The Real Abominables #4 ~ The Bosnian Genocide - Biljana Plavšić (and others)

A major problem in this "Real Abominables" exercise is in obtaining accurate birth data for indviduals involved, once these characters have been identified as having some level of leadership in the atrocities and genocides.

Oliver Cromwell, devasted Ireland and its inhabitants centuries ago, but there's no reliable birth data for him. Likewise, for Andrew Jackson, a figure involved in the Native American genocides in the early days of this nation. Even for Joseph Stalin, and some other well-known characters, there isn't a truly reliable set of data. I was about to start on a post about the man known as "Chemical Ali" due to his horrendous crimes in Iraq, real name Ali Hassan al-Majid, only to find that there's doubt on his birth data too.

I've decided to draw the series to a close now, by looking at one of the several figures involved in the Bosnian Genocide of the 1990s. Not Slobodan Milosovic, the best-known name involved in those events, because his birth data rated only a DD at Astrodienst. Even if I discount a time of birth and go with 12 noon, I'm not even 100% confident about the date. But, for reference, astrologer Lynn Hayes has written an astrological profile on him with the data available...see HERE.

I'm going to take a look at the chart of a female who was involved at a high level in the Bosnian Genocide: Biljana Plavšić. I have checked her date of birth in the case report, so it appears to be reliable, though with no birth time known.

BACKGROUND
It's not easy to nutshell the background to these events. To keep the post a reasonable length. I shall rely on bare bones, and brief borrowings only, with links to more detail from reliable websites.

Genocide in Bosnia (1992-1995)

Although many different ethnic and religious groups had resided together for 40 years under Yugoslavia’s repressive communist government, this changed when the country began to collapse during the fall of communism in the early 1990s. The provinces of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, and war quickly followed between Serbia and these breakaway republics. Ethnic tensions were brought to the forefront, and people who had lived peacefully for years as neighbors turned against each other and took up arms. When Bosnia attempted to secede, Serbia – under Slobodan Miloševic’s leadership – invaded with the claim that it was there to “free” fellow Serbian Orthodox Christians living in Bosnia.

Starting in April 1992, Serbia set out to “ethnically cleanse” Bosnian territory by systematically removing all Bosnian Muslims, known as Bosniaks. Serbia, together with ethnic Bosnian Serbs, attacked Bosniaks with former Yugoslavian military equipment and surrounded Sarajevo, the capital city. Many Bosniaks were driven into concentration camps, where women and girls were systematically gang-raped and other civilians were tortured, starved and murdered.

Biljana Plavšić, was a leading Bosnian Serb political figure holding a senior office before, during and after the 1992-1995 conflict. She participated in the persecutions of Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb populations in 37 municipalities. Plavšić supported a campaign of ethnic separation which resulted in the death of thousands of civilians and the expulsion of thousands more from municipalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in circumstances of great brutality, by inviting paramilitaries from Serbia to assist Bosnian Serb forces in effecting ethnic separation by force.

Mrs Plavsic came to politics late in life, after a career as a biologist, in which she published about 100 scholarly papers. She was appointed professor of biology at Sarajevo University in 1956 before taking up further academic posts in Prague and the United States.

She became a deputy to the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, known by some as "Butcher of Bosnia".

Biljana Plavšić was renowned throughout the 1990s as an uncompromising apologist of ethnic cleansing. Mrs Plavsic was virulently anti-Muslim. The self-styled "Serbian Iron Lady" once defended the purge of Bosnian non-Serbs as "a natural phenomenon" not a war crime.

She once insisted:"There are 12 million Serbs and even if six million perish on the field of battle, there will still be six million to reap the fruits of the struggle."
Even Slobodan Milosevic regarded her as a radical. Her outbursts led him to question her mental health, while Mr Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, dubbed her a "female Mengele" in a reference to the notorious Nazi doctor.

In 1992, a widely-circulated photograph showed her stepping over the body of a dead Muslim civilian to kiss the notorious Serb warlord Zeljko Raznjatovic, known as Arkan. But a decade later, she pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity, and apologised to "all the innocent victims of the Bosnian war - Muslims, Croats and Serbs alike".

