The Wounded Knee massacre is historic witness of ethnic crimes of America

Damascus, SANA- Throughout history, there have been many examples of ethnic crimes in America, the most brutal of which is the Wounded Knee; a heinous massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota people — the native Americans — at the hands of soldiers of the United States Army.

The massacre was the climax of the U.S. Army’s late 19th-century efforts to repress the Native American tribes of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies.

It occurred on December 29, 1890 near Wounded Knee Creek when a major clash took place between the Yankees —people of European descent— and the Native Americans.

A brutal massacre followed, where about 300 people of the Native Americans, nearly half of them women and children, were killed in that battle.

The Army troops involved were later rewarded with Medals of Honor but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre.

Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it’s unlikely that a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a Lakota Sioux chief, would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment’s defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876.

Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was one of the last major confrontations in the Indian Wars, America’s deadly series of wars against the Plains Indians and other Native Americans.

Despite decades after the abovementioned massacre, ethnic discrimination from the dawn of American history to the present is still increasing even within the American society, especially against African-Americans, in contrary to what the US claims of protecting human rights and securing peace in the world.

Kinda ALMahmoud/ Baraa Ali