A Magazine of Mesa Verde United Methodist Church
Court-Appointed Special Advocates: Putting Foster Children First Glacier National Park: The Crown of the Continent When In the Course of Human Events: The Crafting of the Declaration of Independence Drivers, Start Your Engines!: A Love Affair With Auto Racing Genocide: Over and Over Again Music for the Royal Fireworks: Handel’s Ill-Fated Suite
Vol. 1, No. 4
June 2013
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Table of Contents 2
CASAs: Putting Foster Children First
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Glacier National Park: The Crown of the Continent
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The Crafting of the Declaration of Independence
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Drivers, Start Your Engines!
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Genocide: Over and Over Again
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Music for the Royal Fireworks
On the Cover The cover photo is of Glacier Natonal Park’s Lake McDonald at sunset. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.
Copyright 2013 Š Mesa Verde United Methodist Church, Costa Mesa, CA. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. The magazine reflects the interests, views, and opinions of Mesa Verde UMC. It is not an official magazine of the worldwide United Methodist Church.
Cheryl Paquin
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CASAs: Putting Foster Children First
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aken from an abusive home and separated from his younger brothers and sisters, Jeffrey was living in a group home while awaiting placement with a foster family. He was six years old. He was alone. And he was scared to death. The only stable thing in his life was his court-appointed special advocate (CASA), a volunteer who stuck with him through thick and thin. “We spent our visits together in quiet walks in the park, not even venturing onto the playground equipment…We shared a lot of ‘firsts’ together: first trip to see a train, first day exploring the beach and tide pools, first time to pick out a pumpkin for Halloween.”
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Kati Neudert
Eventually, Jeffrey was placed with a foster family whose intent was to adopt him. But his biological father, whom he feared, would not release him for adoption. Three years later, Jeffrey’s CASA was still going to bat for him. “He [Jeffrey] continued to ask when he was going to be adopted by his new family where he said he wanted to live for ‘forty years at least!’ In my court report, I again expressed Jeffrey’s wishes, verbatim, to the judge.” Jeffrey’s CASA also worked closely with the boy’s foster parents, his teachers, his therapists, and his social worker throughout those uncertain times. And he continued to be a part of Jeffrey’s life. The boy made progress in school, where he had fallen behind, and came to learn how to trust. Jeffrey’s father finally relinquished his parental rights, and Jeffrey was adopted when he was nine. 4
Falling Through the Cracks There are thousands of stories of foster care kids. The stories are all different—and all the same. They are the stories of children lost in the system, living in a world with little guidance and less love, and struggling to survive. There are more than 660,000 children in the U.S. child welfare system today. More than 3,000 of them live in Orange County. Every year, the police or Social Services in Orange County receive 35,000-40,000 calls of suspected abuse or neglect of children; less than five percent of these kids are removed from their homes. The problem has to be severe and/or chronic in nature before that happens. That means that many children “in the system” have suffered for an extended period of time and are psychologically, if not physically, in crisis. When children are taken out of their homes, they first are sent to Orangewood Children’s Home. From there, they go to extended family members or into foster care. Taking children from the only world they have ever known—even if that world is bad for them—and depositing them with strangers may be in their best interest, but it creates a trauma all of its own. Many older children go to residential group homes. Too many children in the child welfare system lose their families, their rights, and their hope. They tend to get moved from home to home, from school to school. They fail to learn common social skills, and they tend to fall behind
Steve Debenport Imagery
in their studies. And the child welfare system, already overburdened, cannot help them. CASA of Orange County currently works with those children who face the greatest challenges and are typically the most difficult to place. Court-Appointed Special Advocates The goal of a court-appointed special advocate is to be just what its name says it is—an advocate for a child in the system. Advocates, who go through extensive background checks and interviews and who are required to take 30 hours of training, are there on a one-on-one basis for a child; no advocate is assigned more than one child at a time. CASA volunteers are legal advocates for these kids. They have access to all case files and work with all professionals related to “their” child. Judges review every foster care case every six months; advocates attend those hearings on behalf of the child.
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Page opposite: Every year, the Orange County police and Social Services receive 35,000-40,000 calls of suspected child abuse, neglect, or abandonment. But children are not removed from their homes unless the problem is critical or chronic. By then, many of them have become either withdrawn or belligerant, making them hard to place in foster homes. Finding them permanent homes either through extended family or adoptive parents is an even greater challenge. Above: The hope of every foster child is to find a place where they are loved, and they belong. Children in foster care may wait years for adoptive placement. First, courts must terminate the birth parents’ parental rights, making the children legally eligible for adoption. Children wait again for an adoptive placement (unless they are adopted by their foster parents or a relative). Finally, they wait for the legal adoption process to be completed. Almost 70 percent of the children waiting to be adopted have been in continuous foster care for two years or more; 25 percent for five years or more. [Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute] Right: Emancipated youth often lack basic social and life skills. Many of them have learned only to trust no one.
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to step in to make changes for the better when warranted. One of the largest groups of children with whom CASAs work is made up of youth about to turn 18, the ones who are emancipating, aging out of the system. Almost 50 percent of these youth do not have a high school diploma or GED. All of a sudden, these kids are on their own; they need jobs, transportation, and a place to live. Many of them lack the kind of life skills we often take for granted. Take the young man who got a job at a McDonalds, but did not understand the form in which he received his wages. Each pay period, he went home and put the piece of paper he had been given on top of the stack he already had accumulated. He had no idea what a check was or what to do with it.
A disproportionate number of children age 1-5 are adopted—they comprise 45 percent of the children adopted from foster care, but only 34 percent of waiting children. A similar marked difference can be found in the over-10 age group, which represents 17 percent of the children adopted from foster care, but 26 percent of the waiting foster children. Researchers estimate that, at 8 or 9 years of age, a child’s likelihood of remaining in foster care becomes higher than the probability he or she will be adopted. [Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute]
A CASA volunteer visits a child on a regular basis, interacts with all professionals involved in the child’s case, and makes recommendations directly to the courts, thus ensuring that the child’s best interests are protected. Oftentimes, the CASA volunteer is the only stable, long-term nurturing person in the child’s life. Social workers, lawyers, therapists, and others come and go, but the CASA volunteer remains with the child. Their job, then, is to monitor a child’s happiness and well-being and
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Many youth who are about to emancipate out of the system do not know about banking, charge cards, getting an apartment, or paying taxes. They don’t know anything about nutrition or even how to cook. They don’t know to put their napkins in their laps in a restaurant, let alone which fork to use if there’s more than one. They don’t know how to be proactive without being abrasive. There are life skills they just don’t have. Seventy percent of kids in foster care would like to go to college. Ten percent will go; one percent will graduate. Twenty-five percent of the youth who emancipate out of the system will become homeless within 4-6 months. Many will become drug dependent; many of the girls will become pregnant. “The advocate’s job is to connect with these kids
before they emancipate,” says Lynda Sloan, director of Community Relations, CASA of Orange County, “and to work with them on their life skills. They also need to help these kids become aware of programs out there designed to help them.” Founded in 1985, with major support from the Junior League of Orange County, CASA of Orange County is one of more than 900 CASA programs across the nation. The CASA has complete access to school records and can meet with teachers; they have access to medical records and to the case
For more information, go to casaoc.org.•
Lynda Sloan was invited to speak at a Mesa Verde United Methodist Women’s brunch last spring. DeeDee Nichols, a church member, is now in training to become a CASA.
Photo Courtesy of Lynda Sloan
workers. A CASA volunteer does not meet with
parents and is not the first contact in case of an emergency; professional case workers handle such situations. But a CASA is there for the child, ideally, for however long that child needs him or her. In Orange County today, there are 750 CASA volunteers serving 750 children. “Our dream is to serve all of the kids – all 3,000 of them,” Lynda said.
More than 3,300 trained volunteers have given over 1.5 million hours to help more than 6,000 children in Orange County over the years. For many of these kids, their advocate was the only constant in their lives. With a CASA volunteer, a child is half as likely to languish in the foster care and child welfare system, and he or she is much more likely to find a safe, permanent home.
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Glacier National Park: The Crown Of the Continent
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aturalist John Muir once described Glacier National Park as “the best care-killing scenery on the continent.” He was right; Glacier National Park will make you forget everything else. It will take your breath away. The park, encompassing 1,013,322 acres, is located in the Rocky Mountains of Montana. Established in 1910, it includes more than 130 named lakes and more than 1,000 different species of plants and hundreds of species of animals. Geologists estimate the land was formed 170 million years ago through tectonic plate movement, and that some 800 million years of rock have been eroded away. More than 150 glaciers once covered the mountains, carving out the U-shaped valleys, cirques, arêtes, and lakes seen today. The headwaters of the Atlantic Ocean, Hudson Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico originate here.
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All photos in this story courtesy of the National Park Service
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But the facts tell you little. They give you insight into the form and bounty of the park, but they fail to convey its essence. It is the beauty and the grandeur of its varied and often changing landscape that make the place magnificent. The Blackfeet Indians called the region the “Backbone of the Land.” George Bird Grinnell referred to it as the Crown of the Continent. On the list of World Heritage sites, the park has been described by some as “one of the most glorious places on the face of the earth.” [gngoat.org/glorious_glacier.htm]
Left: Beargass above Grinnell Lake. Once the bloom dies on a stalk, it takes up to a decade before it blooms again. Above top: The trillium is a wildflower that blooms in the park. Because it is known to blossom early in spring, it is sometimes referred to as the wake-robin, as it comes out even before the robins return. Above bottom: A Golden Mantled Squirrel, squirreling away food for the winter. This animal often gets mistaken for a chipmunk, but it lacks the distinctive stripe on its head.
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A Little History The land that became Glacier National Park was first home to the ancestors of the Salish, Flathead, Shoshone, Cheyenne, and Blackfoot tribes. The first Europeans were explorers, followed by trappers, miners, and, later, homesteaders. In 1885, George Bird Grinnell hunted in the area. He would spend the next two decades working to have it designated a national park.
In the interim, the Great Northern Railway used its influence to have it designated a forest preserve. The railroad advertised the scenic nature of the park and built a handful of hotels and chalets to promote tourism in an effort to get more people to ride the train. The railroad, along with Grinnell and influential politician Henry L. Stimson, lobbied Congress to re-designate the region as a national park since, as a national preserve, mining operations were still allowed. The bill was signed into law May 11, 1910, by President William Taft. By the 1920s, people were beginning to vacation more by car. In 1921, work began on the 53-mile Going-to-the-Sun Road (often shortened to Sun Road) and completed in 1932. The road bisects the park longitudinally, going over the Continental Divide at Logan Pass. Further Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) projects in the 1930s/1940s included campground and trail construction.
