THE WOLVES

The name 'Khmer Rouge' was originally a blanket term for the far-left communist party in Cambodia. It was later adopted by the followers of The Communist Party of Kampuchea who ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979.

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The right-wing military coup overthrew the capital (Phnom Penh) in 1970, and the Khmer Rouge formed a coalition with them which gained them support.

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Pol Pot and Nuon Chea sought to remove intellectuals from the population. They went so far as to go after people for wearing glasses or knowing more than one language.

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Declaring that the nation would start again at "Year Zero", they isolated their people from the rest of the world to set about emptying the cities, abolishing money, private property and religion, and setting up rural collectives.

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An estimated 2 million people were killed in the four years the CPK was in power from starvation, disease, exhaustion, and overworking.

Ethnically motivated violence broke out after Belgium granted Rwanda independence in 1962, and in 1973 a military group put Major General Juvenal Habyarimana in power.

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The genocide began when a plane carrying Habyarimana and the Burundi president was shot down in 1994.

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Immediately after, the Presidential Guard in tandem with Hutu militia groups: Interahamwe, which means "those who attack together” and Impuzamugambi, meaning “those who have the same goal” blocked off exits to the city and began slaughtering Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

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The Hutu Prime Minister was killed, allowing the militants to take power, and within the next three months carried out mass killings and encouraged violence from citizens.

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A coalition government was established following the genocide, but by the time international intervention was underway the genocide was over. French troops established a “humanitarian zone” which saved thousands of Tutsi lives, but also helped many organizers to escape prosecution.

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An estimated 500,000 - 1 million Rwandans (70% of the Tutsi population) were killed, and 2 million were displaced in a 100 day period from April 7th, 1994 - mid July.

Immigrants primarily from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala to this day try to cross the border into America to flee violence, political corruption, or simply to seek better opportunities for themselves and for their children. 

 

In 2010, Arizona passed SB 1070 allowing police to request proof of citizenship during a stop or investigation regarding an unrelated matter. This marked a turning point in America at which point xenophobia and prejudice against immigrants began to rise exponentially. 

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Detention facilities across the southern border were created to contain the influx of detained persons. 

These facilities have been found guilty of separating children from their parents and keeping detainees in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. 

 

Children held at Shiloh Treatment Center have been forcibly injected with depressants and anti-psychotics, told that if they did not take their 'vitamins' they would be unable to see their parents again. 

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Even in cases where children have been reunited with their parents, they are described as 'not the same', cry more often than not, and will not speak to their parents. 

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The rising numbers of immigrants detained and therefore facilities created to hold them has become a multi-million dollar industry, with corporations such as GEO Group, Corrections Corporation of America, and ASSET Security & Protection L.P. as the top benefactors. 

Driven by nationalism, the government of the Ottoman Empire declared a jihad against Christians with the exception of World War I allies Germany and Austria-Hungary. 

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On April 24th, 1915 the Ottoman Turks arrested 250 Armenian intellectuals who were later killed. 

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From that point on, violence against Armenians was encouraged and deportations, arrests, public hangings, and murders of Armenians were done systematically. Civilians were sent on death marches through the Mesopotamian desert where they succumbed to dehydration and exhaustion. 

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It is estimated that 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated between 1914 and 1918. 

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The officials in power at the time of the genocide took asylum in Germany, fled, or were acquitted of their crimes. 

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In 1939, before the invasion of Poland, Adolf Hitler instructed his armies 'to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish race or language' and concluded his speech with: 'Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?'

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Due to ties with Turkey, the United States was reluctant to condemn the genocide, but in 2010 the U.S. Congressional Panel voted to recognize the genocide. Today it remains illegal in Turkey to discuss the genocide.

Beginning as a prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib became a cite for torture, sodomy, rape, and murder to be carried out by American guards to Iraqi detainees from 2003 - 2006 during the American occupation of Iraq.

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There were reports of"positioning a naked detainee on a box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture" and "videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees". 

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Additionally, “Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”

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Abu Ghraib was closed in 2014 by the Iraqi government out of fear that it would be overtaken by Sunni leaders. 

President Harry Truman declared that the foreign policy of the United States is to 'assist any country whose stability is threatened by communism'. 

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The National Liberation Front, a group backed by the communist North Vietnam, starts to rise in the democratic South Vietnam. This insurgency prompted President John F. Kennedy to send 400 Green Berets to South Vietnam and begin operations against the NLF, nicknamed the Viet Cong. 

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The United States, in an effort to clear the dense jungle of Vietnam, sprayed 20 million gallons of Agent Orange over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia which later caused disfigurement, cancer, birth defects, and severe psychological and neurological problems in civilians and soldiers on both sides. 

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In 1968, the My Lai massacre leaves over 500 Vietnamese civilians dead at the hands of the U.S. among 'search-and-destroy' operations. News of the massacre leaves Americans shocked, but an anonymous soldier self-described as a 'grunt' accounted at the U.S. Army's atrocities in Vietnam amounted to 'a My Lai a month' 

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The Pentagon Papers, leaked by the New York Times in 1971, revealed that the U.S. had been lying about the level of involvement in the Vietnam War, repeatedly increasing involvement after public statements of reducing the number of troops. 

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After the U.S. withdrew all military involvement in Vietnam, South Vietnam fell to the communist North. By 1975, 58,000 Americans were dead, 250,000 South Vietnamese, 1.1 million North Vietnamese, and 2 million civilians.