Human Rights and Genocide

Washington, DC, February 3, 2014 – Three months after its arrival, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) remained ill-equipped and unprepared to respond to the rising threat of violence and political instability, according to the first of dozens of UNAMIR situation reports (sitreps) being posted by the National Security Archive as part of the “#Rwanda20yrs” Project.

Washington, DC, January 9, 2014 – Twenty years ago this week, the commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda (UNAMIR) wrote a "Most Immediate" cable to his superiors in New York that has come to be known as the "Genocide Fax." Dated January 11 but received in New York at 6:45 p.m. on January 10, the fax from General Romeo Dallaire cited information from "a top-level trainer" for a pro-regime militia group known as the Interahamwe, and warned of an "anti-Tutsi extermination" plot.

Washington, DC, December 4, 2013 – The landmark report on the Guatemalan police archives, From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the AHPN, has been made available in a new English translation issued by the University of Oregon. The publication — with a preface by the National Security Archive's Kate Doyle — is a history of the National Police before and during Guatemala's armed conflict.

Washington, D.C., November 6, 2013 – Four months before the feared Zetas drug cartel kidnapped and murdered 72 migrants in northeastern Mexico, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said that narcotrafficking organizations in that region operated with "near total impunity in the face of compromised local security forces." As the date of the massacre drew nearer, another U.S.

Washington, D.C., September 24, 2013 – On September 20, a Guatemalan tribunal convicted the former director of the National Police of Guatemala, retired Col. Hйctor Bol de la Cruz, and his subordinate Jorge Alberto Gуmez Lуpez for the 1984 disappearance of student and labor leader Edgar Fernando Garcнa. The verdict broke new ground in the case of Fernando Garcнa's abduction and presumed murder, by condemning senior police officials for their role in ordering, overseeing, and then concealing the crime.

Washington, D.C., September 11, 2013 – Henry Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon to overthrow the democratically elected Allende government in Chile because his "'model' effect can be insidious," according to documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The coup against Allende occurred on this date 40 years ago. The posted records spotlight Kissinger's role as the principal policy architect of U.S. efforts to oust the Chilean leader, and assist in the consolidation of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

Related Links

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Indicted for Genocide: Guatemala's Efraín Ríos Montt
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OPERATION CONDOR ON TRIAL: LEGAL PROCEEDINGS ON LATIN AMERICAN RENDITION AND ASSASSINATION PROGRAM OPEN IN BUENOS AIRES
March 8, 2013

Lifting the Veil on Colombia's "Emerald Czar"
December 21, 2012

STOLEN BABIES: Argentina Convicts Two Military Dictators
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Update: The Guatemalan Death Squad Diary and the Right to Truth
May 3, 2012