Her change of heart was seen by some as a calculated manouevre to win a reduced sentence, and by others as part of a sincere and steady evolution of her attitudes to the Balkan wars.

She herself said that she had nothing to gain by seeking a reduced sentence, because at her age (72) even moderate 10-year jail term would in practice mean spending the rest of her life behind bars. In the event, she got 11 years. She was released after serving six years, in October 2009. See HERE.

 Welcomed back to Belgrade in October 2009

SOURCES USED
World without Genocide
Hague Justice Portal
ICTY.org
BBC.co.uk


ASTROLOGY

Two things stand out for me: Sun conjunct Pluto and Mars conjunct Fixed Star Algol, which, at the time of her birth would have been at 25 degrees of Taurus and some minutes.

Algol is a Fixed Star ancient astrologers cast as malefic and unfortunate. Some modern astrologers strive to find a positive side to it, and no doubt in certain circumstances it can turn out to have had its benefits. (See astrologer Yasmin Boland's piece HERE)

More appropriate to this present finding of Mars conjunct Algol in Plavšić's natal chart is astrologer Joni Patry's article Fixed Stars and Mass Murders, HERE.
Ms Patry points out that Mars conjunct Algol was also present in the natal chart of Osama Bin Laden.

Sun conjunct Pluto is described at Darkstar Astrology as: The Darth Vader of all Sun aspects. This is high contrast and stark lighting. The brighter the Sun the darker the shadow and that is just what we get here.

There's obviously more to be said about this natal chart, but I'm going to stop there, with what I see as the points of major significance.

This post is the last of a short weekly series looking at charts of some of The Real Abominables. Perhaps another post on this topic will stray in at some point in the future, when enthusiasm strikes again; and if so will be linked back to this recent set.

What has shown up as being reasonably common factors from this very small sample? I've noticed well-integrated Pluto, bundled chart shapes, some emphasis on Fixed Stars.

POSTSCRIPT: I would not wish to ignore, for the purposes of this series, the beyond horrendous Nazi Holocaust and its perpetrators. However, all has been analysed again and again elsewhere, over time. Here are links to two fairly recent pieces of interest. The first takes in, briefly, many high level Nazi leaders with points on their natal charts seen as significant by astrologer Jamie Pardridge at Astrology King blog: Nazi Horoscopes. Another piece, Hitler and the Golden Yod at Chirotic Journal blog has an interesting take on Hitler's chart.

The Real Abominables #3 The Rwandan Genocide & Jean Kambanda

Rwanda, slightly smaller than Maryland, is in east-central Africa, surrounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi. Steep mountains and deep valleys cover most of the country.

The area was once the home of the Twa, a Pygmy race, but though still present they make up only 1% of Rwanda's population. The Hutu and Tutsi tribes make up most of the remaining population. They are often considered ethnically separate, through intermarriage has led to much sharing of cultures. Traditionally the Hutu were farmers of the land, while the Tutsi raised cattle, and in many cases had become somewhat wealthier than the farmers.

The Hutus settled in the general area between 500 and 1000 B.C. the Tutsis (also known as Watutsis), a nomadic people, arrived from Ethiopia some 400 years ago, settled among the Hutus adopting many of their customs, beliefs and language.

Rwanda became a part of German East Africa in 1890. It was first visited by European explorers in 1854. During World War I, in 1916, it was occupied by Belgian troops. After the war, it became a Belgian League of Nations mandate, along with Burundi, under the name of Ruanda-Urundi.

Belgian leaders forced Hutus and Tutsis to carry ethnic identity cards, something which exacerbated divisions; they allowed Tutsis to attain higher education and hold positions of power, thus maintaining Tutsi dominance. Eventually they did encourage power sharing between Hutu and Tutsi. Ethnic tension led to civil war, forcing many Tutsi into exile. When Rwanda became an independent nation on July 1, 1962, it was under Hutu rule.

The Hutu majority lashed out at the minority Tutsis – killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring Uganda.

In Oct. 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Tutsi rebels in exile in Uganda, invaded in an attempt to overthrow the Hutu-led Rwandan government. Peace accords were signed in Aug. 1993, calling for a coalition government. But after the downing of a plane in April 1994 killing presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi, deep-seated ethnic violence erupted.

