DOCSLIB.ORG

Planning the Archaeological Recovery of Evidence from Recent Mass Serious

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Planning the Archaeological Recovery of Evidence from Recent Mass Serious Forensic Science International, 34 (1987) 267-287 267 Elsevier Scientific Publishers Ireland Ltd. PLANNING THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECOVERY OF EVIDENCE FROM RECENT MASS GRAVES MARK SKINNER Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, V5A IS6 (Canada) (Received August 18th, 1986) (Accepted April 7th, 1997) Summary Mass graves commonly contain hundreds of putrefying bodies, which bear evidence of torture and extrajudicial execution. These require careful excavation using archaeological techniques to recover the bodies for identification and to obtain associated evidence which document human rights abuses. In order to derive forensically defensible conclusions, exhumation of a mass grave may take weeks or months. Specialized protective suits and breathing apparatus will permit the investigating team to take the time required to retrieve even subtle evidence from repellant remains. Strategies for sampling tissues and bodies which reduce the magnitude of the recovery operation are described. Key words: Mass graves; Torture; Forensic archaeology; Protective suits Introduction Techniques for controlled recovery of forensic evidence from a mass grave are described in this paper. Accumulations of bodies have occurred through (a) volcanic mudflows as in Columbia recently where 23 606 perished [l], (b) col- lapse of apartment buildings, as in the Mexican earthquake [2], (c) serial murders [3] and (d) deliberate inhumation of victims of extrajudicial torture and execution [4]. According to one recent report on actions by the previous military government of Argentina, “Government authorities have discovered mass graves in cemeteries all over the capital (Buenos Aires), and in Cordoba Province diggers uncovered the remains of 706 corpses” [4]. In one northern suburb, 300 more corpses were found in 1 week. The scale of human dying can be overwhelming, as in the “killing fields” of Kampuchea [5,6]. Is there a point where the “illegal disposal of the dead” [7] must be left uninvestigated? Apparent reluctance to apply controlled recovery techniques to mass graves seems to prevail. The biggest obstacle perhaps is the potentially appalling state of the remains; who is prepared to climb into a mass grave time after time to make the necessarily acute forensic observations of, for example, whether a 0379-0738/87/$03.50 0 1987 Elsevier Scientific Publishers Ireland Ltd. Printed and Published in Ireland rotting cloth remnant is a blindfold, a ligature round the neck or just a neck- erchief? The homicide in Texas of many young boys by Dean Allen Corll is typical of various pressures that develop in a mass grave situation: Because of tremendous public interest and curiousity, large crowds accumulated, including television and press personnel. Since security became a major problem, the police used this as an excuse to remove the bodies as quickly as possible-so care was sacrificed for haste. No archaeologists were consulted and no archaeological techniques were used. At first, convict volunteers were employed in the digging. Since many became ill on account of the odor, a back hoe was used and later a bulldozer [8:324]. There is only one (unpublished) account of careful investigation of a mass grave situation: George Fully’s 1955 Doctoral dissertation entitled (in transla- tion): “The identification of the skeletons of the dead deportees in the German concentration camps”. He emphasized the need for archaeological techniques to recover the bodies [ 91. The purpose of this paper is to anticipate the specific problem of recognizing and collecting forensic evidence from a mass of actively decomposing bodies. Emphasis is placed on victims of state torture and secret disposal. The nature of forensic evidence encountered in a mass grave, particularly where torture may be suspected, is discussed in light of time constraints. An organizational framework is provided with summaries of equipment, personnel and proce- dures. The specific contribution that archaeological recovery techniques can make is described with modifications of “dry bones” archaeological methods for meticulous exposing and making observations in situ of decomposing bod- ies. Lastly, sampling strategies for tissues and bodies