Pygmy Genocide

Who?

Pocket God

• Pygmies are groups of people whose adult men grow to less than 150 cm in height

Coltan and Slavery

In a popular iPhone app, pygmies are the unfortunate victims of the player's twisted will: most players enjoy torturing and killing these little characters

• There are several scattered tribes around the world, in Africa, Southern Asia, and Australia

Bantu peoples from around the Central African rainforest enslave pygmy peoples and set them to work in coltan mines and other forms of slavery

People pay for the fun of killing pygmies on their electronic devices, from the comfort of their own home

These pygmies' children are born into the same fate, and they are the property of the Bantu

• Almost all pygmies are discriminated against by larger, taller people in their areas

Racist?

When Pacific Islander pygmies complained about the app's blatant racism, they were promised that the pygmy characters would be renamed "Oogs"

The Bantu call this a "time-honoured tradition"

This was done, then the name was changed back to Pygmies right away, because it was "a more suitable name"

Dave Castelnuovo, responsible for the name changing and promise breaking

Ironically, we need this coltan to run our electronic devices so we can kill pygmies on them

Somehow, I don't think they'd appreciate that

The Genocide of the African Pygmies

A Prezi by Evan Arbuckle

Systematic Discrimination

Pygmies in Central Africa have a population of about 500000 today

Pygmies are constantly threatened by loss of habitat, genocide, and slavery

Many states in Central Africa do not recognize pygmies as citizens or even as humans

Action Taken

In the early 1900s, Belgians would capture pygmy children and display them in zoos across Europe, and even at the World Fair in the US in 1907

The situation of the pygmies has been largely overshadowed by other mass killings

Many pygmy women are forced into sex slavery

Many people don't even know pygmies exist

Some human rights groups, such as Survival International promote awareness and aid for pygmies and other tribal peoples

Interahamwe

"Les effaceurs"

The Interahamwe is a paramilitary organization of Hutus from Rwanda

Central African Pygmy Genocide

During the Rwandan genocide, they contributed to many of the 10000 pygmy fatalities

DR Congo flag

In the North Kivu province of the DRC, there is a group of average-sized people who continue to remove pygmies from the land for mineral exploitation called "Les Effaceurs" (The Erasers)

That was a 1/3 of the total pygmy population in Rwanda

During the Congo Civil War, which occurred between 1998 and 2003, pygmies were hunted down by average-sized people and killed

Pygmies are neither Hutu nor Tutsi, they are called Twa in Rwanda

These pygmies are often killed and cannibalised

Rwandan pygmies often feel that they are the forgotten victims of the Rwandan genocide

About 60000 pygmies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo were killed in this time

"Les Effaceurs" are trying to rid the world of pygmies

The Interahamwe was forced out of Rwanda, and is now in the Congo

Both sides of the war believe that pygmies are "subhuman" and some also believe that their flesh confers magical powers when consumed

Multiple Choice Questions

Use the source to answer the following 2 multiple choice questions

But many [pygmy] communities have been displaced by conservation projects and their remaining forests have been degraded by extensive logging, expansion by farmers, and commercial activities such as intensive bush-meat trading.

survivalinternational.org

1. The above source indicates that pygmies are displaced primarily for:

• A: Social reasons
• B: Economic reasons
• C: Political reasons
• D: No reason

2. The benefits from this process are most likely:

• A: given back to the pygmies
• B: given to the Bantu
• C: taken by corporations and governments
• D: shared equally