From United Human Rights Council website

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down. Violence began almost immediately after that. Under the cover of war, Hutu extremists launched their plans to destroy the entire Tutsi civilian population. Political leaders who might have been able to take charge of the situation and other high profile opponents of the Hutu extremist plans were killed immediately. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide. Entire families were killed at a time. Women were systematically and brutally raped. It is estimated that some 200,000 people participated in the perpetration of the Rwandan genocide.

In the weeks after April 6, 1994, 800,000 men, women, and children perished in the Rwandan genocide, perhaps as many as three quarters of the Tutsi population. At the same time, thousands of Hutu were murdered because they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.

The Rwandan genocide resulted from the conscious choice of the elite to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few power holders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would reinstate the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable peace. They seized control of the state and used its authority to carry out the massacre.

The civil war and genocide only ended when the Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the RPF, defeated the Hutu perpetrator regime and President Paul Kagame took control.

Although the Rwandans are fully responsible for the organization and execution of the genocide, governments and peoples elsewhere all share in the shame of the crime because they failed to prevent and stop this killing campaign.

Although the genocidal slaughter seemed a spontaneous eruption of hatred, it has in fact been shown to have been carefully orchestrated by the Hutu government.

In the aftermath of the genocide, an estimated 1.7 million Hutu fled across the border into neighboring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Although Tutsi rebels took control of the government, they permitted a Hutu, Pasteur Bizimungu, to serve as president, attempting to deflect accusations of a resurgence in Tutsi elitism and to foster national unity. Paul Kagame, the Tutsi rebel leader, became vice president and éminence grise (advisor).

Refugee problems, continued massacres, and the horrific legacy of genocide continued to haunt the national psyche. In Sept. 1998, a UN tribunal sentenced Jean Kambanda, a former prime minister of Rwanda, to life in prison for his part in the 1994 genocide. He became the first person in history to be convicted for the crime of genocide, first defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention after World War II. By 2001, eight others had also been convicted of the same charge. The UN tribunal, however, was criticized for its inefficiency and slow pace. In Dec. 1999, an independent report, commissioned by the UN, took Kofi Annan and other UN officials to task for not intervening effectively in the genocide.

 Jean Kambanda was Prime Minister in the caretaker government of Rwanda from the start of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. He is the only head of government to plead guilty to genocide, in the first group of such convictions since the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into effect in 1951.

Kambanda holds a degree in commercial engineering, but his career was in banking. At the time of the April 1994 crisis he was vice president of the Butare section of the opposition Democratic Republican Movement (MDR).

He was sworn in as prime minister on April 9, 1994 after the President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and a former Prime Minister, were assassinated. The opposition MDR had been promised the prime ministerial post in the transitional government established by the Arusha accords, but Kambanda leapfrogged several levels in the party's hierarchy to take the job from the initial choice. He remained in the post for the hundred days of the genocide until July 19, 1994. After leaving office he fled the country.

On September 4, 1998, the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) condemned Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment for:

Genocide, and Agreement to commit genocide
Public and direct incitation to commit genocide
Aiding and abetting genocide
Failing in his duty to prevent the genocide which occurred while he was prime minister
Two counts of crimes against humanity

This verdict was upheld by the ICTR Appeal Chamber on October 19, 2000, and Kambanda is currently jailed in Mali.

Sources ~
PBS; Infoplease; Infoplease; Wikipedia


ASTROLOGY

First: Wikipedia appears to have the wrong date of birth for Jean Kambanda. The record of the sentencing hearing states 10 Oct 1955 - not 19th October.

See HERE. See also HERE.

Jean Kambanda, born 10 October 1955 in the Prefecture of Botare, Rwanda. Chart is set for 12 noon - time of birth unknown.

This is another chart where all natal planets are clustered within the span of just a few signs. This is usually thought to indicate a personality with sharp focus on particular aims and ambitions.