that help limit the recov- ery problem to manageable proportions are considered. Those authorities are addressed whose cooperation is required to ensure proper recovery of the bodies with associated forensic evidence, and archaeologists asked to partici- pate as forensic investigators. It is proposed that, instead of despairing that a mass grave is too big, smells too bad and takes too long to deal with, we should develop procedures that will work. Mass Graves, Physical Evidence and Torture A mass grave contains at least half a dozen individuals. Unlike a multiple burial, a mass grave contains bodies that usually have been placed indiscrim- inately and tightly together with no reverence for the individual. Related methods of disposing of awkward dead are “body dumps” (James Welsh, pers. comm.) and the “secret cemetery” [lo]. A mass grave may contain as many as 700 bodies and mass graves themselves may- be numerous [4,6]. Snow has described the typical mass grave as being in a remote location to which the victims were brought alive and executed with attempts to make identification of the body and grave site impossible [ 111.Charles Warren is a physical anthro- pologist experienced with processing large numbers of bodies from the field. Some American and allied military personnel killed in major engagements in 269 the Philippines during World War II were buried by Japanese in unmarked trenches excavated by bulldozer [12]. Warren describes one of several brick and clay mounds inside the walls of the Citadel of Hue City in Vietnam which contained seven incomplete skeletons [13]. He remarks that physical anthro- pologists employed in military identification laboratories where large numbers of war dead are processed have written little about their experiences [14]. In 1985, forensic scientists sponsored by the AAAS Committee on Scientific Free- dom and Responsibility directed a 5 week workshop in Argentina on the iden- tification of human skeletal remains; in response to the belief that most of 9000 “desaparicidos” were buried in mass graves [4,15]. Four fundamental varieties of physical evidence can be obtained from a mass grave. The first two of these - evidence of identity and when death occurred - are familiar if difficult questions to the death investigator. The other two - evidence of premortem, perhaps prolonged suffering, and cause, manner and mode of death revealed by perimortem traumata - assume a new significance in torture victims interred in a mass grave. The archaeologist, and those involving him at the grave site, must acknowl- edge that his methods and observations form an integral preliminary to a complete autopsy which will in great part determine the forensic resolution of the case. The role of the forensic archaeologist should be viewed, not as a useful but inessential service forensically less significant than the patholo- gist’s well-respected contribution, but as part of a coordinated team approach to complex crime scene investigation. There is a growing mystique about our ability to identify large numbers of people from mass disasters. Certainly in air disasters with a closed population -. crew and passenger list - and victims from social classes most of whom see dentists fairly regularly, many if not all get identified due to the dedicated efforts of forensic odontologists [17,18]. With mass graves it will be more difficult to obtain identifications. Charney and Wilber observe that in the Big Thompson flood, 65% of the identifications were made from physical features like ear shape, hammertoes, and fractures, rather than dental records [19]. They go on to note that perhaps only 40% of the American public see a dentist. In Third World countries, the proportion will be much less. Therefore, in obtaining identifications from mass graves, we cannot place our faith on re- secting jaws and discarding the noisome rest. The entire body will have to be scrutinized and recovered where possible. According to Amnesty International more than a third of the world’s gov- ernments during the 1980s used or tolerated torture or ill-treatment of prison- ers [lo]. For example, the Buenos Aires Bar Association of Argentina has stated (1982) that “The existence of torture as a system of police investigation is a notorious and indisputable fact” [ 10:144]. Torture is the infliction of men- tal and/or physical suffering for the benefit of the operator or an authority for whom he acts [ 161.Torture of the mind