genocide raged side by side for more than two months. However, Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu forces in July 1994 – 100 days after the genocide began. Hutu refugees eventually fled Rwanda taking up residence in Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.