The signs emphasised are somewhat surprising - Kambanda is another who could be labelled "not yer textbook Libra-type" as was Irma Grese in a post here. He has Sun, Mercury, Venus and Neptune all in the sign astrology depicts as a set of scales, signifying balance, negotiation, tact, diplomacy - all that good stuff. What went wrong in Kambanda's case? His natal Jupiter (excess) conjunction with Pluto (darkness, death) in Leo is a definite suspect, especially as the conjunction lies in sextile aspect to three of his Libra planets, drawing in at least some of the dark significance in stark contrast to everything Libra usually stands for.

His Leo planets (probably including Moon) clearly represent his talent and ambition for a position of leadership. The fact that Kambanda pleaded guilty to genocide, does reflect, albeit in a very unfortunate way, both Leo leadership (in his willingness to accept responsibility), and an all-but buried Libra-based sense of right and wrong.

So far, in the few charts of The Real Abominables explored, Pluto well-integrated and conjoining personal planets is a common feature; bundled/clustered chart configuration is emerging as being significant too, but more charts needed - early days!

The Real Abominables #2 ~ The Armenian Genocide (Pt. 2)

Continuing the topic of yesterday's post, The Armenian Genocide, today concentrating on those of the leaders who had a major part in organising the genocide, for whom basic birth data is available.

Who was responsible for the Armenian Genocide?

The decision to carry out a genocide against the Armenian people was made by the political party in power in the Ottoman Empire. This was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), popularly known as The Young Turks. Three figures from the CUP controlled the government:

Mehmet Talaat, Minister of the Interior in 1915 and Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) in 1917 - he was in 1874, no detail available.

Ismail Enver, Minister of War -
born 22 November 1881, Constantinople/Istanbul, Turkey.

Ahmed Jemal, Minister of the Marine and Military Governor of Syria
- born 6 May 1872, Midilli, (then) Ottoman Empire.

(Also, in charge of the Special Organization (see below) was Behaeddin Shakir, a medical doctor born 1874, Istanbul. No detail available.)

 Two of the three leaders of the Young Turk triumvirate, Enver Pasha, middle, Djemal Pasha, right (visit to Jerusalem, 1915, then a part of Ottoman Syria).

This Young Turk triumvirate relied on other members of the CUP appointed to high government posts and assigned to military commands to carry out the Armenian Genocide. In addition to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Interior, the Young Turks also relied on a newly-created secret outfit which they manned with convicts and irregular troops, called the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa). Its primary function was the carrying out of the mass slaughter of the deported Armenians. In charge of the Special Organization was Behaeddin Shakir, a medical doctor. Moreover, ideologists such as Zia Gokalp propagandized through the media on behalf of the CUP by promoting Pan-Turanism, the creation of a new empire stretching from Anatolia into Central Asia whose population would be exclusively Turkic. These concepts justified and popularized the secret CUP plans to liquidate the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire.

The Young Turk conspirators, other leading figures of the wartime Ottoman government, members of the CUP Central Committee, and many provincial administrators responsible for atrocities against the Armenians were indicted for their crimes at the end of the war. The main culprits evaded justice by fleeing the country. Even so, they were tried in absentia and found guilty of capital crimes. The massacres, expulsions, and further mistreatment of the Armenians between 1920 and 1923 were carried by the Turkish Nationalists, who represented a new political movement opposed to the Young Turks, but who shared a common ideology of ethnic exclusivity.

Natal charts for the two individuals for whom basic birth data is available are set for 12 noon, as birth times remain unknown.

Ismail Enver, Minister of War
- born 22 November 1881, Constantinople/Istanbul, Turkey.

Ahmed Jemal, Minister of the Marine and Military Governor of Syria
- born 6 May 1872, Midilli,(then) Ottoman Empire

Pluto (darkness, intensity, death) is my best bet, as the key - once again.

In both cases Pluto in Taurus was integrated with these mens' personal planets. It was (just) conjunct Jupiter and part of a Taurus stellium in Enver's case. Jemal had Pluto conjunct Mars (war, aggression) and Sun (self). Both men had planets, part of clusters, in mid degrees of Earthy, potentially acquisitive and always determined, Taurus.

Enver's Virgo Uranus (revolution, the unexpected) trines Jupiter (excess) part of the Taurus cluster. Mars in Cancer sextiles the Taurus cluster, and trines Venus/Mercury in Scorpio. His 0 degree Sagittarius Sun opposes Pluto in last degrees of Taurus. There's another Scorpio-Taurus opposition between Venus/Mercury and Saturn/Neptune.