and torture techniques that leave little effect on the body will be difficult or impossible to demonstrate. “There is no test that is so specifiic as to determine positively that a given mark or symptom is the result of a particular act of torture” [10:92]. Because the body tends to heal itself, the profound behavioral and neurological disorders attendant upon torture cannot easily be “proven” to have been caused from torture. This is why dead bodies are so important forensically. Prior to severe decomposition, the soft tissues can preserve mute testimony to torture so severe as to lead to death. Even in advanced decomposition, there may be hard tissue evidence, such as fractures and objects with the bodies, which strongly suggest torture was inflicted before death. The distinction to be drawn between premortem and perimortem trauma (that
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Bioarchaeology of Past Epidemic- and Famine-Related Mass Burials with Respect to Recent Findings from the Czech Republic
    Volume X ● Issue 1/2019 ● Pages 79–87 INTERDISCIPLINARIA ARCHAEOLOGICA NATURAL SCIENCES IN ARCHAEOLOGY homepage: http://www.iansa.eu X/1/2019 Thematic review Bioarchaeology of Past Epidemic- and Famine-Related Mass Burials with Respect to Recent Findings from the Czech Republic Hana Brzobohatáa*, Jan Frolíka, Eliška Zazvonilováa,b aInstitute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Letenská 4, 118 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic bDepartment of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Viničná 7, 128 44 Prague 2, Czech Republic ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Irrespective of the reason for breaking usual burial customs, mass graves represent a valuable archive Received: 7th May 2019 of population data over a short period, and thus offer a vast amount of information for bioarchaeological Accepted: 23rd July 2019 research. Herein, we present a selective review of research on past epidemic and famine die-offs and of new interdisciplinary approaches in this field of study. We summarize the discoveries of epidemic- and DOI: http://dx.doi.org/ 10.24916/iansa.2019.1.6 famine-related graves that are temporally and spatially restricted to the medieval/early modern Czech territory, paying special attention to recently unearthed mass burials in Kutná Hora-Sedlec. These Key words: burial pits are historically and contextually associated with a famine in the early 14th century and with bioarchaeology the Black Death in the mid-14th century. To our knowledge, they represent the largest set of medieval plague mass graves not only in the Czech Republic but also on a European scale. famine ancient DNA Middle Ages mass burials 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Towards Mass-Grave Protection Guidelines
    Towards mass-grave protection guidelines HUM AN Melanie Klinkner Bournemouth University [email protected] Dr. Melanie Klinkner ([email protected]) is the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Leadership Fellow and Principal Academic in International Law at Bournemouth University. Dr. Klinkner is the lead researcher in the AHRC-funded project to develop mass grave protection guidelines. The project focuses on improving practice in relation to safeguarding and investigating mass graves. Addressing an important gap between knowledge and practice, the project provides policymakers with reasoned legal principles to implement effective mass grave protection. It endeavors to address the needs of victims of conflict and gross human rights violations and enhance their chance of receiving justice. The project outlines the importance of protecting mass graves, as they may provide valuable evidence in the prosecution of perpetrators. It also reviews the scope for identification and repatriation of the dead after conflict, as well as provisions for full and effective investigation of crimes. Key words: mass graves, legal protection, transitional justice, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law Introduction Mass graves, often containing hundreds of victims, regularly make news head- lines.1 In Iraq and Syria alone, more than three thousand victims of Islamic State activities are believed to be buried in such graves.2 According to a 2015 United Nations (UN)
    [Show full text]
  • U.N. in ACTION Programme No
