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United States
During the American Civil War, almost 45,000 Union prisoners were held at a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, commanded by superintendent Henry Wirz. Starvation, malnutrition and disease killed nearly 13,000 men -- 40 percent of all deaths among Union prisoners held by the Confederacy. After the war’s conclusion, Wirz was tried and convicted by a federal court-martial in Washington on charges of conspiracy and murder. He was hanged on November 10, 1865.
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Chile
During the 1973-1990 military regime led by Augusto Pinochet, more than 2,000 Chilean citizens were killed for political reasons and tens of thousands were detained and tortured by the regime. Two truth and reconciliation commissions were established by subsequent governments to investigate the human rights abuses in order to have the state provide lifelong monetary compensation to the surviving victims. At the time of Pinochet’s death in 2006, some 300 criminal charges were pending against him, including those related to human rights abuses such as torture, forced disappearance and assassination.
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Argentina
From 1976 through 1983, between 9,000 and 30,000 political dissidents were “disappeared” by Argentina’s military junta by being sedated and thrown alive out of airplanes into the Atlantic Ocean. In its campaign against real and perceived enemies of the regime, the government also employed torture. After democracy was restored in 1983, former junta leader Jorge Videla was convicted of numerous homicides, kidnapping and torture. The Argentine judicial system overturned a 1990 pardon in April 2007 and Videla is currently under house arrest.
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Rwanda
At least 500,000 Tutsis and thousands of moderate Hutus died in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that occurred during the country’s civil war. The U.N. Security Council set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzania in November 1994 to try those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The first trials of Rwandan leaders began in 1997. The tribunal is expected to complete its work by 2010.
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Cambodia
Between 1975 and 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot murdered an estimated 1.5 million of the country’s 7.5 million citizens through executions, starvation and forced labor projects. In 2006, the Cambodian government and the United Nations set up a joint multinational tribunal to try senior Khmer Rouge members for crimes against humanity, including genocide. Five suspects, including Comrade Duch, the commander of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, were indicted in 2007. The trials are expected to begin in 2008.
U.S. Ambassador to U.N. Recounts 1976 Escape from Khmer Rouge
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Japan
Between the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria and Imperial Japan’s defeat by the Allies in 1945, the country’s military murdered anywhere from 3 million to 10 million people, including Chinese, Indonesians, Koreans, Filipinos, Indochinese and Allied prisoners of war. The military also engaged in torture, forced labor, looting and rape. A special tribunal, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, was convened in Tokyo between 1946 and 1948 to try high-ranking Japanese military and political leaders, as well as those charged with prisoner abuses. China also held 13 of its own war crimes tribunals.
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Iraq
In 2004, Iraq’s Interim Government established a special tribunal to try those accused of committing genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or other serious offenses during the country’s rule by the Baath Party between 1968 and 2003. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and three other senior officials were convicted and executed for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiite men and boys in Dujail, and were accused of other atrocities such as the 1988 chemical attacks that killed thousands of Kurdish civilians.
Rice Praises Iraqi Tribunal's Deliberations in Saddam Hussein Case
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The Hague, Netherlands
The Hague hosts more than 150 international legal organizations including the International Criminal Court, which is responsible for trying cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide; the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and the International Court of Justice or World Court. The Dutch city, which was the venue for the world’s first two peace conferences in 1899 and 1907, is known internationally as “the city of peace and justice.”
International Bodies and Local Courts Hold War Crimes Trials
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Germany
After the end of World War II, the Allied powers convened a special tribunal in Nuremburg, Germany, to try prominent political, military and economic leaders of Nazi Germany for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace. During the Holocaust between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis murdered nearly half of Europe’s 14 million Jews. Other victims included Gypsies, homosexuals, the handicapped, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war and many European civilians. The 1945-1946 trials of the 24 highest-level leaders resulted in death and prison sentences, as well as acquittals. They established the precedent for the adoption of the International Criminal Court. The modern state of Germany also has paid nearly $70 billion in reparations to Israel, as well as $15 billion to Holocaust survivors.
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Former Yugoslavia
The 1992-1995 military conflict that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia resulted in 100,000 dead. Thousands of individuals were suspected of committing atrocities against the region’s Muslim, Croat and Serb populations. The 1993 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was the first tribunal established under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter and the first body to indict a sitting head of state, Serbian Prime Minister Slobodan Milošević, for war crimes. (Related article: U.S. Reaffirms Support for Tribunal Following Milosevic's Death.)
In July 2008, the Government of Serbia arrested former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was indicted by the ICTY in July 1995 for six counts of genocide and two counts of crimes against humanity for acts he allegedly committed as leader of a breakaway Republika Srpska.
(Related article:
White House Hails Arrest of Radovan Karadzic.)
