Mexico and the Dominican Republic are the 99th and 100th State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.Despite pressure from the United States, Mexico became the world's 100th nation to ratify the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday. Mexico's Ambassador to the United Nations Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo ratified the treaty in a ceremony at U.N. headquarters in New York.
    Established on July 1, 2002, the ICC is currently investigating crimes committed after that date in Eastern DR Congo (Kinshasa), Northern Uganda (both States which are Parties to the Statute) as well as Darfur, Sudan (a nonparty State) by means of a March 31, 2005 UN Security Council Referral (Resolution 1593)

May 28, 2005, marked the the 175th anniversary of The Indian Removal Act, a policy of ethnic cleansing passed in 1830 by the United States Congress. The Act imposed forced relocation on eastern Indian Nations to the west of the Mississippi River, a policy which in today's terms would be called "ethnic cleansing." The best known of these removals was the "Trail of Tears" of the Cherokee Nation. In October 1838, 7,000 soldiers started a five-month 2,200 mile forced relocation of 16,000 Cherokee people. One out of four Cherokees died in the removal forts, during the journey, or in the first year in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). [see more details]
The Cherokee "Trail of Tears" is perhaps the most famous of many such forced relocations. The Creek Indians were moved by force in 1937 and the Chickasaws the following winter. The Choctaws moved 'voluntarily' after the Removal Act passed, while the Seminoles fought wars for the next three decades.
In the same year as Cherokee removal, 1838, the "Potawatomi Trail of Death" occurred when over 850 Potawatomi were rounded up and marched 660 mile at gunpoint from their Indiana homeland to Kansas. In 1855 Oregon Indians of the Rogue and Umpqua valleys were forcibly removed long distances to the Siletz and Grand Ronde reservations. In 1864 over 8,000 Navajos were rounded up and and forced on the "Navajo Long Walk" some 400 miles from northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico to Bosque Redondo on the Pecos River in De Baca County, eastern New Mexico, a desolate tract the Navajo called hweeldi (the place of suffering) . June 4, 2005 was the Opening of the new Bosque Redondo Memorial.   See other anniversaries and American Indian Genocide Museum

Guatemala Genocide On February 25, 2004 Guatemala's new president Oscar Berger asked forgiveness for the state's role in the country's long civil war at a ceremony in the national palace on the 5th anniversary of a UN-backed Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) . President Berger stopped short of calling the widespread wartime killings of Mayan Indians genocide (Read article ) The report, Guatemala, Memory of Silence found that acts of genocide were committed against Mayan people during 1981 and 1982 in four regions of Guatemala. A Summary of the report in English can be read online . The full Spanish version is also online as Comisión para Esclarecimiento Histórico (CEH). Note especially the section "Capítulo II: Volumen 3 - GENOCIDIO"

The following is a quote from the English Summary: " In consequence, the CEH concludes that agents of the State of Guatemala, within the framework of counterinsurgency operations carried out between 1981 and 1983, committed acts of genocide against groups of Mayan people which lived in the four regions analysed. [ Maya-Q’anjob’al and Maya-Chuj, in Barillas, Nentón and San Mateo Ixtatán in North Huehuetenango; Maya-Ixil, in Nebaj, Cotzal and Chajul, Quiché; Maya-K’iche’ in Joyabaj, Zacualpa and Chiché, Quiché; and Maya-Achi in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz.] This conclusion is based on the evidence that, in light of Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the killing of members of Mayan groups occurred (Article II.a), serious bodily or mental harm was inflicted (Article II.b) and the group was deliberately subjected to living conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (Article II.c). The conclusion is also based on the evidence that all these acts were committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part” groups identified by their common ethnicity, by reason thereof, whatever the cause, motive or final objective of these acts may have been (Article II, first paragraph).Read text in context

Also read on this website: Resources on Genocide in Guatemala and News Monitor on Guatemala 2001-2004

Genocide in the Penal Codes of 18 American States and 80 States around the world  

Bolivia is the newest State Party to the Genocide Convention ;
Of 35 members States of the Organization of American States all but eight are parties to the Genocide Convention. NOT yet party to the Genocide Convention are Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Suriname.
List of parties to the Genocide Convention (UNHCHR status report), List of over 50 nations NOT party to the Convention (this website)