    Release date: January 2007 U.N. IN ACTION Programme No. 1056 Length: 3’12” SOLVING A DELICATE ISSUE IN CYPRUS: THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE ISLAND’S 2000 MISSING PERSONS VIDEO AUDIO NARRATION ERMINE POINTS AT In Turkish controlled Nicosia, Emine PHOTOGRAPH OF HUSBAND / Degirmenciogly still misses her husband… (6”) WEDDING PHOTO EMINE DEGIRMENCIOGLY: (TURKISH) EMINE DEGIRMENCIOGLY, WIFE “I hope to get the bones back. I want to bury them OF MISSING PERSON, ON according to my religious beliefs. And I want my CAMERA children to know where their father’s grave is…” (12”) NARRATION NICHOLAS LOOK AT PHOTO OF On the other side of this divided capital, Greek HIS BROTHER Cypriot Nicholas Theodosiou looks affectionately at the photograph of his missing brother… (7”) NICHOLAS THEODOSIOU, NICHOLAS THEODOSIOU: (ENGLISH) BROTHER OF MISSING PERSON, “Everybody is looking forward to a closure, to bring ON CAMERA the issue to a closure…” (4”) NARRATION PHOTOS OF PROTESTS The issue Nicholas is referring to is a highly ARCHIVE TAPE PRISONER charged one. Some 1500 Greek Cypriots and 500 EXCHANGE (1974) Turkish Cypriots are officially registered as missing. They disappeared during the ­ 2 ­ inter­communal clashes that occurred during the 1960’s and during the partition of the island in 1974. But after many decades, this thorny issue could finally be solved. (24.5”) UN CONVOY / ABANDONED FARM UN peacekeepers patrol an abandoned farm, inside a buffer zone that divides the entire island of Cyprus. Some of those who lived and worked here went missing in 1974… (11”) DIGGING Nearby, a group of Greek and Turkish Cypriot scientists, working alongside international forensic experts, carefully dig out human bones.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Remains and Identification
    Human remains and identification HUMAN REMAINS AND VIOLENCE Human remains and identification Human remains Human remains and identification presents a pioneering investigation into the practices and methodologies used in the search for and and identification exhumation of dead bodies resulting from mass violence. Previously absent from forensic debate, social scientists and historians here Mass violence, genocide, confront historical and contemporary exhumations with the application of social context to create an innovative and interdisciplinary dialogue. and the ‘forensic turn’ Never before has a single volume examined the context of motivations and interests behind these pursuits, each chapter enlightening the Edited by ÉLISABETH ANSTETT political, social, and legal aspects of mass crime and its aftermaths. and JEAN-MARC DREYFUS The book argues that the emergence of new technologies to facilitate the identification of dead bodies has led to a ‘forensic turn’, normalizing exhumations as a method of dealing with human remains en masse. However, are these exhumations always made for legitimate reasons? And what can we learn about societies from the way in which they deal with this consequence of mass violence? Multidisciplinary in scope, this book presents a ground-breaking selection of international case studies, including the identification of corpses by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the resurfacing ANSTETTand of human remains from the Gulag and the sites of Jewish massacres from the Holocaust. Human remains
    [Show full text]
  • Mass Grave Exhumation Sites As Agonistic Fora: a Comparative Study of Spain, Poland and Bosnia
    MASS GRAVE EXHUMATION SITES AS AGONISTIC FORA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SPAIN, POLAND AND BOSNIA FRANCISCO FERRÁNDIZ ILLA-CCHS-CSIC MARIJE HRISTOVA University of Warwick In Repensar el pasado: La memoria (trans)cultural Europea. Ed. by Johanna Vollmeyer and Marta Fernández Bueno. Madrid: Dykinson (in press, 2019). 1. INTRODUCTION: MASS GRAVES AS MEMORY FORA This paper directly results from the H2020 project Unsettling Remembering and Social Cohesion in Transnational Europe (UNREST), which deals with the cultural legacies of war in Europe. Informed by a theoretical framework initially expressed in Anna Cento Bull and Hans Lauge Hansen’s article “On Agonistic Memory” (2016), this project analyses the plots that dominate the remembrance of Europe’s long twentieth century on the basis of museum narratives and contemporary mass grave exhumations. Within UNREST’s framework, mass grave exhumations and war museums are conceived of as standing on opposite poles of memory building processes with regard to Europe’s violent past. The highly unsettling cases of