Belgian minister sparks US genocide row (MEGA BARF ALERT)

Expatica News ^ | 9 April 2004 | Expatica News

[Jacob Kell]

BRUSSELS - Belgian Defence Minister Andre Flahaut has come under heavy criticism for approving an official document that says the United States is responsible for the biggest genocide committed during the past 500 years.

The claim appeared in an official defence ministry magazine as part of a 16-page report on genocide around the world.

The report was published to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which left up to a million people dead.

According to the report, the worst genocide committed in the past 500 years has been the extermination of native Americans in what is today the US. The study said this mass killing began in 1492, when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, and that the genocide has claimed 15 million lives.

The report gave no clear end date for the US genocide, implying, said some analysts, that the extermination of native Americans is still continuing today.

Number two on the list of the world's greatest genocides was the extermination of native peoples in south America, the report continued.

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Flemish newspaper De Standaard vehemently criticised Flahaut for allowing the study to be published.

"This publication puts our relations with all north and south American countries at risk," the paper said in an angry editorial, adding that it considered Flahaut to be "unfit or incompetent".

Flahaut has already angered Washington in the past. Earlier this year he said in a magazine interview that he would vote Democrat if he were American. He was also a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq and briefly threatened to close Belgian airspace and the port of Antwerp to the American military ahead of last year's invasion of the middle eastern state.

The Belgian authorities have sought to play down the impact of the report. A government official quoted on the website of national broadcaster RTBF called the furore surrounding the document "a storm in a teacup".

Despite this, sources say Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, who was in Rwanda to commemorate the victims of that country's genocide when the furore blew up, has already spoken to the US ambassador in Africa's great lakes region in a bid to head of an embarrassing diplomatic spat.

Michel was on Friday also set to discuss the affair with his US opposite number Colin Powell, sources added.

Before Flahaut's latest diplomatic gaffe, relations between Belgium and the US appeared to be improving after two decidedly frosty years.

Earlier this week it emerged that US President George W Bush had written to Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt to thank him for the role his country has played inside the Nato alliance and also for Brussels' efforts to tackle terrorism.

[Copyright Expatica News 2004]

[Jacob Kell]

Does Flahaut or that report ever mention the many Congolese slaughtered by the Belgians under King Leopold? Something tell me not very likely. Waffle-eating pink motherf****rs.

[big bad easter bunny]

The only moral thing to do is hand over who ever was president at the time to the world court and let them have their way with him. He he he

[Dog Gone]

What does this bozo think Spain did in Mexico, Central America, and South America? How many Indians were put to the sword down there?

This is just more anti-American slander from the country that hosts NATO headquarters.

Next time they're invaded, they're on their own. Better yet, I'll send money to the invaders.

[Cuttnhorse]

There was a news article last week about how the Belgies are all in a snit about the recent BBC documentary describing the basis for the excellent book, King Leopold's Ghost.

Them accusing us of genocide is a joke.

[Cuttnhorse]

By the way, why does Belgium need a defense minister???

[narby]

According to the report, the worst genocide committed in the past 500 years has been the extermination of native Americans in what is today the US

I'm descended from one of the few survivors of the Pidgeon Roost Masacre. My ancestor hid under some of the crops in the field until the savages were gone.

So someone should tell the Belgian that we didn't have fighter bombers back then, and plenty of killing went on both ways.

Europeans landed here in America where the general culture was to kill your neighbors when the mood struck. We didn't want to loose that battle, so we won it. It's as simple as that.

[NativeNewYorker]

Belgian Defence Minister Andre Flahaut

[Guillermo]

Belgium, more than any other Western country is responsible for the Rwandan genocide.

Feeling a bit guilty???

[DumpsterDiver]

The study said this mass killing began in 1492, when Christopher Columbus first landed in America..

I had no idea that America was that old.

[pragmatic_asian]

So the Belgian colonization and exploitation of Rwanda wasn't a factor? France's arming and training of Hutu extremists played no part? It was all America's fault because we might have been able to do something about it? And those Euro punks keep calling Americans ignorant.

[Guillermo]

Considering that the direct orders to Belgian troops in Rwanda (under UN command) were to *not* shoot, to *not* fight back and to "try to reason with the rebels, explaining to them why they're wrong" (almost the exact instruction), they should simply shut down their military.

[Guillermo]

Actually, it was Belgium (Clinton actually had the gall to blame Congress) which prevented any Western intervention in Rwanda.

[Diogenesis]

"This is a diversion.
We are Old Europe, where genocide is routine."

[Oztrich Boy]

Genocide compare:

How many preColumbian nations are still extant with their own adminstration in the former British Americas?

How many in the former Hispanic Americas?

[Frunabulax]

I had no idea that America was that old.

Well, ya learn something new every day. And here I thought Christopher Columbus was a Spaniard.

[Dog Gone]

It looks like he might know more about Belgian chocolates than world history.

[bwteim]

[Dog Gone]

I'm taking some strong pain medication tonight for an injury I received last weekend, and I'm going to blame those pills for why I don't understand your post. I don't think any preColumbian nations are still extant with their own administration, so I don't know how to compare.

[Cuttnhorse]

That's exactly right...plus the Clintooon admin, under Maddie (the cleaning lady) Albright's directorship at the UN, armed personnel carriers were not sent because they were awaiting paint jobs to change their colors from green to scared-white.

[Guillermo]

Rwanda was a micro-cosm if failed liberal policy towards thugs and killers.

I guess you saw the Frontline documentary, where the low level State Department bureaucrat was begging the Rebels to "stop fighting" against the government that was committing the genocide.

I guess that stupid twit thought that if they laid down their arms, the genocide would stop.