Page opposite, top: Many Glacier Hotel, constructed by the Great Northern Railway, opened in 1915. It was part of the company’s efforts to establish Glacier National Park as the “American Alps,” marketing it as the “Gem of the West,” a resort destination for the wealthy. Page opposite, bottom: The Prince of Wales Hotel, Alberta, Canada, part of Waterton National Park. Built in 1926-1927 by the Great Northern Railway, it was named after the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) in hopes that he would stay there during his visit to the U.S. The ruse did not work, however; the king stayed at a nearby ranch. This page, above: Taken circa 1911, the photo shows a women’s hiking group standing along the shore of Lake Josephine and looking towards Grinnell Glacier. This page, right: Many early visitors to Glacier arrived by train. Pictured here is a group in an open coach car on the Great Northern Railway. In 1912-13, a round-trip fare from St. Paul, Minnesota cost $35 (in today’s terms that would be nearly $800).
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Page opposite, top: The map shows the proposed routes of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The route along the Garden Wall, labeled No. 3, was chosen. Page opposite, bottom left: There are two tunnels on the Sun Road. This is the 192-footlong West Side Tunnel. At one point along the road, blasting was so tricky that the men wore woolen socks over their boots to help ensure there would be no accidental strikes against the rocks. Page opposite, bottom right: Building the road took three decades. On the west side of the Continental Divide the road had to be benched into the sheer sides of the mountain. Much of the work was done with hand tools. In 1985, the Sun Road was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. This page, both photos: Can you find the road? The Sun Road is one of the most difficult roads in North America to plow. Up to 80 feet of snow can be found at Logan Pass, although the deepest snow can be found just east of it. Called the Big Drift, the mile-long stretch can be up to 100 feet deep in snow. It takes approximately 10 weeks to plow Sun Road, even with equipment that can move 4,000 tons of snow an hour.
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The Geology of the Park Glacier National Park is part of the Rocky Mountains, which were formed about 170 million years ago as a result of tectonic plates smashing up against one another. One region, known now as the Lewis Overthrust, was a 20,000-foot thick, 300-mile-long chunk of Proterozoic rock pushed up and eastward some 50 miles.
The result was that these older Proterozoic rocks ended up resting on younger Cretaceous ones. (See the geologic time scale. Proterozoic rock is part of the PreCambrian epoch and represents the beginning of time; it is just about as old as rock gets. There were very few plants and animals and certainly no critters with hard shells, let alone a bony skeletal system, at that time. The Cretaceous period, on the other hand, represents the end of the reign of the dinosaurs.) Which is not to say there was no life in the Proterozoic. Glacier National Park has some of the best preserved records of early life on the planet. (Rocks in other parts of the world of similar age have been altered by mountain building or metamorphosis.) Geologists have found six fossilized species of stromatolites, a form of blue-green algae. Their discovery and dating have led scientists to push back the date of the origin of animal life a full billion years. [“Park Geology,� Geology Fieldnotes. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, April 1, 2005; nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/ glac/]
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Page opposite, far left: Geologic time scale highlighting the Proterozoic and Cretaceous periods. Today, rock formtations from the older age can be found lying on top of that from the younger age. Page opposite, bottom right: Fossilized stromatolites found in the park. They represent some of the oldest living creatures on the planet. This page, left: Avalanche Gorge, carved out by glacial waters over millions of years. This page, immediately below: Chief Mountain is known as a klippe, meaning it is a remnant of a formation left after the surrounding rock has eroded away. The Blackfoot people called Chief Mountain Ninastako and believed it to be the home of Ksiistsikomm (Thunder). This is where Raven fought with Thunder and where Thunder gave his pipe to the Blackfoot people. This page, bottom: Grinnell Lake from the Grinnell hiking path. Its color comes from glacier-ground rock so fine it lies suspended in the water. It is referred to as glacial flour or glacial milk. Note how the rock behind the lake was scooped out. This is typical of a mountain carved by a glacier.
Glacier National Park’s mountains were carved into their current shapes by numerous glaciers, most of which existed during the last ice age (110,000 to 10,000 years ago), and are estimated to have disappeared some 12,000 years ago. At the beginning of the 19th century, some 150 glaciers existed in the park. In 1850, the glaciers in the region near Blackfoot and Jackson glaciers covered 5,337 acres; by 1979, only 1,828 acres of glacial ice covered the same region. Seventy-three percent of the ice had melted. By 2010, only 37 glaciers remained, 25 of which were considered to be active. If the current climate warming trend continues, all of the glaciers in the park will be gone by 2020.
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Lake McDonald is the largest of the lakes in Glacier National Park at 10 miles long and 472 feet deep. Geologists estimate that the glacier that carved out the lake was at least 2,200 feet thick.
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Right: Heaven’s Peak is one of four peaks that form the divide between Camas Creek and McDonald Creek. Snowly all year round, it can be seen from the Sun Road. Below: The Silky Phacelia grows mainly at the higher elevations, either in breaks in upper alpine forests or above the treeline.
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The park is home to hundreds of species of animals and more than a thousand species of plants, including these: Above, top: Mountain Lion Above, bottom: Harlequin Duck Right, top to bottom: Pine Martin, Big Horn Sheep, Black Bear cub Page opposite, top to bottom: Calypso Orchid, fir tree, Blanket Flower 22
Wildlife The park is part of a preserved ecosystem known as the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,� and virtually all the wilderness is untouched and pristine. Nearly all of the flora and fauna that existed at the time European explorers first entered the region are still present today. More than 1,000 species of plants have been identified. Trees include conifers, larches (a deciduous conifer), cottonwoods, aspens, and other deciduous trees. Above the tree line is alpine tundra, where grasses and small plants eke out an existence. Thirty species of plants can be found only in the park and surrounding area, including beargrass, monkeyflower, glacier lily, fireweed, balsomroot, and Indian paintbrush. Ancestors of nearly all of the animals that inhabit the park today lived there in the 19th century, although bison and caribou no longer do. Animals include the grizzly bear, Canadian lynx, mountain goat, big-horn sheep, moose, elk, deer, coyote, wolf, badger, otter, porcupine, fisher, bat, mountain lion, and numerous smaller animals. The park is home to 260 species of birds; among them is the Bald Eagle. There are 23 species of fish, including the endangered bull trout, a few reptiles and amphibians, and a large number of spiders and insects.
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The beauty of the park in nature and in man-made structures can be seen in photos on this page. Above, top to bottom: Baring Bridge at Sunrift Gorge, sword fern, a lake shore in autumn Right: Slingshot Mountain. Park personnel noted that the day had been windy and miserable, but it made for a glorious sunset.
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Page opposite, top: This photo was shot along the NyakCoal Creek Loop in the southern park of the park. This is one of the lesser traveled trails, in part because the trail itself is not as well maintained. Page opposite, bottom left: The White-Tailed Ptarmigan is a member of the grouse family. A chicken-like bird, it changes its colors with the seasons. In the winter it is pure white. Page opposite, bottom right: Alpine fields bloom with color in the summer months. Red Eagle Mountain is in the background. This page, left: Known as the Elephant Head flower, it blooms throughout the park. Also known as elephanthead lousewort, it is a parasitic plant having a root called the haustorium that penetrates a host plant and connects to it, drawing nutrients from it. This page, bottom: Josephine Lake is one of the most popular backcountry lakes. Apart from the fact that you cannot drive to the trail head, it is accessible via an easy one-mile hike from the Many Glacier Road or by taking a boat across Swiftcurrent Lake followed by a easy 200-yard hike. This photo catches the beauty of the lake and surrounding mountains in the winter.
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What Not to Miss in Glacier National Park by Barbara Harrington and Mark Wiley
Glacier National Park is not the sort of place you drop by for a visit. It’s not on the road to anywhere. It’s not close to anything. No one accidentally goes to Glacier. You have to want to go there and choose to go there. Driving on the Sun Road to Logan Pass is a must. It’s spectacular! The best way to drive the highway is from the Lake McDonald (West Glacier entrance) side to the east, stopping at the top of Logan Pass. This is where you can see Mt. Goats and Mt. Sheep. As you drive down the east side from Logan Pass, you come to the only glacier you can see from a car. This is Jackson Glacier. As you descend, you will come to St. Mary’s Lake. There is a place for a photo opportunity; you should stop there. You will get a great picture of Wild Goose Island (a small island in the middle of the lake). If you do nothing else in Glacier but go across this road, you will have seen Glacier Park. The road is usually not open to drive through until about the first of July. It all depends on how heavy the winter snowfall was. There are several trails leading from Logan Pass, including the relatively easy Hidden Lake Overlook trail. There are four major hotels in Glacier Park which are a must to see. The three largest ones were built by the Great Northern Railroad. The first is Glacier Park Lodge (in East Glacier)—Two Medicine Lakes is just outside of East Glacier. There is a nice nature trail to Trick Falls just before you get to the second of the two lakes. Many Glaciers Hotel sits on Swiftcurrent Lake and is called the Switzerland of North America. You turn into Many Glaciers from the town of Babb. (It’s more a whistle stop than a town.) Many times you can see grizzly and brown bears along this road, as they are going for water. The Prince of Wales Hotel is on the Canadian side of the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park. It sits high on a hill overlooking Waterton Lake. The 10-mile-long lake is half in the U.S. and half in Canada. Waterton is fairly large; there are many things to do in the area. If you go there July 1st, you get into the park free. Lake MacDonald Lodge is a hunting lodge and sits on Lake MacDonald. There is a moderate hike to a wonderful lake surrounded by mountains with several waterfalls coming down just up from Lake MacDonald Lodge called Avalanche. There is also the Walk of the Cedars at the base of this trail which is wheelchairaccessible and a calming walk through cedars, pines, ferns, and other fauna up to a beautiful gorge area with rushing water. It is at the bridge of the gorge that you find the trail to Avalanche Lake. (This is a heavily traveled trail about two miles long.) There is good fishing on the lake, and you don’t need a fishing license to fish inside the park.
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Going to the Sun Road
If you just want to tour the park and see most of it, you can do it in one day in the summer because it doesn’t get dark until 10:00 p.m. If you leave early (say, 8:00 a.m.) from Lake McDonald, you can go up the Going-to-the-Sun Road and stop at the places mentioned on the left. As you leave the park, go north to Many Glaciers and see the hotel and area, drive out when you get to Babb, turn left, head to Canada (about 20 miles), and go to Waterton. Eat lunch in Waterton and tour around. Leave Canada and head for East Glacier Lodge. You can stop and do the Two Medicine side tour on the way. Check out East Glacier Lodge. Then head back to West Glacier by way of Highway 2 (50 miles).
