Sam Venable

Columnist

Tomorrow is the 70th commemoration of United Nations Human Rights Day. To paraphrase that old Southern expression, there’s more than enough to say grace over.

Such as the death of a singular human being, like the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, plus thousands, en masse, from starvation in war-torn Yemen.

Such as the tear-gassing of asylum seekers at the Mexico-U.S. border and police removal of 2,000 refugees from a Doctors Without Borders camp in France.

Such as voter suppression, either through strategically crafted legislation or by the sword.

And so many, many more.

Violations of human rights amount to a sadistic game of 52-card pickup. A brief summary of atrocities from the international Human Rights Watch includes torture, slavery, religious intolerance, racial disparity, assassination, genocide, human trafficking and trial by kangaroo court.

There’s also forced relocation, often under the guise of national security.

Volumes have been written about the Trail of Tears of the mid-1850s, when more than 60,000 Native Americans were death-marched to reservations in the Midwest. Equally well documented is the internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II.

On a visit to an Alaskan museum this past summer, however, I discovered the WWII removal of other Native Americans, an estimated 900 inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands.

“Aleuts” were peaceful trappers and commercial fishermen. Yet they were rounded up and their villages burned.

Herewith, a few excerpts of the operation from a 1997 report by the University of Alaska:

Allowed only one suitcase and a bedroll, Aleuts “had to leave their personal belongings and most of their sacred church icons behind. Livestock and pets were slaughtered so they wouldn’t starve.”

Some evacuees were housed at an abandoned cannery where “the buildings were dilapidated and not insulated for winter use. There were bugs in the water, and food was scarce.” At another facility, “one toilet served 300 people.”

Belatedly (1980), the U.S. government made a formal apology and paid each survivor of the Aleut evacuation $12,000. Twenty million more dollars went into a rebuilding fund.

Said Sen. Ted Stevens during the ceremony: “There is a basic need ... to understand that the civil rights of individuals must be protected even in wartime. One of the things we’re trying to do is set the record straight and establish a principle … that will make the government think in the future before it takes rash action.”

Heartfelt sentiment, no doubt. But it rings hollow in today’s political climate.

Sam Venable’s column appears Sunday and Tuesday. Contact him at sam.venable@outlook.com.



