The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, one of the largest man made natural disasters of all time, is commonly believed to have been caused by the negligence of the skipper who was drunk at the wheel. But recent research has shown the skipper was not at the wheel at all but was actually sleeping off his drunk when the third mate grounded the ship in the rocky straights of Prince William Sound. The result was the spilling of 11 million gallons of oil into the environmentally sensitive area.

The great tragedy of the matter is that it could have been prevented had Exxon followed their own safety standards. But in efforts to save money they left the boat running with faulty equipment for more than a year before the accident. Even more shocking is the fact that the Rycas Radar System, which would have allowed the 3rd mate to maneuver the ship safely through the straights, was turned off because the executives at Exxon deemed it too expensive to run. Even worse, the clean up ship that was legally required to ride alongside all oil tankers going through the strait was in dry dock at the time of the accident, allowing what should have been a containable spill to become one of the greatest environmental disasters in history.

Shocking evidence collected by Greg Palast ( www.gregpalast.com ) shows how efforts made by Captain James Woodle, Valdez Port Commander, to express the dangers of an oil spill in the Prince William Sound due to aging equipment, undermanned and undertrained clean up teams were not only ignored but purposely disregarded. The captain was apparently told when he reported a previous smaller spill in the same area, “You made a mistake. There was not an oil spill.”

This attitude is shown by Palast to have been standard operating procedure for Exxon and their partner company British Patrolium. The companies hired native workers who lived in the area to train for oil-spill containment. But what they found was that they were actually told to cover up oil spills rather than contain them. 2000 gallon spills were to be reported as 2 gallon spills. In the end however, the native teams were all fired once Exxon and BP broke the dock workers union strike, the dock workers were then put back on oil-clean up duty. With little training, old or non-existent equipment and a mandate to keep the area clean by leaving spills unreported.

The irony is that after the mistakes and downright criminal negligence shown by Exxon that led to the accident they were highly praised for their clean-up efforts. Even though many accounts show Exxon trying to deal with the problem as quickly and cheaply as possible, passing most of the work off onto locals and volunteers.

The Rwanda Genocide was a gruesome episode in human history which resulted from the conflict between the minority Tutsi peoples and the Hutu peoples between April and June 1994 in which as many as 1,000,000 people were slaughtered.

Historical Background

In the 15th century the Kingdom of Rwanda was formed when several clans of Tutsi merged. 85% of the population were Hutu, mostly peasants. The result was a serfdom with the Tutsis as rulers and landowners and the Hutu as landless farmers. During the late 1800s Rwanda fell under German colonial rule. The Germans didn’t however directly occupy the land, they instead appointed the Tutsi as their local representatives, further exacerbating the division between Hutu and Tutsi. Following World War I Rwanda was ruled by Belgium who continued the German method of indirect rule, further empowering the elite Tutsi minority. In 1959 Belgium allowed Rwanda the practice of self-government. This improved the lot of the Hutu greatly in general elections, however violence ensued and up to 20,000 Tutsis are thought to have died.

In 1985 the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RTF), was formed in Uganda mainly of Tutsi refugees. In 1990 the RTF invaded Rwanda in a bid to regain power. The ensuing civil war was ended in 1993 by when joint U.S. / French led to the Arusha Accords which reformed the government and paved the way for new elections to be held. The accords were not signed by all parties involved and thus failed to bring about the hoped for peace.

Lead up to Genocide

The failure of the accords resulted in a campaign of Hutu nationalism with many groups calling for violence against the Tutsis. Militias were formed, weapons amassed and training undertaken. It became the common belief of the Hutu controlled government that if the Tutsis were eliminated all of Rwanda’s problems would be over. This belief was put into action by distributing guns, grenades and other weapons openly. Shockingly, weapons were sold to the Hutu government in vast numbers by both French and British weapons manufacturers with seemingly full knowledge of how these weapons were to be used.

Genocide

The spark that finally ignited the genocide was the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi’s Hutu President Cyprien Ntaryamira. This was supposedly carried out by the RTF, however some believe the CIA was involved with, if not directly responsible for, the assassination. The following day the genocide started in earnest with radio broadcasts containing the coded message to “Cut down the tall trees.” Tutsis were rounded up and slaughtered with unbelievable savagery. Between April and July 1994 massacres resulted in the deaths of between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people.

Failure to Intervene

The U.S., France, Russia, and China all refused to intervene in what they saw as an internal matter. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) commander, Canadian Major-General Romeo Dalliare repeatedly urged the U.S. and other nations to intervene. His please were ignored and President Bill Clinton explicitly refused to intervene. Only Belgium sent troops in to intevene but after the savage murder of 10 of their troops pulled out. Dalliare was ordered to assist in helping foreign nationals out of the country, he did this as well as organized Canadian, Ghanian and Dutch soldiers in an effort to protect what Tutsis they could from annihilation.

In April the UN Security Council finally called for troops to be sent in to quell the violence, but squabbles over finances held up their deployment. In June the French decided on their own to send in forces which finally did bring the violence under control.

Relief Efforts and Aftermath

Relief efforts finally did start to begin following the subsiding of violence, but it was meek and ill-organized. There are many tales of heroism and selflessness however as people tried to bring help to the savaged nation. Israel organized the largest medical relief effort in history with thousands of doctors and medical staff volunteering to help out. The UN began to hold trials for crimes against humanity in 1999 and the country slowly started the long journey back to civilization. The country is still however in dire straights.

The inaction of the UN and various world powers helped this nationalist conflict reach inhuman heights of barbarity and depravity. This horrible page of human history should be remembered always when warnings of similar situations are given.

For further information please check out the book co-written by Major-General Dalliare entitled: Shake Hands with the Devil.

The Canadian province of Quebec has stated that the US state of Michigan is guilty of enforcing laws that fail to live up to the standards of human decency. This is resulting from Michigan’s Zero Tolerance drug laws. The law, which has been called the harshest in the nation would put a first time offender behind bars for life, without parole, for possession of 650 grams of cocaine or more with intent to sell.

This law is part of the ‘mandatory minimums’ system of drug enforcement that is popular in many US states. That a first time offender can be jailed for that length of time without parole is not only unbelievable it is also immoral and inhuman.

The law was apparently introduced to target Drug Kingpins, but a rational look at the policy clearly points out that this law is actually aimed at low-level dealers. Most of whom will obviously be young people living in inner-city slums and the like. Here is a list of the graded mandatory minimum sentences:

If this policy truly were aimed at major drug dealers the minimum amount for life in prison would be set much higher as drug kingpins are unlikely to deal in amounts which could easily be carried by one person in a small bag.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: The truest measure of a society is how it treat’s it’s prisoners.