A display praising the merits of peacekeeping that cited the killing of native North Americans as the world's worst genocide shouldn't be considered a jab at the United States, Belgian defense officials said Thursday.
| Moving NATO Headquarters from Brussels shouldn't be considered a jab at Belgium. |
Defense Ministry spokesman Gerard Vareng denied criticism that the display carried an anti-American message.
The display, shown at the monument of the Unknown Soldier in Brussels this week, was meant to honor Belgian soldiers who died in humanitarian missions. It included a panel listing North America as the continent of the world's worst genocide with a death toll of 15 million, starting with Christopher Columbus' 1492 arrival in the New World but giving no end date.
| Lemme see, here... 15 million... over the space of 512 years... We've been bumping them off at the rate of 29,296 and 7/8ths a year. The Third Reich covered a period of about 12 years, with 6 million Jews bumped off, so I think they've got us beat on a yearly basis at a half million per. That figure doesn't include the Slavs, Gypsies, and other ÃŒntermenschen, I think. The Soviet Union to the end of the Stalin era covered a period of 37 years, with 60,000,000 reported dead in state action. That'd give 1,621,621 and 2/3rds deaders per year, so I guess between them Lenin and Stalin could take the record. I don't have any figures for how many were bumped off in the Belgian Congo. Sorry. I might also point out that the Indians, especially at the first, gave as good as they got. Just ask the Roanoke Colony. And General Custer would probably agree with Virginia Dare. |
| Just goes to show the difference between state action and Manifest Destiny. |
The daily De Standaard called the display - that was also covered extensively in a defense ministry publication - insulting to Washington.
It said Defense Minister Andre Flahaut, who has tangled with U.S. officials in recent months, effectively blamed the United States for killing 15 million people "in a genocide that continues to this day."
| Of course it does. Why I potted a couple dozen Injuns before breakfast this morning myself... |
The newspaper complained about a "curious" list of genocides that mentioned Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia and other countries - but ignored killings in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin and Europe's colonial past in Africa, including Belgium's role in the Congo.
| How 'bout that Leopold, anyway? |
Vareng said "the peacekeeping display was the work of historical experts.
| I happen to know you can describe yourself as an "expert" if you can afford to have business cards printed... |
They took the list of genocides and the numbers of people who died in them on the "Encyclopedia of Genocide" by Israel W. Charny, head of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. He said the two-volume encyclopedia, published in 1999, is a "very serious book that deals with all kinds of genocides."
| Wonder if Leopold made it in there? |
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