Now I know how Germans felt when they found out about the genocide that had been committed by their government in their name. Except this is worse because we are still allowing it to be done.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY:
Genocide It Is
MONTREAL, Aug 9 (IPS) - When the Belgian Defence Ministry earlier this year blamed North America for the world's worst ever genocide over its killing of millions of indigenous peoples, outrage at the claim spotlighted a topic that rarely enters the public realm but has long been accepted by many native Americans and their supporters.
The assertion was made as part of a display on Belgian peacekeeping worldwide, to mark the 10th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda that killed at least 500,000 people. It claimed that 15 million native peoples have been murdered on this continent since Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492, and suggested that the extermination continues today.
Although the numbers cited in the display are questionable, there is evidence, however, of a deliberate attempt to obliterate the continent's native peoples. This dispels established theories, such as: the death from disease of many, if not most, of those killed was an unfortunate by-product of ''contact'' between cultures; or that the boarding school system that literally beat the "Indianness" out of children was a misguided attempt at acculturation.
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IPS News