The dual-cluster shape of Enver's natal planetary configuration portrays a basic intense and determined focus, married with excess, aided by outlying and potentially destructive Uranus and Mars harmoniously integrated to the basic pattern.

Jemal's chart configuration shows even more intense focus, with all planets in one half of the chart and most within two signs. Pluto is well-integrated once again, conjoining Sun and Mars - that stellium of Sun/Mars/Pluto has definite potential to produce, if not a genocidal maniac, then something very close to it. The stellium in neighbouring Aries, a Mars-ruled sign underlines what I've just written!

Bear in mind that Enver had Uranus trine Jupiter... completing Jemal's chart are Uranus conjunct Jupiter (revolution and excess) opposing Saturn (authority, ambition) in Capricorn, the opposition linked by square aspects to that Mars-ruled Aries stellium forms a T-square, again integrating, and not in a good way, factors with potential to lead to...well, we know now what they led to.

As the Armenian Genocide commenced in April of 1915 transiting Pluto had just entered Cancer, and stood at 0 degree. By 1923, at completion of the genocide, Pluto had travelled to around 10 degrees of Cancer. Uranus transited from mid degrees of Aquarius to mid degrees of Pisces. I don't see any close connection to the natal charts of the two men, but if there were a chart for Armenia itself, a connection might exist both to transiting planets and to the natal planets of these men. Charts for Armenia have been drawn up by astrologers in the past, and included in text books, but none is available online.

The Real Abominables #2 The Armenian Genocide (Pt 1)

#2 of The Real Abominables series relates to The Armenian Genocide, and needs to be spread over two days' posts. Today, a bit of outline information; tomorrow, a look at natal charts of two of the leaders of the genocide.
(#1 in this series is HERE)


First, where is Armenia? The country is located in the Caucasian Mountains on the Black Sea between Russia and Turkey. Interesting sidelight: Armenia contains some of the most significant cultural examples of sacred geometry, as well as other remarkable prehistoric structures, such as the "stonehenge" at Karahundj near Sissian. This stone circle, now shown to be a prehistoric observatory, long predates Stonehenge in England. Ancient inscriptions found here may mark the birthplace of the Zodiac – and of Western Civilisation itself. (See HERE).

It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of World War I. Well over a million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of thousands were butchered outright.

 Photo from the Armenian Weekly

Nazi genocide, of Jews, had this predecessor in such atrocities. Though The Armenian Genocide is not as universally well known, we do receive reminders of it from time to time, just last month, for instance:

(CNSNews.com) – An Armenian Apostolic church constructed in memory of the victims of the 20th century Armenian genocide was “rigged and dynamited” on Sunday by forces loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS), according to reports from Syria’s government news agency.

To appreciate the detailed circumstances and history leading to the Armenian Genocide, it'd take many pages of text. I'll try to put major points into as neat a nutshell as possible here, then link to some of many websites carrying more detail.

Armenia adopted Christianity in 301 A.D., before the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. For centuries it was a prosperous country, but in the 15th century the Ottoman Empire absorbed Armenia and its population. Non-Muslim Armenians were classified as “infidels”, were made to pay higher taxes, and enjoyed fewer rights than Muslims.

The Ottoman Empire was dominant in the region through the 19th, into the 20th century. In the 1890s Armenians began to demand more rights. In 1894, they met with a violent response from the Sultan. In ensuing battles, until 1896, as many as 200,000 Armenians were killed by Sultan Abdul Hamid’s troops: the Hamidian Massacre. The killing of the 200,000 Armenian Christians, though, pales as compared to the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Turkish nationalism grew, Armenians were seen as enemies of the state. In 1908, a group of so-called "Young Turks" forced the Sultan out and took control of the government. Armenians were, more and more, considered a threat to the shrinking Ottoman Empire. As Christian countries such as Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia left the Empire, Turkish loss of power fomented ever stronger feelings of nationalism.

Some extreme members of the "Young Turks" formed the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). The CUP focused on an increase of Turkish nationalism, their chant: “Turkey for the Turks!”