contemporary exhumations of mass graves, on the one hand, expose the bare violence inscribed upon corpses and skeletons, which has to be traumatically absorbed by the affected communities (hot memory). War museums, on the other hand, are the (unstable) result of highly elaborated memory politics (cold memory). Moreover, the mass graves discussed here define the external red lines of the musealised patrimony of Europe’s violent past.1 In this article, we will highlight the most important findings on the back of our study of mass grave exhumations in Spain, Poland and Bosnia, relating to respectively the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the Second World War and its 1 For UNREST’s research done on war museums see Berger et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Cemeteries, Synagogues, and Mass Grave Sites in Ukraine
    JEWISH CEMETERIES, SYNAGOGUES, AND MASS GRAVE SITES IN UKRAINE United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad 2005 UNITED STATES COMMISSION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF AMERICA’S HERITAGE ABROAD Warren L. Miller, Chairman McLean, VA Members: Ned Bandler August B. Pust Bridgewater, CT Euclid, OH Chaskel Besser Menno Ratzker New York, NY Monsey, NY Amy S. Epstein Harriet Rotter Pinellas Park, FL Bingham Farms, MI Edgar Gluck Lee Seeman Brooklyn, NY Great Neck, NY Phyllis Kaminsky Steven E. Some Potomac, MD Princeton, NJ Zvi Kestenbaum Irving Stolberg Brooklyn, NY New Haven, CT Daniel Lapin Ari Storch Mercer Island, WA Potomac, MD Gary J. Lavine Staff: Fayetteville, NY Jeffrey L. Farrow Michael B. Levy Executive Director Washington, DC Samuel Gruber Rachmiel Liberman Research Director Brookline, MA Katrina A. Krzysztofiak Laura Raybin Miller Program Manager Pembroke Pines, FL Patricia Hoglund Vincent Obsitnik Administrative Officer McLean, VA 888 17th Street, N.W., Suite 1160 Washington, DC 20006 Ph: ( 202) 254-3824 Fax: ( 202) 254-3934 E-mail: [email protected] May 30, 2005 Message from the Chairman One of the principal missions that United States law assigns the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad is to identify and report on cemeteries, monuments, and historic buildings in Central and Eastern Europe associated with the cultural heritage of U.S. citizens, especially endangered sites. The Congress and the President were prompted to establish the Commission because of the special problem faced by Jewish sites in the region: The communities that had once cared for the properties were annihilated during the Holocaust.
    [Show full text]
  • Depictions of the Korean War: Picasso to North Korean Propaganda
    Depictions of the Korean War: Picasso to North Korean Propaganda Spanning from the early to mid-twentieth century, Korea was subject to the colonial rule of Japan. Following the defeat of the Axis powers in the Second World War, Korea was liberated from the colonial era that racked its people for thirty-five-years (“Massacre at Nogun-ri"). In Japan’s place, the United States and the Soviet Union moved in and occupied, respectively, the South and North Korean territories, which were divided along an arbitrary boundary at the 38th parallel (Williams). The world’s superpowers similarly divided defeated Germany and the United States would go on to promote a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The divisions of Korea and Germany, results of the ideological clash between the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union, set the stage for the ensuing Cold War. On the 25th of June in 1950, North Korean forces, with support from the Soviet Union, invaded South Korea, initiating the Korean, or “Forgotten,” War. Warfare continued until 1953, when an armistice was signed between Chinese and North Korean military commanders and the U.S.-led United Nations Command (Williams). Notably, South Korea was not a signatory of the armistice; South Korea’s exclusion highlights the unusual circumstance that the people of Korea, a people with a shared history, were divided by the United States and the Soviet Union and incited by the super powers to fight amongst themselves in a proxy war between democracy and communism (Young-na Kim). Though depictions of the Korean War are inextricably tied to the political and social ideologies that launched the peninsula into conflict, no matter an artist’s background, his work imparts upon the viewer the indiscriminate ruination the war brought to the people of Korea.