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Left: McDonald’s Falls, just upstream from Lake McDonald. Hemlock trees grace the banks of the river. Top to bottom: Park personnel work hard to accommodate guests without causing permanent harm to park ecology. Photos are of an Aster, a Bohemian Waxwing (all puffed up), and a man fishing.
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Crown of the Continent Glacier National Park’s northern border is the U.S. Canadian border. On the Canadian side is the 195-square-mile Waterton Lakes National Park. In 1932, the two were designated the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park. The first peace park in the world, it was established largely through the efforts of American and Canadian Rotary Clubs. Glacier National Park was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere Reserve in 1976. As such, it is part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, itself a part of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Program. A Biosphere Reserve is a designated area or region where programs and practices are tested in an effort to meet the wants and needs of man while sustaining the environment. The data are shared among reserves worldwide. In 1995, the park became a World Heritage Site. Another UNESCO designation, this one recognizes and helps conserve sites “outstanding in cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity.” [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_National_Park_%28U.S.%29] As of 2012, there were 745 cultural, 188 natural, and 29 mixed sites in 157 nation states. George Bird Grinnell once said, “Far away in northwestern Montana, hidden from view by clustering mountain peaks, lies an unmapped corner— the Crown of the Continent.” Hike, camp, or come to fish; Glacier National Park includes some of the best that nature has to offer. •
Page opposite, top: A view of the park taken by a webcam from Apgar Mountain. The webcam also recorded the temperature, a bone-chilling 60° below zero. Page opposite, bottom: A closeup of a Western Tanager, one of 270 species of birds that reside in the park. This page, top: The shy pika, related to the rabbit, lives in rocky terrain in upper elevations. The animal spends most of its time foraging for food, which it gathers into piles called haystacks for winter. Known as the “whistling hare,” the mammal issues a high-pitched alarm call when threatened. This page, bottom: Students help park personnel collect data that are then shared with other Biosphere Reserves. Here, students are headed toward Iceburg Lake, which lies east of the 3,000-foot Iceburg Peak.
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Jutting above the landscape in the far southern corner of Glacier National Park, the horn of Mount St. Nicholas rises nearly 9,400 feet in the air. Many experts agree that “St. Nick” is the most difficult climb in the park.
A number of Mesa Verde UMC members have visited Glacier National Park. Pastor Mark Wiley, the church’s senior minister, is particularly fond it and never misses an opportunity to talk about his experiences there. For him, as for many, it is a spiritual place. “Glacier,” he says, “is wild, untamed, full of wonder and sky blue moments.” Thanks, too, to Bob and Barbara Harrington, also members of the church, who provided much of the information about what to see while in the park. The couple own a house near there. 35
Onur Ersin
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The Crafting of The Declaration of Independence
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he Declaration of Independence, although highly regarded, often gets lumped with the U.S. Constitution, as if the two were spawned together. But the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1787, the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. Written more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence was a treatise—a document written to explain why the 13 American colonies had a right to ignore the laws of their English overlords. It was written to persuade the colonists that independence was justifiable and to let King George III know that the colonists were, in effect, seceding from the United Kingdom. It was, as its title denotes, a declaration of independence. Today, the Declaration of Independence is a footnote in history in most classrooms. We see John Trumbull’s famous painting, which is often taken as the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and assume Thomas Jefferson wrote a few drafts and, once satisfied with
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the document, watched as the other members of the Second Continental Congress lined up to sign it. But the politics of 1776 were no less divisive than they are today. The draft Jefferson submitted to the delegates underwent some considerable editing. Jefferson later wrote that Benjamin Franklin understood that he (Jefferson) was “not insensible to these mutilations.”[Koch & Peden, The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 1944, p. 167168]. Relations with England had been deteriorating
ment went about extracting taxes from its colonies to help refill them. Among the taxes was the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767. The Townshend Acts were designed to raise revenue, enforce trade regulations, and punish the province of New York for refusing to comply with the Quartering Act of 1765 (whereby colonists were required to billet and feed British soldiers). Resistance to the Townshend Acts prompted the British to occupy Boston in 1768, which eventually led to the Boston Massacre of 1770. 1773 saw the Boston Tea Party; 1774 saw the Coercive Acts (known
since the Seven Years’ War, which ended in 1763. The war had nearly emptied Britain’s coffers; Parlia-
generally as the Intolerable Acts), punishment for tossing tea in the Boston harbor.
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“The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor,” an 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier depicting the 1773 Boston Tea Party. The event is important in American history, as the colonists were forced to buy their tea from the British East Indian Company and, in 1773, that tea was taxed. Other colonies had sent their tea back to England, but the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s governor, appointed by the Crown, refused to allow it to be returned. Members of a radical group known as the Sons of Liberty boarded the ship and threw the tea overboard. Parliament responded with the Coersive Acts (also known as the Intolerable Acts). Contrary to popular belief, most of the participants in the protest did not dress up as Native Americans.
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1763-1789, 2007, p. 241-242]. They did not believe that such loyalty extended to being taxed. From a political standpoint, the issue was taxation without representation in Parliament. The colonists claimed that, as English citizens, they had such rights. According to historians, most colonists believed in the right of self-rule but did not want to sever their relationship with England. Congress tried twice to forge a compromise with the mother country, sending two petitions to the king, both of which were ignored. By the spring of 1775, all British officials governing the colonies had been expelled. The British responded by sending troops. The Revolutionary War began in April 1775. In January 1776, Thomas Paine published his pamphlet, Common Sense, a call for independence. In February, Parliament passed the Prohibitory Act, the result of which was the blockade of American ports; American ships were declared enemy vessels. Published anonymously by Thomas Paine in early 1776, the pamphlet, Common Sense, sold nearly 100,000 copies that year. In proportion to the population of the colonies, it remains the largest sale and circulation of any book published and sold in America. It was written without the usual philosophical and Latin references used at the time, but read more like a sermon.
Throughout this time period, Parliament asserted its right to tax all of its colonies and to rule with impunity. The American colonists, however, felt that every colony had certain inalienable rights. After the passage of the Townshend Acts, some began to questions Britain’s right to rule its American colonies at all. They felt they owed the king only their “allegiance to the Crown� [Robert L. Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution
Interestingly, the Continental Congress did not, as a self-governing body, have the right to call for independence. While Congressmen and women today are sent to Capitol Hill to represent the interests of their constituents back home, they have considerable leeway as to how to best serve those constituents. The members of the Continental Congress were more fettered; they arrived in Philadelphia with strict instructions from the people back home which could not be abrogated. For the Continental Congress to declare independence, a majority of delegates had to vote in favor of it. But that meant that delegates had to have specific instructions on how to vote. In addition, one colony had to have its 39
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But before there could be a resolution declaring independence, there had to be what was called a preamble. It was an explanation of why the colonies were considering secession. John Adams wrote it. Congress passed it May 15, although four of the middle colonies voted against it and the Maryland delegation walked out in protest.
Above: Thomas Jefferson penned the original Declaration of Independence, but by the time everyone finished editing it, he felt it had been “mangled.” Right: The Declaration of Independence, written to justify the rebellion of the 13 colonies against England.
delegation propose a declaration of independence; it could not be done by the Congress. Considering that we think of Pennsylvania as the seat of early governance in this country, it is worth noting that it—along with New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware (together often referred to as the middle colonies), raised the strongest resistance to independence, largely because they were among the last to be governed by representatives of the British government. (Over time, the Crown had granted many colonies some form of self-government, usually referred to as Provincial Congresses.)
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June 7, 1776, the Virginia colony made the formal proposal to declare independence, Richard Henry Lee having been given instructions allowing him to present such a resolution. The motion proposed independence, the formation of foreign alliances, and a plan to create some sort of united whole. A chicken-and-egg debate ensued. Some felt that foreign allies should be obtained before independence was declared. Others argued that no foreign government would get involved in a civil struggle; a declaration of independence was necessary before foreign support could be expected. Eventually, all the colonies except New York sent instructions to their delegates, directing them to vote in favor of the motion. New York’s Provincial Congress was too busy evacuating the colony as British forces approached. They would not meet again until July 10. Consequently, New York’s delegates to the Continental Congress were not authorized to declare their support for independence until after Congress had voted. Meanwhile, a committee of five men was created to draft the actual declaration. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert L. Livingston, and Roger Sherman were appointed June 11. Jef-
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issue has been debated over the years, although now it is generally agreed that some of the signatories signed sometime after August 2, 1776. It is known that a handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence was sent to the print shop of John Dunlap the evening of July 4; he worked all night to print 200 broadsides for distribution. One copy of the broadside was sent to General George Washington in New York to read to his troops.
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ferson was persuaded to do the actual writing. On June 28, it was presented to Congress, “A Declaration for the Representation of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled.” Jefferson’s final draft “lay on the table” for two days, during which time it was edited, shortened, and wordsmithed. July 1, Congress resolved itself into a “committee of the whole,” essentially a body made up of all the delegates, but for the purpose of debating and casting straw votes. Although each colony had a certain number of delegates, each colony had only one vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against the declaration. New York abstained. Delaware did not cast a vote as the two-delegate team was unable to reach an agreement. July 2, an official vote was taken. For various reasons and under various circumstances, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Delaware reversed their positions and voted in favor of the resolution. New York, still having no instructions from the its members back home, had no choice but abstain. Once Congress voted, it turned its attention to the wording of the resolution, the Declaration of Independence. July 4, 1776, the text was approved and sent to the printer for publication. There continues to be some controversy over whether all 56 delegates actually signed the document on July 4. In 1796, Thomas McKean, a delegate from Delaware, noted that some of the signatories were not present on July 4 and, in fact, some had not even been part of the Second Continental Congress at that time. The 42
A painting by American artist Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863-1930), it is part of The Pageant of a Nation, a series of 78 scenes he created from American history. The gentlemen depicted in the painting are (left to right), Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.
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This famous painting by John Trumbull hangs in the Capitol rotunda. Trumbull was a soldier in the American Revolution, and is known for sketching plans of the British works and serving later as second personal aide to General George Washington. While the painting is often identified as showing the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is actually a depiction of the drafting committee presenting it to the Second Continental Congress. In other words, it is not the draft signed by the delegates.
Broadsides reached Britain in August and much of Western Europe later in the year. The copy sent to France was lost and had to be sent again. The original copy of the Declaration of Independence signed by Congress is called the engrossed (or carefully handwritten) or parchment copy that now resides in the National Archives. Due to poor conservation in earlier times, it is faded and worn. A facsimile copy made in 1823 has become the basis of most copies made since that time. Twenty-six copies of the Dunlap broadside are known to exist today. It is interesting to note that they do not
include the list of signers. In 1777, Mary Katherine Goddard printed a new broadside that did include the names. Nine of those broadsides are still in existence. In addition, several handwritten copies and drafts of the Declaration of Independence exist. The draft that was submitted to Congress June 28 for the official vote, however, has been lost. •
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kativ All photos in this story without specific attribution are courtesy of Jim Aust.
