– I watched a show tonight that took place in Spain. But it could have been Syria, Chile or Cambodia. or any number of other places. They were digging up a mass grave that dated from Franco’s time and the people buried there had probably been killed in 1936.
A person was asked if they thought there was value in digging these folks up and they offered the opinion that they didn’t think so. It was the past and long ago. We should just forget it and get on with today and life.
So wrong
I couldn’t have disagreed more. Every strongman, every dictator, every despot should know that their crimes against others will not be forgotten. They should know that misusing their power against others who cannot defend themselves will not quietly go away. There will be no place to hide.
To me, it is abhorrent that it took so long between the years of the killing fields and when Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cronies were tried. Abhorrent that Pinochet was able to hide from international judgement for so many years.
When the dust settles in Syria, those at the top of the now Syrian government should be held until all the atrocities are enumerated and then they should be judged and punished according to their complicity.
Qaddafi got a rough judgement and so should everyone who abuses their power and abuses other people like this. And these judgements should come sooner than later.
Everybody in one of those graves had a name, had a mother, loved someone and was loved by someone and had dreams and a future. Everyone of them had a right to express their differences with the government of the day without it costing them their lives.
It still goes on today and it should not. We yammer on about our compassion for human rights and justice but so much of it is just talk. The kind of talk and hang wringing that gets done when we’re really obsessing over the geopolitical consequences or the effect it may have on trade.
And, while we’re talking, we can hear on the radio that they are marching men right now into the stadium at Srebrenica – and few of us that day were much in doubt as to what was next. But the politicians just keep on talking. Talk, talk, talk while people were dying.
Spain, Rwanda, the Katyn Forest – you name it – the lists go on and on.
It is wrong. And those who do it, or those stand silently by while it is done, should be punished every time, without fail, to send a message for all who are yet to consider making such a decision.