    [Show full text]
  • Tulsa Race Massacre Investigation Oaklawn Cemetery Executive Summary of 2020 Test Excavations
    Tulsa Race Massacre Investigation Oaklawn Cemetery Executive Summary of 2020 Test Excavations Presented by the Physical Investigation Committee By Kary Stackelbeck, Ph.D. and Phoebe Stubblefield, Ph.D. with contributions by: Debra Green, Ph.D., Leland Bement, Ph.D., Amanda Regnier, Ph.D., Scott Hammerstedt, Ph.D., Angela Berg, M.A., and Scott Ellsworth, Ph.D. Key Findings: • Test excavations in the Sexton Area (July 13-22, 2020): o No evidence of a mass grave or any other human remains was identified. o Excavations revealed evidence of two historic roads and several episodes of dumping of debris, early to mid-20th century artifacts, and soil from other locations that collectively resulted in the accumulation of about 10 feet of fill over the sloped surface that we believe would have been present in the early 1900’s. o Excavations also revealed a low-lying swampy area near the southern end of the Sexton Area that contains very dark, wet soil, numerous artifacts, fragments of wood, and some non-human bone. • Soil Cores and Augers excavated in the Clyde Eddy Area (October 19-22, 2020): o No evidence of a mass grave or any other human remains was identified in the soil core samples. o From these results, it is possible that we are not looking in the same location indicated by Mr. Eddy or where the earlier geophysical survey (Brooks and Witten 2001) identified a promising anomaly. o Further investigation is needed. • Test excavations in the Original 18 Area (October 19-22, 2020): o Test excavations revealed a mass grave that contains the remains of at least 12 individuals based largely on evidence for coffins and coffin hardware.
    [Show full text]
  • Forensic Sciences in Libya and Mass Grave Mvestigation
    CHAPTER 36 Forensic sciences in Libya and mass grave mvestigation Amin Attia Alemam Libyan Sodey of forensic Odontologv. University ofBenghazi, Benghazi. Libya Introduction In the field of criminal investigations, there were Libyan instïtutions that had already been created during Forensic archaeology is not a recognised discipline in the period of the monarchy (1951—1969) of King Idris T, Libya, although much archaeological, anthropological for example, the National Centre of Legislative and (ai jSm) and forensic expertise is present in the country. Recemly, Criminal Research (Mshawari with the vork of a nuinber of scientists and the fali of 2012). The Centre was founded in 1964. It inciuded six the previous regime, the investigation of mass graves branches distrihuted over six different areas: Tripoli, and the training and formation of the judicial and secu Benghazi, Sabha, the Green Mountain, Sehratah and rity forces has been undertaken. The excavation of clan the West Mountain Branch. It was concemed with all destine graves bas slowly been carried out and with the the legal issues that needed specialist investigation in increase presence of forensic scientists, albeit the lack of different fields, forensic sdences among them. forensic archaeologists. This chapter summarises the In 2002 its name was changed from the Centre of judicial system and the attempts to use forensic disci Expert Witnesses to the Court of Laws and Research and plines in mass grave investigation in Libya. Recently, the It becarne more organised, with a presence of international organisations bas also high separate forensic medicine department. The last available lighted and introduced the role and work of forensic statistics for the number of cases in this department archaeology, and training is under way to promote the were for 2005, when 15,6 16 cases required examination value of the discipline, at least at the moment in rnass (clinical cases): 12,979 cases were I)rOcesSed in that grave investigation.
    [Show full text]
  • Genocide in the Liberation War of Bangladesh: a Case Study on Charkowa Genocide
    Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5766 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0484 (Online) Vol.11, No.6, 2021 Genocide in the Liberation War of Bangladesh: A Case Study on Charkowa Genocide Mohammad Abdul Baten Chowdhury Assistant Professor, Department of History & Civilization, University of Barishal, Barishal-8254, Bangladesh Md. Al-Amin* Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Barishal, Barishal-8254, Bangladesh Abstract The liberation war and the genocide of Bangladesh in 1971 are becoming the core research interest among genocide researchers, but the genocide in Charkowa has hardly been explored. As because of this, the current paper intended to explore the true history of the Charkowa genocide, where it found that on 20 August 1971 the Pakistani Army attacked the innocent people of Charkowa village and killed 16 people at the bank of Maragangi canal along with arson and looting of their homes and shops. The strategy was very obvious that it was a politicide type of genocide, where they wanted to destroy the support base of Mukti Bahini and the freedom fighters as well. Keywords: Genocide, Liberation War and Charkowa DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-6-02 Publication date: March 31 st 2021 1. Introduction Genocide in the 20th century became a common and so systematic and carried out most brutal activity “beginning with the deportation of Armenians from Ottoman territory, which may have taken the lives of as many as 1.8 million people in 1915. Nazi Germany engaged in mass extermination on a scale never seen before,”(Horvitz, Leslie Alan and Catherwood, 2006, p.
