Hushed voices : unacknowledged atrocities of the 20th century / edited by Heribert Adam.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 203-214) and index.

Introduction / Heribert Adam -- Robert Mugabe's Gukurahundi / Sheila Paoli -- Nightmare in paradise : the 1964 Zanzibar revolution and genocide / Sandra Lockwood -- Unpacking the "Mau Mau" rebellion / Salima Charnia -- The Biafran War for Independence : Nigeria in the 1960s / Patricia Kelly -- The Algerian Harkis : t{u296D}oignages d'une histoire cach{u2965} / Dylan van der Schyff -- Unmarked graves and old wounds : the Spanish Civil War / Michael Donovan -- Blind spot : the Allied bombing of Dresden / Scott-Ryan Abt -- Broken promises and blind eyes : the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland after World War II / Lianna Laberge -- No one else to ask : investigating the Ukrainian Holodomor / Jean Kosar -- The G-word : why Turks and Armenians can't talk / Karen DeVito -- Syria : Hama Massacre / Omar Ilsley -- Israel : stillborn nation / Dale Darychuk -- The 2002 massacre of Gujarati Muslims : the violent face of Hindu nationalism / Vinit Khosla -- Shadow play : political mass murder and the 1965 Indonesian coup / Elaine Bri{u1972}e -- Comfort women : sexual slaves of the Imperial Japanese military / Linda Elaine Vogt Turner -- Conclusions / Heribert Adam.

Unlike widely reported genocides, such as those in Nazi Germany, Rwanda and Cambodia, some atrocities remain unacknowledged, are denied and excluded from history textbooks. Yet the buried past is important, not only because perpetrators of gross human rights violations should be held accountable, but also because victims and their descendants warrant recognition. Unacknowledged atrocities breed resentment; they taint the collective identity of a nation and cause divisions when future generations challenge the sanitized versions of history. Official silence about past misdeeds suggests complicity and promotes impunity. Above all, non-acknowledgement prevents learning from past injustices. Hushed Voices analyzes fifteen key cases of forgotten mass political violence from around the world. In Africa these include massacres in Zanzibar, the Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe, Biafra, the Algerian Harkis, and the Mau Mau anti-colonial rebellion; in the Middle East, the Armenian massacre in Turkey, the Palestinian Nakba and the Hama uprising in Syria are examined; in Asia, the book considers Suharto's slaughter of half a million Indonesians, the actions of Imperial Japan and Gujarati Hindu nationalism; in Europe, the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Spanish Civil War, Dresden and the ethnic cleansing of Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia after World War II make up the case studies. Theories of ethnic conflict, reconciliation, truth commissions and post-conflict reconstruction are reviewed in the conclusion.