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Drivers, Start Your Engines!
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ate last April, nearly 200,000 fans flocked to Long Beach for the ear-splitting, heart-pounding, mind-blowing rush of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach! Now in its 39th year, the three-day event featured seven races on a 1.968-mile temporary course spread over Long Beach city streets. Enter a world of total dedication, controlled chaos, and competition fought at knife’s edge. Enter Jim Aust’s world. Or at least it was his until he retired. But auto racing gets in your blood. You never really leave it. Jim was Vice President of Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) U.S.A.’s Motorsports Department and President and Chief Executive Officer of Toyota Racing Development (TRD), the performance engineering division of TMS, from 1998-2008. By then Toyota was already the title sponsor of the Long Beach Grand Prix. Jim made sure it stayed that way.
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Jim always loved cars. By the time he was eight, he knew every make and model on the road and never hesitated to point out that fact. The only thing better than a road car was a race car. County fairs, local dirt tracks—it didn’t matter—if there was a race, he was there. Hot nights, hot lights, hot cars! There was never anything better.
race engine design and build company located in Costa Mesa, California. “When they offered Jim the job,” Diane says, “he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.” His love affair with cars had only begun.
Jim graduated from Fort Hays State University with a degree in Business Administration and joined the Navy in 1966, serving one year in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before serving aboard the USS America
Racing in the U.S. Most historians agree that it was the 1895 Chicago Times-Herald race that put motorsports on the map in the U.S. The 54.36-mile course ran from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back again. There were six cars; the winner won the race in 10 hours and 23 minutes. The oldest racing venue is in Knoxville,
for two years in the Gulf of Tonkin. He came home and, in 1968, married Diane Keller, his hometown childhood sweetheart. He went to work for Ford Motor Credit Company in 1970. He moved to Toyota Motor Credit Corporation in 1987. “I was a finance guy,” Jim says, “but I still loved cars.” Eleven years later, he was assigned responsibility for Toyota’s motorsports division, which included TRD, the
To this day, Indy cars bring to mind low-slung, open-wheel, open-air, single-seat cars, although not all of them match that description. As of 2012,
Iowa, where cars first raced in 1901. It was built at the county fairgrounds for horse racing. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built in 1909. The first Indianapolis 500 was held in 1911.
DECHUSA Motorsport Photography+ / www.dechusa.tk
The Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach is the longest running major race held on city streets in North America. The first race was a Formula 500 race in 1975; the following year it became a Formula One event. From 1984 to 2008 it was a CART Indycar/Champ Car event. In 2009, the sanctioning body merged with the IRL. Today the event is part of the Izod IndyCar Series calendar. 46
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tona Beach Road Course was established around 1903. The Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959.
Above: Joe Dawson takes the checkered flag at the 1912 Indy 500. Below: Toyota 2000GT pace cars. The Toyota 2000GT was the first car to win a race for Toyota in the U.S. This lineup represents nearly 75 percent of all 2000GTs in the U.S. Originally priced at approximately $6,000 in 1967, a superbly reconditioned model recently sold for $1,155,000.
it also meant a newly engineered rear-fendered Dallara chassis. U.S. stock car racing, on the other hand, grew out of bootlegging during Prohibition as drivers distributed moonshine up and down the East Coast, modifying their cars to outrun the police. Although the 18th amendment was repealed in 1933, “runnin’ shine” continued, the drivers working to outrun the “revenuers,” who were trying to tax the now legal liquor. At the same time, the U.S. supplanted France as the place to set world land speed records. The Day-
Auto racing moved from racing road cars to pure racers in the 1930s. They included the famous Silver Arrow, a Mercedes Benz that wasn’t painted to help reduce weight. In the U.S., racing became a popular sport, particularly in the southeast, after World War II. Open Wheel Racing 11One of the major divisions of auto racing is known as “open wheel” racing; open wheel cars are often called Indy cars, although they have also been known as Champ Cars or GTs in the U.S. and formula cars outside the U.S. An open wheel car has its wheels outside the body of the car; there are no fenders (the exception being the current Indy Racing League cars). Classes of races include formula, karting, oval, certain rally cars, midget cars, and certain off-road racing vehicles.
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In the U.S., many young drivers start with midget cars; midget racing is considered the proving ground for competitors who then go on to complete in today’s best known races. At the other end of the spectrum is Formula 1 racing. International in scope, it draws the world’s best drivers and most technically engineered cars, as well as sponsors and manufacturers with the deepest pockets. According to Jim, sponsorship of a Formula 1 racing operation may run as high as $500 million per year, compared to the $5-$8 million to run a U.S.-based Indy Racing League (IRL) class of car. Open wheel racing in the U.S. was first sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (AAA) in 1904. However, this type of racing is most often associated with the Indianapolis 500 and the CART/ IRL sanctioning bodies. CART/IRL racing has a long and convoluted history.
Jim and a Toyota-powered midget car. Midget racing is considered a gateway to the major leagues.
In 1978, the CART (Championship Auto Racing Team) governing body was formed by several team owners unhappy with USAC (United States Auto Club), who itself had been created after the 1955 Le Mans disaster when AAA stopped sanctioning auto races. (During the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, driver Pierre Levegh crashed his car, and large pieces of it
“Toyota engines went from being a hunk of metal [left] to a high tech, precision machine [right],” according to Jim. Light-weight metal alloys were sourced to minimize the engine weight, and aircraft electrical connections were used to reduce work time when making engine swaps. Horsepower improved by 200 BHP from 1996 to 2002.
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NASCAR In 1948, William France, Sr. formed the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). Having entered the inaugural 1936 Daytona Beach Road Course stock car race, finishing fifth, and later managing the course, he was aware of the enthusiasm of the sport as well as the darker side of it (e.g., drivers not getting paid by their promoters). With NASCAR as an official sanctioning organization, he Jim with Bill France, Jr., the son of Bill France, Sr., the founder of NASCAR. Bill France, Jr. took the reins of NASCAR when his father retired in 1972, taking the sanctioning body from a regional sport instituted a number of rules and enjoyed primarily in the South to a world class sport. “Little Bill,� as he was sometimes called, retired in 2000 but remained as chairman until passing away in 2007. regulations, developed regular race schedules, improved safety, and standardized championship events. went flying into the crowd, fatally injuring several. Fire erupted, killing more. Eighty-three spectators and Levegh died at the scene; 120 more were injured.) Former Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George founded the IRL in 1994, unhappy with CART races, which, he held, tended to be dominated by wealthy, multi-car teams. Although initially not a roaring success, the IRL eventually began to draw former CART sponsors and race teams. In 2008, the IRL absorbed CART (by then named ChampCar). The result was that all ChampCar series races were suspended except for the Long Beach Grand Prix. Today, IRL-sanctioned series include the IZOD IndyCar Series (which includes the Indy 500 race), Firestone Indy Lights, Star Mazda Championship, and the U.S. F2000.
There are a number of local and regional NASCAR race series and three national series of races. The national series are: the Sprint Cup Series, the top drawer races of the NASCAR circuits, the Nationwide Series (second drawer), and the Camping World Truck Series. NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at more than 100 tracks across the U.S. and in Canada. Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. It is not unusual for major corporations to sponsor sporting events. Done right, it gets the company in front of its targeted audience. That is, it gets its name in front of people who are likely to buy its product(s). It can also be a subtle form of branding; the emotional impact of the sport on the psyche of fans transfers to the product. For Toyota, a car
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company wanting to associate its brand with leading-edge mechanical prowess that conveyed power, speed, and agility, to say nothing of making a statement about its presence in America, U.S. auto racing was a natural fit. But which races/series were best for the car manufacturer? That was Jim’s job to decide. Not alone, of course, but, ultimately, he was responsible for Toyota’s presence in motorsports in the U.S. in the last 20 years. “You have to look at any number of things,” Jim says. “You have to put all the assets together.” That meant understanding what went into designing and building performance engines and producing race-prepped cars; working with various Toyota advertising entities to determine demographics, target markets, and metrics; seeking input from Toyota’s 1,500 U.S. dealers (1,200 Toyota and 300 Lexus) to best meet their needs; developing the motorsports program itself; and, ultimately, selling it to Toyota’s executive management, both here and in Japan. On the other side of the coin were the races/series themselves, with their race sanctioning bodies, race associations, race car owners, and race car drivers/teams.
Top: The engine build shop floor of Toyota Racing Development’s Costa Mesa facility. Middle: Engines are hand assembled at TRD to precise measurements. Here, a dynamometer is used to measure engine power, calculated by simultaneously measuring torque and rotational speed (RPM). Bottom: TRD’s chassis shop in Salisbury, North Carolina.
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Toyota lists 1968 as the year the company got into auto racing in the U.S. That year they debuted a race-modified Toyota 2000GT at the Stardust International Raceway temporary street circuit in Las Vegas. They took first place later in the year in the Grand Prairie Grand Prix in Arkansas. Over the years, Toyota developed a unique way of working in the motorsports world. Rather than sponsor drivers who brought their own cars with their own engines, Toyota established TRD, located in Costa
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Left: The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is located in Speedway, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. The track is a 2-1/2-mile oval with dimensions that have remained essentially unchanged since it was built in 1909. Able to seat more than 257,000 fans, it is the highest-capacity stadium-type racetrack in the world. Below: The 2002 CART Championship series consisted of 19 races, beginning in Monterrey, Mexico and ending with a race in Mexico City, Mexico. The series covered four continents, with races in Australia, Japan, the U.K., Canada, and the U.S., as well as Mexico. U.S. venues included California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon, and Wisconsin. The series winner was Cristiano da Matta for Newman/Haas Racing, driving a Toyota-powered race car.