    [Show full text]
  • Vietnam - South Vietnam
    UN Secretariat Item Scan - Barcode - Record Title Page 3 Date 30/05/2006 Time 9:35:49 AM S-0871 -0001 -03-00001 Expanded Number S-0871 -0001 -03-00001 Title |tems-in-Peace-keeping operations - Vietnam - South Vietnam Date Created 10/02/1968 Record Type Archival Item Container s-0871 -0001: Peace-Keeping Operations Files of the Secretary-General: U Thant - Viet-Nam Print Name of Person Submit Image Signature of Person Submit PRESS RELEASE REPUBLIC OF VIET OFFICE OF THE PERMANENT OBSERVER TO THE UNITED NATIONS 866 UNITED NATIONS PLAZA, SUITE 547-9, NEW YORK, N. Y. 10017 • TEL: (588-3851-3850 / COMMENTS ON SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY'S CRITISM OF VIETNAM We regret that Senator Robert F. Kennedy has chosen this critical time to emit unfair and unfounded critism against the people and the government of South Vietnam which are sweating blood and tears to rehabilitate thousand? of civilians, vic+>ms of the attacks of the Viet Cong terrorists The failure of North Vietnam and of Viet Cong to incite the popula- tion to uprising has amply answered the Senator's charge that the Vietnamese peoplp do not have a clear sense of identification with their own government. The determination of our people and soldiers to fight the Viet Cong terrorists has demonstrated clearly to the Senator what caure we are fighting for. The remarks by the Senator would be more constructive in this junction, if he had refrained himself from making easy critism without giving evidence for his charges. PRESS RELEASE REPUBLIC OF VIET OFFICE OF THE PERMANENT OBSERVER TO THE UNITED NATIONS 866 UNITED NATIONS PLAZA, SUITE 547-9, NEW YORK, N.
    [Show full text]
  • The Case of an Armenian Mass Grave
    Journal of Human Rights ISSN: 1475-4835 (Print) 1475-4843 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjhr20 The Case of an Armenian Mass Grave Roxana Ferllini & Alexandra M. Croft To cite this article: Roxana Ferllini & Alexandra M. Croft (2009) The Case of an Armenian Mass Grave, Journal of Human Rights, 8:3, 229-244, DOI: 10.1080/14754830903110285 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14754830903110285 Published online: 18 Aug 2009. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 299 View related articles Citing articles: 7 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjhr20 Download by: [University of Toronto Libraries] Date: 27 January 2017, At: 10:52 Journal of Human Rights, 8:229–244, 2009 Copyright © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1475-4835 print / 1475-4843 online DOI: 10.1080/14754830903110285 The Case of an Armenian Mass Grave ROXANA FERLLINI AND ALEXANDRA M. CROFT During the summer of 2007 at Ras al-Ain, in north eastern Syria, forensic archaeological exhumations took place at the archaeological site of Tell Fakhriya, involving a mass grave believed to hold the remains of Ottoman Armenians, who died at a nearby concentration camp after forced deportations by Ottoman officials. The objective of the forensic analysis of these remains was to obtain biological profiles of those buried within the grave. The exhumations conducted produced a minimum of 80 individuals in various states of skeletal preservation, including adults of both sexes and juveniles. The conclusions provided interesting results, some corroborating historical accounts, whilst also creating open questions.
    [Show full text]