Human Rights and Genocide

Washington, DC, December 22, 2014 – With the Mexican government facing widespread public outrage over the alleged role of police and other officials in the September forced disappearance of 43 students, and the killings of at least six others, from Ayotzinapa Normal School, the country’s federal prosecutor (PGR) has for the first time declassified a document on the suspected participation of police in the kidnapping and massacre of hundreds of migrants in San Fernando massacres of 2010-11. The new revelations, along with key U.S.

Washington, DC, December 10, 2014 – Almost thirty years after the end of Brazil's military dictatorship, the Comissao Nacional da Verdade [National Truth Commission] today released its long awaited report on human rights violations by the security forces between 1964 and 1985.

Washington, DC, November 16, 2014 – Twenty five years have passed since the horrifying murders in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter, during a rampage by Salvadoran security forces in the early morning hours of November 16, 1989, on the campus of the University of Central America (UCA) in the country's capital. It has been twenty five years of grieving by the victims' families and the Jesuit community; and twenty five years of waiting for justice to identify and prosecute the killers.

A 1980s-era document from the archives of El Salvador’s military intelligence identifies almost two thousand Salvadoran citizens who were considered “delinquent terrorists” by the Armed Forces, among them current President Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a former guerrilla leader. Other individuals listed include human rights advocates, labor leaders, and political figures, many known to have been victims of illegal detention, torture, extrajudicial execution, forced disappearance, and other human rights abuses.

Washington, DC, August 13, 2014 – Marking the 90th birthday of the human rights legend and distinguished physicist Yuri Orlov, the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org) and the Memorial Society in Moscow (www.memo.ru) today posted online an extensive collection of formerly secret Soviet and U.S. documents on Orlov's career as a Soviet dissident, including the first English-language translation of his historic 1956 speech at his physics institute in Moscow, and his 1976 founding of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

Washington, DC, July 8, 2014 – The Brazilian military regime employed a "sophisticated and elaborate psychophysical duress system" to "intimidate and terrify" suspected leftist militants in the early 1970s, according to a State Department report dated in April 1973 and made public last week.

Washington, DC, June 3, 2014 – Significant cleavages existed within the Chinese political leadership and security apparatus over the decision to use force against student protesters at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, according to US military intelligence. Declassified reports citing well-placed sources inside China describe sharp differences among some of the country's military and political elite, as well as a range of other security-related concerns with important implications for the political longevity of the Chinese leadership.

EXPERT OPINION

Declassified U.N. Cables Reveal Turning Point in Rwanda Crisis of 1994
By Mark Landler, The New York Times, June 3, 2014

The United Nations Security Council in Rwanda
By Michael Barnett, the George Washington University, June 1, 2014

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May 21, 2014

Washington, DC, May 29, 2014 – Leading decision makers from the United Nations, Africa, the United States, and Europe will gather in The Hague from June 1 to 3 to consider the failure of the international community to prevent or effectively respond to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and to explore whether and how the tragedy might have been averted.