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Mesa, (with a chassis shop in North Carolina), in 1979. The subsidiary designs, develops, and builds the engines (and sometimes assists with the modification of the cars) used in the various racing series in which Toyota participates. From 1989 to 2005, Toyota was the series sponsor and engine parts supplier to the Toyota Atlantic Series, an open wheel feeder series for drivers and teams who were looking to enter the “bigger show,” CART. (For example, Danica Patrick was a Toyota Atlantic driver for Bobby Rahal’s team during the early 2000’s before moving to the IRL.) In 1996, Toyota moved into the big leagues of open wheel racing, helping to sponsor Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers team and the Precision Preparation, Inc. team of Cal Wells III. In 1999, Toyota began to supply engines to the Target/Chip Ganassi Racing team for the 2000 CART season. They scored their first victory at the Milwaukee Mile that same year and won the Engine Manufacturer Championship in 2002 with Newman/Haas Racing. In 2003, Gil de Ferron, driving for the Penske Racing team in the IRL and racing a Toyota-powered Indy car, took the checkered flag at the Indianapolis 500. Toyota had arrived! From an automotive manufacturer’s perspective, gaining entré into the CART and IRL racing series was relatively easy. Indy cars and drivers came from all over the world. But NASCAR was different. NASCAR stock cars were “American made” and, traditionally, all of the automotive manufacturers and sponsors were American. Toyota began
Gil de Ferron, part of the Penske Racing team, took the checkered flag in the Indy 500 in 2003. Earlier that year, Toyota had moved its open wheel racing operation from CART to the IRL. In addition to winning the Indy 500, Toyota-powered cars won 38 races and 44 pole positions in open-wheel competition from 19962005. 52
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selling cars in the U.S. in 1957 and had been building cars in the U.S. since 1987, but the brand was still associated with Japanese car manufacturing. But the CART/IRL debacle had wreaked havoc in the open wheel world. The acrimony between the rival sanctioning bodies had led to changes in rules, specs, and venues, and the IRL, in particular, went down a couple of rabbit holes before gaining its footing. In the interim, the fan base dropped; teams and sponsors moved over to NASCAR, for the most part. Toyota went courting Bill France, Jr. “We first formally met with Mr. France to get his blessing in 2002,” Jim says. “He’s a no-nonsense kind of guy. He knew that Toyota made cars in America. And he had allowed Dodge to re-enter the Winston Cup Series [now the Sprint Cup Series] in 2001, even though Dodge was, by then, a division
Right: Toyota entered NASCAR racing through the Goody’s Dash Series, with Eric Van Cleef driving a soupedup Celica. It was the first time the series had seen a stock car powered by a DOHC, four-valve-per-cylinder engine. TMS sponsored Robert Huffman, who gave Toyota its first win in the series in 2003, racing at Kentucky Speedway. He won again at Daytona. Page opposite, top: Toyota entered the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2004, providing the Tundra and sponsoring Travis Kvapil. Debuting at Daytona International Speedway in February, Kvapil finished second, but later went on to take the victory flag in July at Michigan International Speedway. Page opposite, bottom: Kyle Busch, in car #18, gave Dale Earnhardt, Jr. a run for his money in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at the Phoenix Raceway in 2011. Busch won.
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of Daimler Chrysler, headquartered in Germany.” And foreign manufacturers had been allowed to compete in regional NASCAR series races. In 1980, for example, Dean Combs raced a Datsun 200 SX in the Goody’s Dash Series, where he won the series championship. In an article in a 2003 trade paper, France “scoffed at the suggestion” that Toyota would not be accepted in the NASCAR world, noting that, “Ford Motor Company has Ford of England,…General Motors has equity in the Asian market as well as in the European market. That’s what the world has come to…It’s just a world-wide deal.” He added that his father, Bill France, Sr. had always been open to innovation. He saw the entrance of Toyota, the first new engine manufacturer in the series in 50 years, as being good for everyone. [“Foreign Affairs,” NASCAR Winston Cup Scene, Feb. 27, 2003]
“But you don’t start out at the top of the heap,” Jim says. “You have to work your way up. We had quite a bit of experience in off-road racing, and NASCAR allowed us to begin by participating in the Goody Dash Series, a regional race series. In 2002, we were invited to compete in the Craftsman Truck Series
[now the World Camping Truck Series]. Toyota built—and still builds—Tundra trucks in the U.S. TRD spent 2002 and 2003 designing, building, and testing a Tundra body with a specialty V8 engine.” Meanwhile, Jim and his team went about putting together the rest of the package. In late 2003, Toyota partnered with four teams. The Toyota Tundra made its debut in NASCAR at the Daytona International Speedway in 2004; Travis Kvapil finished second. In late July of the same year, the young driver and his team captured the checkered flag at Michigan International Speedway. By 2006, Toyota had won the entire Craftsman Truck Series Championship. In 2007, Toyota made its debut in both the Busch (now Nationwide) and NEXTEL (former Winston Cup and now Sprint Cup) stock car series. TRD built performance-based Camrys with V8 carburated pushrod engines for the races. In July of that year, Toyota earned its first Busch Series win, but it was not until April 2008 that it won its first race in the Sprint Cup Series. To date, Toyota has won the 55
Kyle Busch, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, gave Toyota its first Sprint Cup Series win at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in 2008, driving a souped-up Camry. The car featured an 850 hp V8 with 358-cubic-inch displacement. Since 2010, Toyota-powered Camrys have also featured an electronic fuel injection system. To date, Busch has given Toyota 32 wins in NASCAR: 11 of their 17 wins in the Sprint Cup Series,16 in the Nationwide Series, and five in the Camping World Truck Series.
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2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 Manufacturer’s Championship in the Busch Series but has yet to take the Sprint Cup Series itself. “In the Sprint Series, you’re competing with the best teams, the best drivers, and the best car technology. Toyota is committed to NASCAR for the long term,” Jim says. In other words, they plan to win that series, too. Toyota Racing Today Toyota auto racing activities have not been limited to CART/IRL and NASCAR races. The company
competed in off-road and sports car racing for several years, building a specially-designed engine for Toyota trucks and prototype cars. A totally different type of racing, endurance racing, involves engines, cars, drivers, and team personnel with true grit. Toyota has continued its success in these classes as well, winning the 24 Hours of Daytona four times, the 12 Hours of Sebring race twice, and numerous victories with Ivan “Iron Man” Stewart in the Baja 500 and Baja 1000. Competition has also included the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, with Rod
Ivan “Ironman” Stewart is perhaps best known as the off-road driver most likely to participate in distance races without a co-driver. Toyota began to sponsor him through the Cal Wells Precision Preparation team, driving a Toyota Tundra. Before retiring, Stewart won 82 races, including 17 races in Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group’s (MTEG) stadium series, a record 17 Baja 500’s, three Baja 1000’s, and SCORE International events. This 3-inch, tube-frame-constructed truck was one tough hombré—with three-foot travel suspension parts and quick change wheels—but no windshield. The TRD-prepared engine produced in excess of 500 BHP.
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From left to right: Lee White, former Managing Director, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Tsutomu Tomita, Managing Director, Toyota Motor Corporation, and Jim. Toyota has captured numerous Manufacturer’s and Driver’s championships in nearly all of the major racing series in which it has competed, including the IRL, CART, NASCAR’s Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, IMSA (International Motor Sports Assoc.), SCORE (International Off-Road Racing), MTEG (Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group), and CORR (Championship Off Road Racing.)
Millen making the 12-mile run up the mountain in just a tick over 10 minutes, a record that stood for many years.
showcase our technological capabilities, to show our customers our expertise? Auto racing is a no-brainer for us.”
“It used to be that we built and leased an engine that ran once and then was scrapped. Today, some series require that engines be used twice, three times before being replaced. Engines get pretty torn up in a race. So now we have to find the best alloys, the best fuels, the best of everything because the engine has to be twice as tough. So far, we’ve continued to win,” Jim adds. “What better way to
Today, in addition to the three primary NASCAR series (Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World Truck), Toyota participates in NASCAR’s K&N Pro East and West Regional Series, drag racing through the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) (providing a souped-up Camry), the USAC National Midget Car Series, the NHRA XPLŌD Sport Compact Racing Series (hot rods),
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and two separate off road truck series (TORC and LORRS). “Each series requires a totally different kind of engine,” Jim says, “which I think is a real indication of the engineering talent, dedication, and caliber of personnel who make up Toyota Racing Development.” Jim admits he might be a bit biased on that point. Toyota has captured numerous Manufacturer’s and Driver’s championships in nearly all of the major racing series in which it has competed. However, one championship has eluded the manufacturer, the biggest and most widely known name in automoble racing in the U.S., NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. “2013 could be the year that Toyota completes their checklist of race series wins,” Jim says. “Certainly the owners, drivers, and crew members of Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing will be
Jim with Jamie Little. Little is the pit reporter for the NASCAR Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series for ESPN/ABC. A 2001 graduate of San Diego State University, she won the 2008 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, edging out NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Mike Skinner by 0.324 seconds. Little drove one of 19 identically prepared Toyota Scion tC’s.
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using everything they have learned during their racing careers to make this happen.” Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix Jim’s eyes light up when he talks about the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. “We started out as the official pace car at the inaugural event in 1975 and became title sponsor in 1980.” Last April, there were seven races: the IZOD IndyCar Series race, Toyota Pro/Celebrity race, Firestone Indy Lights race, Pirelli World Challenge Championship race, Motegi Racing Super Drift Series race, Tequila Patron American Le Mans Series race, and Stadium SUPER Trucks Exhibition race. Although the company no longer fields a car or engine in the signature IndyCar event, it provides all of the cars for the Toyota Pro/Celebrity race; this year featured a Scion FR-S. In addition to recruiting the celebrities, Toyota puts them through four
BInfranca/BIDesign
Toyota donates $5,000 on behalf of each celebrity and pro driver to Racing for Kids, a program that supports children’s hospitals throughout the U.S. An additional $5,000 is donated to the race winner’s charity of choice. Since 1991, the Toyota Pro/Celebritity Race in Long Beach has raised more than $2 million; monies have gone to benefit Miller Children’s Hospital of Long Beach and Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC). When Jim was asked if there was anything he has particularly enjoyed about being part of the Long Beach Grand Prix, he thought for a moment and then grinned. “I’ve gotten to be the race command announcer who says, ‘Drivers, start your engines!’ and I’ve gotten to do it more than once!” he says. Jim and his wife Diane. “When Jim was considering the job, he asked if he had to attend every race. They told him he didn’t, but, of course, he did,” Diane says. “The NASCAR season is particularly grueling; it runs from January through November.” Twenty-five years after Jim took the job, he and Diane are still married.
days of training. “Some of them don’t even know how to handle a stick shift,” Jim says. “Most of what we teach them, though, is related to safety and, of course, hitting their racing lines and shift points.” Over the years, celebrities have included Clint Eastwood, John Elway, Joe Gibbs, Tony Hawk, Jay Leno, Jamie Little, George Lucas, Paul Newman, Walter Payton, Kenau Reeves, Mary Lou Retton, and Patrick Stewart. Interestingly, some of them have beaten the pros. Several of them have caught the “racing bug,” including Josh Brolin, Patrick Dempsey, Sean Patrick Flanery, Mark-Paul Gosselar, Gene Hackman, Jesse James and Paul Newman.
