Dishonorable Mention: Guinea and Turkey

Dishonorable Mention on the 2009 Most Wanted List of governments responsible for crimes against humanity goes to two very different nations for two very different reasons: To the West African country of Guinea, whose military dictatorship is stirring up ethnic strife, and to Turkey, whose perpetual denial of the Armenian Genocide has recently been supplemented by denial of the genocide in Darfur.

First, to Guinea: An extensive report released by Human Rights Watch earlier this month documented a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protestors by the ruling military junta's presidential guard, and concluded that the massacre was premeditated by the junta's increasingly paranoid and power hungry leader, Captain Moussa "Dadis" Camara. Dadis is also suspected of training ethnic militias, raising fears that orchestrated ethnic strife in Guinea could destabilize the entire West African region.

The leaders of Turkey continue to adamantly deny the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during World War I, despite moves to normalize relations with Armenia; as has historically been their habit, Turkish politicians also continued to hamstring international efforts to recognize the genocide. Even more, after pressure from the European Union forced a last minute cancelation of a visit by Sudanese President and indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan commented to the press that "a Muslim couldn't do such things. A Muslim could not commit genocide." It seems probable that Erdogan had not only Bashir, but also his ancestors in mind with that statement.

[Image of a New York Times headline from February 23, 1915, from Wikimedia Commons.]