6. Invasion of East Timor
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Indonesia
The genocide in East Timor began in 1975, when the Indonesian military invaded the Timor Islands. The occupation of the Indonesian people in East Timor, also known as Operation Lotus was the major goal of the Indonesian military. It occurred under the pretext of combating colonialism and communism to remove the Fretilin regime that had been installed in 1974. This provoked a violent occupation and approximately 200,000 people were massacred in the genocide that occurred shortly after Indonesian independence.
The genocide was separated into two periods, with the first beginning in 1975 and the second ending in 1999. The majority of East Timorese were forced to relocate to a concentration camp, where they were mass murdered.
In the first period after the occupation, the Indonesian military faced massive resistance in the mountain area of the island, but from 1977 to 1978, the military obtained new technology weaponry from the U.S., and other countries, to defeat Fretilin’s structure.
5 thoughts on “8 Most Horrific Massacres In World History”
I don’t believe either the limited scale Russia-Ukraine conflict or a brutal police action in the US could possibly top the Armenian massacre by the Turks!! What about the Hutu massacre by Tutus in Rwanda? The Uighur persecutions by the CCP many of our politicans love taking money from? The rape camps and concentration camps the mostly Muslim Bosnians experienced?
The Rape of Nanking? Those two of the named actions on your list do not belong in the top five hundred of world’s worst massacres!
Tamerlane, Genghis Khan, the Crusades, the European wars from Julius Caesar to WWII, the African tribal conflicts, these ALL contained within their parameters incidents of great violence perpetrated on the innocent! I am not even including the actual wars and what atrocities occurred when the soldiers were fighting each other.
I’m no historian so these are just some of worse atrocities that came to my mind as I went through this list.
BEFORE I READ THE ARTICLE, I WAS SO SURE THAT YOU WOULD HAVE OMITTED THE CARNAGE METED OUT TO NEGROES DURING AMERICAN SLAVERY – AND INDEED I WAS CORRECT –
THE THOUSANDS OF DEAD BODIES THROWN OVERBOARD DURING THE MIDDLE PASSAGE, THE DAILY AND WEEKLY HANGINGS , THE COUNTLESS YOKINGS WHERE SLAVES WERE PLACED IN VATS AND BOILED TO DEATH ON EACH PLANTATION- I AM SURE YOUR RESPONSE WOULD BE – IT NEVER HAPPENED IN THIS WORLD – OR “IT WAS NOT POLITICAL ” YES IT WAS !!
WHAT ABOUT THE CARNAGE OF THE HUTUS AND TUTUS AND – IDI AMIN IN UGANDA ? I FORGOT – AFRICA AND AFRICANS ARE NOT PART OF THIS WORLD …
Just anted to add. I guess it is easy to omit the slaughter of thousands of Native Americans and the lynching of black Americans post 1860. Ever heard of thee Trail of Tears and the Tulsa Massacre.
The U.S. ranks #1.
How could you leave out the Cambodian massacre of thousands of people under the dictator Pol Pot?
Can’t believe you left out the Rape of Nanking in 1937, where Japanese invaders committed unspeakable atrocities on a grand scale, killing millions of Chinese innocents, including just-born and unborn babies, and required family members to have sex with each other as the women were systematically raped and killed. I’d have it in the top three to say the least along with Stalin’s and Hitler’s pogroms.