Jim retired in 2008, but he still attends four to five races a year. He still meets with car owners and still visits with a number of drivers. He has lunch monthly with TRD personnel in Costa Mesa. “It lets me stay in tune with the inner workings of the Toyota teams; it helps me keep abreast of where they’re headed. And, of course,” he adds, “there are the races on TV and a number of race-related internet sites. I stay in touch.” It seems safe to say the man still has the bug. Not bad for a boy from Kansas with a love for auto racing. •
Jim and Diane Aust are active members of Mesa Verde UMC. 61
Genocide: Over and Over Again
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enocide is a term coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish scholar of international law, to describe the massacre of Armenians in the early 20th century living in what was then the Ottoman Empire. “Genocide,” he wrote in his book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, “is a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of natural groups, with an aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” [ushmm.org/genocide/take_action/gallery/portrait/lemkin] In 1948, the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) defined genocide in Article II: “Any [number of] acts committed with an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group...” [en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Genocide]
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63 US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Regina Gordon and Anna Nodel
What unites us as human beings is the aspiration to make the world better, more compassionate, with less conflict, less hate and hardship, and with more tolerance and understanding. Elie Wiesel Specific acts were listed as:
agencies, and the U.N. General Assembly. It does
• Killing members of a group
not try individuals. The ICJ has formally approved the CPPCG definition of genocide.
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group The acts are further delineated in Article III, which defines the kinds of acts that are punishable, including: genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempts to commit genocide, and complicity in the committing of genocide. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), commonly referred to as the World Court, was established in 1945. The U.N.’s primary judicial organ, its purpose is to deal with the legal matters of the various sovereign nations, authorized international organs and
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“In 1951, only two of the five members of the U.N. Security Council were parties to the CPPCG: France and the Republic of China. The CPPCG was ratified by the Soviet Union in 1954, the United Kingdom in 1970, the People’s Republic of China in 1983 (having replaced the Taiwan-based Republic of China on the Security Council in 1971), and the United States in 1998.” [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Genocides_in_history] Consequently, it was not until the 1990s that international law on the crime of genocide began to be enforced. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a permanent tribunal, separate from the U.N., whose function is to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It came into existence July 1, 2002, and can only prosecute crimes committed after that date. Prior to its founding, various ad hoc tribunals—from the Allied Forces’ International Military Tribunal (Nurenberg Trials) to the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia—were created to try individuals accused of such crimes. One hundred twenty-two sovereign nations are state parties to the Statute of the Court. The U.S. is not among them. Depending on the source, as many as a dozen genocides have taken place since the early 1900s. But the definition of genocide includes two key elements: • The mental element, meaning the intent to destroy; intent implies purpose and is usually “inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts.” [preventgenocide.org/genocide/ officialtext-printerfriendly.htm] • The physical element, which involves the carrying out of the intent to destroy. Both must be proved to be called genocide. Mass murder and crimes against humanity do not, of themselves, qualify as genocide. Thus, apart from the Holocaust, nearly every other genocide of the last 100 years has been vigorously argued by legal experts on both side of the issue. This article includes a discussion of six 20th and 21st century genocides: the Armenian Genocide (including Assyrian and Greek genocides), the Holocaust, the Cambodian Genocide, the Bosnian Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Darfurian Genocide. Some experts also list the acts of violence in Burma, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, and Sri Lanka as genocides.
The 8 Stages of Genocide Gregory H. Stanton, president of the organization Genocide Watch, outlined what he called the “Eight Stages of Genocide,” in a briefing paper delivered to the U.S. State Department in 1996. “Genocide is a process that develops in eight stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.”
STAGE 1: CLASSIFICATION STAGE 2: SYMBOLIZATION STAGE 3: DEHUMANIZATION STAGE 4: ORGANIZATION STAGE 5: POLARIZATION STAGE 6: PREPARATION STAGE 7: EXTERMINATION STAGE 8: DENIAL
Source: Genocide Watch (genocidewatch.org)
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The Armenian Genocide From 1915-1918 or 1915-1923, depending on the source, the Ottoman Empire sought to eliminate its Armenian constituency. Known traditionally among Armenians as the Great Crime, it resulted in an estimated 1-1.5 million deaths. Assyrians, Greeks, and other ethnic groups were targeted at the same time; their deaths are considered part of the Armenian Genocide. By the late 1800s, Armenia had been usurped largely by the Ottoman Empire and Russia. In the former, they were Christians living in a Muslim country. For decades they were treated as second-class citizens. Although granted the right to worship as they pleased, other freedoms were severely limited. Their testimony in a court of law against a Muslim was inadmissible. They could not carry weapons. They could not ride horses. Their homes could not overlook the homes of Muslims. They were often unfairly taxed. By the late 1870s, Armenians were beginning to demand autonomy, although they were not looking for independence from the Ottoman Empire. In 1908, a group known as the Young Turks staged a coup d’etat and overthrew the sultan. The new government was made up largely of two groups – one of which accepted Armenians into their government, and one which did not. Eventually, the latter group gained the upper hand. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) espoused nationalistic dogma, pushing for a Muslim-only state. Some historians claim the push to remove all
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minorities from the empire went part and parcel with the larger war. In 1912, the First Balkan War ended in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire; the country lost 85 percent of its territory to Europe. Muslims living in the Balkans were turned out, coming to live among the relatively more wealthy Armenians, and much of the land still owned by the Ottoman Empire was inhabited by the Armenians. The Ottoman army was composed of non-Muslim males, for the most part, including Armenians. In February of 1915, all Armenians on active duty were demobilized and assigned to unarmed labor battalions, thus leaving them without weaponry when the slaughter began. The official date of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide is April 24, 1915. On that day, some 250 Armenian intellectuals and civic leaders were arrested and later executed. In late May of 1915, the Ottoman government passed the Temporary Law of Deportation and in September, the Temporary Law of Expropriation and Confiscation. The summer of 1914 had found Turkish Armenians serving across the border in the Russian Army. In November of the same year, the Ottoman Empire had entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers. In December, the Ottoman Empire was handed a resounding defeat at the Battle of Sarikamish. It was blamed on the Armenians; they were accused of siding with Russia.
Over the next three years, Armenians were systematically rounded up and deported or killed. Men, women, and children were drowned, set on fire, overdosed with morphine, asphyxiated with toxic gas, and injected with the typhoid virus. Armenians were sent on death marches into the Syrian desert without food or water. The women were raped along the way; the men slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands perished. There was little resistance. The village of Musa Dagh defended themselves until the French moved them to safety. The inhabitants of Van fought until relieved by Russian soldiers. Although much of the world knew what was going on, it was American Ambassador Henry Morgenthau who set up the first relief camps, even before the war’s end. He was able to do that, in part, because America had never officially declared war against the Ottoman Empire.
After the war, the new Nationalist Turkish movement routed Armenian and Greek refugees (through expulsion and massacre) who had returned to their land. In 1923, the movement was overturned, and the Republic of Turkey emerged. By then, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were virtually gone, scattered throughout Europe, Asia, and South America. While some of the leaders of the genocide were later found and tried, many escaped punishment. The ethnic cleansing was swept under the carpet. To this day, Turkey refuses to recognize the victimization of the Armenians as genocide and has never made an apology or paid retribution to the Ottoman Armenian community.
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A mother loses her child in the Syrian desert. According to British historian Christopher J. Walker, “’Deportation’ was just an euphemism for mass murder. No provision was made for their journey or exile, and unless they could bribe their guards, they were forbidden in almost all cases food and water.” Those who survived ended up between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor, “a vast and horrific open-air concentration camp.” [Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, 1990, p. 210, 205]
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The Holocaust Perhaps the best known genocide of the 20th century is the Holocaust. Also known as the Shoah, it was the systematic, state-sponsored extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the mentally and physically challenged. It is estimated that 11 million people were killed, including six million people of Jewish descent. The reasons for the Holocaust have never been sufficient when viewed individually, but together, they formed a perfect storm of terror and death. Some would argue that the cause was anti-Semitism, a sentiment that had been around since the Middle Ages; the idea was not new. Some would point to the popularity of the concept of eugenics – the idea of the viability of promoting a genetically superior living being, be it animal, plant, or human, for the good of the species. Some would say the Holocaust came about as a result of economic factors; Germany suffered greatly the reparations of World War I, leading to a prolonged downturn in their economy. Many Jews were professionals; people were jealous of their relative wealth. Perhaps it was the fact that German propaganda changed the meaning of “Jewish” from being a religious group to being a race, effectively blunting any outcry from the religious community. Others point simply to the fact that Hitler hated the Jews. By the same token, the start date of the Holocaust varies depending on the historian. Many point to the night of November 9, 1938, when, in Austria and Germany, synagogues were burned and pillaged, Jewish businesses were looted, and Jewish 68
people were attacked indiscriminately. Referred to as Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), the pogrom included the arrest of some 30,000 Jews who were then sent to prison camps. Other experts contend the Holocaust began much earlier, in 1933, when political prisoners and those labeled “asocial” were sent to the first of Germany’s concentration camps, Dachau. The 1930s saw the erosion of Jewish rights in Germany. By the end of 1938, Jewish newspapers could no longer be sold on the street. Jews had been deprived of citizenship, could no longer own businesses or attend public cultural events, and they had lost the right to vote. By the end of the war in 1945, more than 40 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territories (now 35 separate European countries) had been built to house and/ or exterminate the Jews and other “enemies of the state.” In terms of the Jews, it was known as the “Final Solution.” In 1940, the Nazis began deporting German Jews to Poland and forcing them, along with Polish Jews, into ghettos. Concentration camps sprang up; Jews were literally worked to death there. The first extermination camps were built in 1941, after it became clear that mobile extermination units were not efficient enough to do the job on the scale envisioned by the Third Reich. Eight extermination camps were built in all—Auschwitz, Belzic, Chilmno, Jasenovac, Majdanek, Maly Trostinets, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Auschwitz, Chelmno, and Majdanek originally were concentration camps. Initially,
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There was little Jewish resistance. The 1943-1944 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Bialystock Ghetto Uprising, and a few uprising in the camps were all unsuccessful. An estimated 20,000-30,000 Jewish partisans fought the Nazis in Eastern Europe. They joined various resistance movements in the West. By mid-1944, much of the Jewish population in Europe had been killed. France lost 25 percent; Poland, more than 90 percent of its Jews. The tide turned against the Germans in 1944. As they retreated, Considered one of the most horrific concentration camps, Ebensee (Austria) prisoners worked to build tunnels for German armament. An estimated 20,000 Jews, Russians, Poles, Czechoslovaks, and Gypsies, as well as German and Austrian political prisoners and they moved their prisoners and made evcriminals, were housed in buildings built to hold 100 prisoners each. By the end of the war, as many as 750 shared the same space. The men were worked 12 hours a day. Food rations ery effort to dismantle the camps. Prisonconsisted of half a liter of ersatz coffee in the morning; three quarters of a liter of hot water ers were forced on death marches to trains containing potato peelings at noon; and, in the evening, about five ounces of bread. that carried survivors ever closer to the most victims were shot to death, but eventually gas German central command. In 1945, sixty thouchambers and crematoria were built. According sand prisoners were marched out of Auschwitz 35 to Rudolf Hob, commandant of Auschwitz, who miles to Wodzislaw, where they were put on freight spoke at the Nuremberg Trials, the two gas chamtrains. Nearly 15,000 died along the way. The last bers at Auschwitz held a total of about 2,000. Once 11 prisoners in the camp, all women, were killed a chamber was full, the doors were screwed shut outright. and pellets of Zyklon-B were dropped into it, releasing hydrogen cyanide. Those inside died within Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph 20 minutes. Johann Kremer, an SS doctor, testified Goebbels committed suicide at the war’s end. The that, “Shouting and screaming of the victims could Nuremberg Trials began in November of 1945. In be heard through the opening, and it was clear they the first round of trials, Martin Bormann was tried fought for their lives.” The gas was then pumped in absentia, Robert Ley committed suicide within out, the bodies removed, gold fillings were exa week of the commencement of the trials, and 23 tracted, and women’s hair was cut. The floor of the men stood trial. Fourteen received the death penchamber was cleaned, the walls whitewashed, and alty, although two committed suicide before their the chamber was made ready for its next victims. executions. Seven received prison terms ranging [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Exterminafrom 10 years to life. Three were acquitted. tion_camps_2]
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The Cambodian Genocide When the word “genocide” is used, people tend to think of ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. But the Cambodian Genocide came about as a program to “cleanse” the country of its social classes. The object of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge was to create a communist nation similar to Mao Tse Tung’s Marxist China. The Kampuchean government worked to institute Pol Pot’s vision through the systematic removal from their homes of all but the poorest rural laborers and the cleansing of social classes
The Khmer Rouge was a small guerilla movement in 1970. But by 1975, it had grown to more than 700,000. In the same year, the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, ousted Lon Nol, the result of a three-year civil war. Pol Pot immediately changed the name of the country to Democratic Kampuchea and went to work to reconstruct it under the communist model of China. But even China became a communist country in stages.
