Genocide

Two and a half years after lawmakers fell short in their effort to pass a resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide, sponsors of the long-debated measure are launching a new bid to bring the issue before the House. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee and backs the resolution, plans to bring it before his panel Thursday. It will come before the House "only if the votes are there to pass it," Berman said. "Once we pass it out of committee, we're going to try to get those votes."

A Rwandan court sentenced nine people to death and one to life imprisonment in the killing of a survivor who was due to testify about their role in the country's 1994 genocide, officials said. The court ruled that the defendants were guilty of killing Emile Ntahimana last year in the province of Gikongoro. Prosecutors said Ntahimana was among four genocide survivors who were later killed to stop them from giving evidence. Extremist Hutus killed about 800,000 people in the genocide.

The House unanimously passed a resolution declaring that genocide was occurring in Sudan's Darfur region, where Arab militias are accused of attacking black Africans. Resolution backers hope to pressure the United Nations to take action. The measure urges President Bush to seek U.N. sanctions, a multinational force and an investigative body. The Senate has not acted.

The European Union said it had found no evidence of genocide in the Sudanese region of Darfur, although it said killing was widespread, with little evidence of government efforts to protect civilians. The conclusion of a fact-finding mission put the EU at odds with the U.S. Congress, which has leveled accusations of genocide at Sudan over a campaign of looting and burning by Arab militiamen against village farmers. Sudan says the militiamen are outlaws and denies charges of arming them.

Rwandan authorities have arrested at least 500 Hutu refugees accused of genocide among the 340,000 who have returned from Tanzania this month, U.N. officials said. Anne Willem Bijleveld, an official with the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the refugees were arrested in northeastern Rwanda in connection with the 1994 genocide of about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. A Hutu refugee lobby group said the returnees were being arrested on the basis of false testimony.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame issued a decree releasing up to 40,000 inmates, including thousands of genocide suspects. The move has enraged survivors of the bloodshed, which claimed the lives of more than 800,000 people in 1994. The decree, which does not cover the leaders of the genocide, is meant to reduce the number of prisoners in jail.

On a unanimous vote, the City Council endorsed a resolution now under consideration by the House of Representatives that would recognize the killing of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 as genocide. Support for the resolution has diminished as members of Congress have scrambled to smooth over relations with Turkey, an ally of the United States and a fierce foe of the measure.

Lifelong friends Garen Yegparian and Ara Oshagan decided two years ago to use their artistic talents to show the world a portrait of a dark and largely ignored period of history: the 1915-23 genocide of Armenians carried out by the Turkish government. The result is the Genocide Awareness Project, a photo exhibit featuring portraits of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, which opened Tuesday at Los Angeles City Hall and runs through April 30.

A daylong seminar on the Armenian genocide drew a capacity crowd Saturday to a 300-seat UCLA lecture hall, as academics from across the nation and Europe discussed the World War I-era slaughter. The seminar was held on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Armenian studies program at UCLA and was attended by the consul general of Armenia and his staff, said seminar organizer and UCLA history professor Richard G. Hovannisian.

A Belgian court today found two Rwandan nuns guilty of war crimes in the African nation's 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. The jury convicted the Roman Catholic nuns, Sisters Gertrude and Maria, of most of the counts of homicide against them. They were charged with helping Hutu extremists kill more than 5,000 people at their convent.