through hard work. The process was put in place through mass deportation, forced labor, starvation, and execution. Experts estimate that approximately two million lives were lost between the years 1970 and 1974.
Pol Pot drove Kampuchea into communism without intermediate steps. Enemies of the state were systematically hunted down and executed, including politicians, intellectuals (nearly everyone with a college degree), religious leaders, and ethnic minorities. Many were seized, killed en masse, and buried in communal graves. Today, these are referred to as the Killing Fields.
Cambodia became part of French Indochina in the 19th century, its citizens living under the hierarchical rule of colonialism, until it achieved independence in 1953. From then until 1975, the country was ruled by Prince Sihanouk. The monarch tried to maintain neutrality during the Vietnam War, allowing North Vietnam to use Cambodian ports to ship in supplies and weapons and letting the U.S. conduct bombing runs on Viet Cong hideouts in Cambodia. The result of this tight rope act was that Sihanouk pleased no one. Long part of Sihanouk’s government, Lon Nol overthrew the prince in 1970, abandoning the country’s policy of neutrality. Working closely with the U.S. and South Vietnamese military, Lon was seen by many an American puppet.
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Others were arrested, tortured, and forced to write confessions before being executed. Some 17,000 people were taken to the now infamous Tuol Sleng Centre outside Phnom Penh for questioning. Only 12 are known to have survived. [en. Wikipedia.org/ wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia] The regime also expelled most people living in urban areas, driving them into the countryside and/or deporting them to other parts of the country. There, they were forced to work as slave labor in subhuman conditions. Historians note that about half of the Cambodians who died in this time period were executed; the rest died of disease, starvation, or exhaustion. One of the mottos of the
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Khmer Rouge was, “To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss.� Pot Pot did not limit his vision to Cambodia. Beginning in 1975, and escalating their efforts in 1977, the Khmer Rouge went after Vietnam. The Vietnamese sought a treaty with the new government, but refused to recognize the colonial-era demarcation of maritime borders between the two countries, and negotiations stalled. The Khmer Rouge From 1995 to 2004, the Documentation Center of Cambodia mapped the Cambodian killing fields, identifying 9,403 mass burial pits. The photo above does not do justice to the carnage of the Khmer Rouge era or continued their forays into evoke the emotional impact of the memorials. Think of these shelves stretching from floor to ceiling, 6 to 12 feet across the room, and you will get a better idea of the extent of the genocide. There are approximately 80 Vietnam. In December of memorials in Cambodia, many of which contain, or once contained, the remains of thousands of victims. 1978, Vietnam attacked. Twelve days later they held Phnon Penh. Pol Pot escaped, however, and continued to harass the seat there until 1993. With the Vietnam War over takeover government for several years. and the more recent fiasco in Somalia fresh in its memory, the U.S. refused to act. Former President A U.N.-led peacekeeping mission worked to restore Clinton has since said that he felt it was one of the order in the 1990s, with some success. In 1998, worst decisions of his presidency. Pol Pot died of heart failure in his sleep. Several of his lieutenants surrendered to the government in Kang Kek Iew, the commandant of the Tuol Sleng exchange for immunity from prosecution. Centre prison facility, went on trial for crimes against humanity in 2009. He was the first of the There has been much written about why the world Khmer Rouge to be tried by the Extraordinary did not step in to stop the violence. In part, the Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. He was Khmer Rouge cut off most international trade and found guilty and sentenced to 30 years imprisoncontrolled all the media. The Democratic Kampument. That was later changed to a life sentence. Few chea was recognized as the successor to Cambodia other members of Pol Pot’s regime were tried. in the U.N. General Assembly and retained its 71
The Bosnian Genocide In 1980, Yugoslavia’s president Josip Tito died, leading to the collapse of communism throughout the country. Shortly thereafter, Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia declared independence, calling for the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina (commonly referred to as Bosnia), as well. Bosnia became an independent republic in April of 1992. At the time of its independence, Bosnia was made up of more than 1.3 million Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox Catholic Christians), a little over a million
11,000 of the city’s citizens died between April 1992 and February 1996.
Bosniaks (Sunni Muslims), and 700,000 Bosnian Croats (Roman Catholic Christians).
troops cleared the Croats out of much of eastern Bosnia. In 1993, the U.N. Security Council declared six Muslim enclaves as safe zones, including Sarajevo, Goradze, and Srebrenica. Limited to providing humanitarian aid, the U.N. contingency was of little help. By the end of 1993, Bosnian Serbs had set up their own state in the eastern portion of Bosnia. In time, Bosnian Serbs and Serbian troops held as much as three-quarters of Bosnia.
Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia’s leader, encouraged Serb nationalism throughout the former Yugoslavia and, the day after Bosnia declared independence, invaded the newly formed republic, sealing off the capital of Sarajevo. Through Bosnian Serb forces, he lay siege to the city of nearly half a million for four years, denying the population access to food, medical supplies, and other basics. From the nearby hills his troops assaulted the city with weapons that included “artillery, mortars, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers, rocket-launched aircraft bombs and sniper rifles.” [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Siege_of_Sarajevo] The United Nations sought to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Sarajevo, but found the airlifts in and out of the city too dangerous The neighborhood of Grbavica, part of the once modern and thriving city of Sarajevo. The city lay under seige for nearly four years. Because the town was the target, and not any and suspended operations. An estimated specific group of people living in it, the death of nearly 11,000 of its citizens is not considered a genocide.
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In the interim, Milosevic played on long-held tensions among the three ethnicities, urging Bosnian Serbs to clear the land of Muslims and Croats in order to take back land that, he promoted, had rightfully belonged to them in times past. (In truth, each group held strong historical and local claims to the land.) Meanwhile, regular Serbian army
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International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that, “in order for actions to be deemed genocide, there must be physical or biological destruction of a protected group and a specific intent to commit such destruction.� [en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Bosnian_Genocide]. To date, only the Srebrenica massacre has qualified as a genocide. Ratko Mladic (in charge of the siege of Saravejo), Radovan Karadzic (responsible for the Srebrenica mass murders), and Slobodan Milosevic were indicted variously for war crimes, crimes against humanity, extermination, murder, deportation, and genocide. Milosevic, in poor health at the time of his trial, died in his cell at The Hague in 2006. Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade after being on the lam for 13 years. He is awaiting trial. Mladic remains a fugitive. The Bosnian Republic and the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska) still exist; relations are still strained and cooperation is minimal at best. [worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/bosnian-genocide]
Bosnia’s International Commission on Missing Persons Podrinje Identification Project was formed primarily to identify victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. The project includes a facility for storing, processing, and handling exhumed remains, many of which are only fragments or commingled body fragments, since they were recovered from secondary mass graves. The photo depicts one section of the refrigerated mortuary.
In July of 1995, regular Serb troops deported an estimated 23,000 Muslim and Croat women, children, and elderly persons from Srebrenica (under U.N. protection). Between 7,500 and 8,000 men and boys 13 and older were trucked or marched out of the city and systematically gunned down. Up to 3,000 were shot trying to escape. Fifteen hundred were locked in a warehouse and sprayed with machine gun fire and grenades. One of several massacres (including Lasva Valley, Ahatovici, Mt. Vlasic, Ahmici, and others), it was the single largest case of mass murder in Europe since World War II. In the 1990s, several authorities, including the U.N. General Assembly, Germany, and the U.S., declared that elements of the ethnic cleansing constituted genocide. However, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the
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The Rwandan Genocide Beginning April 6, 1994, and for approximately 100 days, Rwandan Hutus slaughtered Rwandan Tutsis and Hutus sympathetic to Tutsis, their purpose to rid the country of all Tutsis. Unlike the Holocaust or the Cambodian Genocide, records of victims were not kept. The estimated death toll ranges from 500,000 to 1.2 million, with 800,000 being used often in the literature. It was seemingly clear that the world, including the U.N. Security Council, knew what was happening, but did nothing. France sent troops; their soldiers were accused of helping the Hutus under the guise of protecting the Tutsis. While the spark that ignited the 1994 genocide was the death of President Jurénal Habyarimana, whose plane was shot down as it was preparing to land in Kigali (the nation’s capital), ethnic strife had dominated Rwanda’s history for more than a hundred years. Originally, those who owned cattle were called Tutsis; others were called Hutus (or “laborers,” according to one source). Hutus who acquired cattle or married a Tutsi became a Tutsi. A Tutsi monarchy dominated the government of the 19th century. King Rwabugiri (1853-1895) instituted what was called corvée labor, a kind of payment for those who could not pay their taxes. It was, in effect, a form of indentured servitude. In addition, he was said to have used violence as standard practice against domestic and external foes. Rwanda was colonized by the French in the first half of the 20th century. The country gained independence in 1961, and became a modern 74
monarchy. In 1962, the Hutus overthrew the king. Habyarimana, a Hutu general, seized power in 1973. Many Tutsi fled the country. By 1998, Tutsis living in Uganda had created the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). In 1990, the RPF invaded Rwanda, marking the beginning of civil war. In 1993, the Arusha Accords were put before the opposing factions. U.N. Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMR) peacekeepers were deployed to the region to help ensure the accords were carried out. Habyarimana’s plane crashed after it was hit by a ground-to-air missile. Hutu extremists took over the government, blamed the Tutsis for the president’s death, and signaled the beginning of the slaughter. Tutsi men, women, and children were targeted, and traditional places of refuge proved worthless. Hundreds of Tutsis were massacred inside the Nyarubuya Roman Catholic Church; grenades were lobbed into the building, and then the Hutus went in with guns, machetes, and clubs. “Killing by hand was tiresome, so the killers took shifts. It took [them] two days…” [about. com/20thcenturyhistory/Rwanda genocide] Some 121,200 Tutsis flocked to Gatwaro Stadium in Gitesi, where they were unceremoniously slaughtered. Those who escaped to the surrounding hills were hunted down and killed. More were murdered in the town’s hospital and church. These are known collectively as the Kibuye Massacres. Forty-five thousand Tutsis were killed near the town of Gikongoro in the Murambi Technical
School, which was under construction at the time. The town’s mayor lured the Tutsis there, telling them they would be safe. He then betrayed them. Of the 15,000 survivors of the initial massacre, most were reportedly killed trying to escape the enclosure. Those who died were buried in mass graves. It is estimated that 10,000 people were murdered every day, 400 every hour, 7 every minute. It is believed that 300,000 Tutsis survived the genocide. Using the generally accepted number of deaths as 800,000, that means that more than half of the Tutsis in Rwanda were killed. Meanwhile, the RMF was engaged in a civil war against the Rwandan government. In mid-July 1994, Kilgali fell. Paul Kilgame, the rebel leader, became president of Rwanda.
Many have criticized the U.N. peacekeepers for failing to keep the peace. However, Lt. General RomĂŠo Dallaire repeatedly asked for permission to enter into combat; the U.N. Security Council repeatedly declined his requests, directing him, instead, to concentrate on evacuating foreign nationals. After the death of 10 peacekeepers, all Belgian, Belgium pulled its contingency out of the country. Dallaire took his remaining force and worked to create safe zones in several urban areas. He is credited with saving some 32,000 lives.
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The International Criminal Court was created largely as an outgrowth of the Rwandan Genocide. In the interim, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) began prosecution proceedings in 2000; as of February of this year, the ICTR had indicted 94 people. Of those, 32 are serving prison sentences, 13 have completed their sentences and have been released; three have died in prison. Of the others, some are still on trial, some have died, and some are still at large. The proceedings are slated to close in 2014. According to CNN, the leaders of the genocide were tried by the tribunal. Civilians who contributed to attacks or loss of life directly or indirectly were sent to gacacas, local village courts. The local courts are now closed. [cnn. com/2012/06/18/world/africa/rwanda-genocide-courts]
Forty-five thousand Tutsis were killed at the Murambi Technical School and later buried.When the genocide ended, they were dug up and all but 1,000 bodies were buried properly. The remainder were laid out on slats in the school’s various buildings, covered in lime, and left to the elements. Today the bodies remain, the school a poignant, pungent memorial to its victims.
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The Darfurian Genocide The Darfurian Genocide stems from an Arab vs Black African schism that has existed since before Sudan was a nation. North Sudan was originally part of Egypt and was populated by Egyptian Muslims. Darfur and South Sudan were populated by more than 100 tribes of Black Africans. Darfur is an interesting mix of the more nomadic Arab Muslims and Black African Muslim farmers. The capital of Sudan is Khartoum, located in North Sudan and run by President Omar al-Bashir. South Sudan, headed by President Salva Kiir, only recently gained autonomy (although war still rages along disputed border provinces) after more than 20 years of civil war. Darfur, the third of the three main regions in Sudan, hangs in limbo. Because the Khartoum government threw all of its resources into the prolonged fight with South Sudan, Darfur was largely ignored. Some historians claim this was intentional, that the Sudanese Arabs have been practicing apartheid since the early 1990s. [Vukoni Lupa Lasaga, “The Slow, Violent Death of Apartheid in Sudan,” September 19, 2006, Norwegian Council for Africa.] The Darfurians grew resentful of being marginalized. In 2003, a Darfurian rebel group calling themselves the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF) seized a number of garrison towns. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), two other rebel groups, attacked the city of al-Fashir. In the first six months of civil strife, these rebel groups enjoyed considerable success.
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To gain the upper hand, the Khartoum government struck back with what the international community would label a scorched earth policy, attacking rebel forces and, particularly, non-Arab villages (where rebel forces were claimed to have been succored). Armed with modern-day air power, superior manpower (including the use of mercenary forces known as the Janjaweed), and advanced weapons, the government of Khartoum and the Janjaweed wiped whole villages off the map. Thousands were killed and millions were left no choice but to flee their homes. Villages, crops, and livestock were destroyed, wells were poisoned, women were raped (an even more difficult challenge for Muslim women who were then shunned if not killed by their own families; rape was considered a weapon of war in Darfur), young girls were taken as sex slaves, and young boys were conscripted into the Janjaweed army. An estimated 35 million Darfurians were displaced, ending up in city-sized internal displacement camps or refugee camps across the border in Chad. An estimated 450,000 Darfurians died between 2003 and 2005, many succumbing to starvation or disease. Because most Darfurians are also Muslim, some experts have opined that this was not genocide. However, a U.N. observer team noted: “The 23 Fur villages [Fur being a tribe] in the Shattaya Administrative Unit have been completely depopulated, looted and burnt to the ground…Meanwhile, dotted alongside these charred locations are unharmed, populated and functioning Arab settle-
ments. In some locations, the distance between a destroyed Fur village and an Arab village is less than 500 meters.” [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_ Darfur]
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In August of 2005, the African Union (AU) sent troops into the region. In 2006, the U.N. proposed to send in peacekeepers, but was met with opposition by the Khartoum government. A UN/AU force finally arrived in late July 2007, but it was not large enough to protect the Darfurians adequately. Through the interim period, al-Bashir followed a
It took two years of effort on the part of the ICC to get the charges of genocide to stick. Al-Bashir is the first current head of state to be so indicted. The ICC’s authority is based on what is called the Rome Statute. Sudan signed the statute but did not ratify it, which means al-Bashir cannot be arrested in-country. His travel outside the country is strictly limited, although he has visited Chad, Egypt, and Qatar; all of which have refused to arrest him. •
two-pronged approach to Darfur—signing peace agreements with various rebel factions while continuing to ravage other parts of Darfur. Unfortunately, Darfur rebels are not a unified group, and neither the Khartoum government nor the international community has been able to garner a cease fire or peace agreement to which all parties agree. Interestingly, things in Darfur have calmed down somewhat as the government has shifted its focus to the border provinces between North and South Sudan. (Some critics claim that it is not the violence that has waned but media interest.) In 2008, the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and murder against al-Bashir. The president responded by expelling all international aid agencies and disbanding three domestic aid organizations. In the aftermath, conditions in the camps, already overcrowded and underserved, deteriorated further. Meanwhile, al-Bashir stepped up attacks on villages and camps.
The Khartoum government leveled villages from the air, then sent in the Janjaweed (translation: devils on horseback), who raped and murdered those who lived there. Escapees fled to internal displacement camps or refugee centers in Chad that have grown to be the size of small cities.
April has been recognized as Genocide Month by the State of California. Mesa Verde UMC has worked to educate its members on the subject through such venues as a United Methodist Women district study on Darfur and a visual presentation of 20th century genocide heros. The Peace, Environment & Justice team has also sponsored several O.C. for Darfur community gatherings at the church over the past few years.
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Music for the Royal Fireworks
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th of July celebrations nearly always include a fireworks display, be it a
few sparklers in the backyard or the bedazzlingly orchestrated pyrotechnic show put on by Disney. No Independence Day is complete without them. Fireworks were invented in 7th century China and became popular in Europe in the 1600s. In 1749, Great Britain’s King George II commissioned George Frideric Handel to create music to accompany a fireworks extravaganza held April 27th in London’s Green Park. The event celebrated the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle a year earlier, ending the War of the Austrian Succession. The result was Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks. While the music was a hit, the event did not go so well. The musicians performed in a specially constructed pavilion that caught fire as a result of the fireworks. In retrospect, the whole thing must have seemed jinxed. Full dress rehearsal was held six days earlier; 12,000 people attended. The huge number of carriages on the newly constructed London Bridge caused the collapse of the central arch. Music for the Royal Fireworks was performed more successfully in 2002, at the Buckingham Palace gardens. Complete with massive pyrotechnics, the event, part of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, went off without a hitch. •
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Mesa Verde United Methodist Church Mesa Verde United Methodist Church (Mesa Verde UMC) is a part of the worldwide UMC. Built in Costa Mesa, CA, on land originally called Goat Hill, it is now part of Costa Mesa proper and has been part of the community for more than 50 years. There’s an old joke about a group of elementary students who are asked to bring symbols of their religion to school for show-and-tell. The first child stands up and says, “I’m Jewish, and this is a Torah.” A second child stands up and says, “I’m Catholic, and this is a crucifix.” The third youngster stands up and says, “I’m Methodist, and this is a casserole!” Potlucks are a great symbol for Methodists. Everyone brings something to the table. You won’t like everything, but you will find something new that is wonderful. The conversation is good. The plates are always full, and desserts are free. Methodists like to get things done. We love the Bible and love to worship together. But spirituality isn’t just what we do for ourselves but what we do for others. Our founder, John Wesley, had a saying that has become our motto: Do as much good as you can With all the people you can In all the ways you can In all the places you At all the times that you can. Faith means making a tangible difference in the world. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, feel free to stop by. Everyone is welcome!
Mesa Verde United Methodist Church 1701 W. Baker St. Costa Mesa, CA 92626 www.mesaverdeumc.org