Germany and Russia went to war in 1914. Turkey sided with Germany. The Turks hoped a defeat of the Russians would help in the prospect of rebuilding their empire. In December of 1914, the Ottoman Turks tried to invade Russia, but suffered a bad defeat. More than 100,000 Russian troops invaded Turkey. Some 5,000 Armenians had helped the Russians, many enlisting in the Russian Army. Turkish leaders now saw the Armenians as a definite liability. Armenian members of the military were immediately disarmed, moved into labour camps and subsequently executed. On April 24th 1915, a group of 250 Armenian intellectual leaders of the community were rounded up and shipped to a camp where they were killed. Armenian soldiers and the cultural elites were now gone. The remaining Armenian population was forced to comply with a relocation order - essentially a death sentence.

Armenians were forced marched for sixty days, many did not survive. The Turks forced those of their victims who were transported by rail to purchase tickets for the ride to their own extermination. Children and old people were marched over mountains and in circles, without food and water, until they died. Young Christian girls were raped by the Turkish soldiers. There are reports that many killed themselves afterwards. The barbaric treatment of Armenian women went even further. One woman who claimed to have witnessed the brutal crucifixion of 16 young girls.

In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem. Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being raped, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies.” Related scenes were portrayed in the 1919 documentary film Auction of Souls, some of which is based on Mardiganian’s memoirs.

Accounts of Turkish atrocities against Armenians reveal brutalities equal to those happening during Hitler’s attempts to exterminate the Jews from Germany, and the world, more than twenty years later.

 PBS Documentary Film, 2006

The entire wealth of the Armenian people was expropriated. After only a little more than a year of calm at the end of World War I, the atrocities began again and continued, between 1920 and 1923. Remaining Armenians were subjected to further massacres and expulsions.

The scope and brutality of the events which killed 75 percent of Armenians — a predominantly Christian group - makes it very difficult to understand why, though historians and Armenians call this a genocide, the Turkish government and the United States and its presidents, will not officially accept the word "genocide" in relation to these events.

No American president has officially called the mass killings, dating from 1915, “genocide.” President Bush went as far as publicly urging Congress to reject a resolution on the subject. In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama promised that, as president, he would acknowledge it, saying; “Armenian genocide is a widely documented fact.” Despite that very clear language, President Obama was not followed up on his campaign promise. After he was elected, on Armenian Remembrance Day, the president issued a statement. The word that was conspicuously absent from the release: genocide. That term was also absent from every single April 24th Armenian Remembrance Day since 2009.

Here's an 11 minute video extract from TV's 60 Minutes on this topic. The segment includes a video shot on the banks of the Euphrates River where it is believed 450,000 of the victims perished. Remains of murdered Armenians are so prevalent in the area that just scratching the sand, along the river banks, is sufficient to uncover pieces of human bones that have lain there for almost 100 years.

Links to other sources:

Wikipedia's page
Genocide Museum
United Human Rights Council
The Blaze (Why still denied...)

Part 2 will follow, tomorrow.

The Real Abominables #1 Mao Zedong

First in a series of several, as mentioned in Tuesday's (7 October) post ~~~

From The Independent in 2010

Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said yesterday.

Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing "one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known".

Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years; the worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 million.

Mr Dikötter is the only author to have delved into the Chinese archives since they were reopened four years ago. He argued that this devastating period of history – which has until now remained hidden – has international resonance. "It ranks alongside the gulags and the Holocaust as one of the three greatest events of the 20th century.... It was like [the Cambodian communist dictator] Pol Pot's genocide multiplied 20 times over," he said.

From Astrodienst

Chinese political leader, author and poet who served as the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party, which he helped to establish in 1921. In the more than 80 monographs on his life, Mao has been both deified and demystified.

He married four times and was noted for having an unsatisfiable desire for sex as well as for absolute power, and the two were linked. As his holdings and position dropped politically, he suffered from impotence, and when he took the offensive, his sexual prowess increased. Despite his Populist pretensions, Mao lived like a traditional emperor with all the material comforts.

He died on 9/9/1976, Peking, China.

Wikipedia's page on him is HERE.


Fantasy Tweeting: some of the Abominables ~~

Mao Zedong's natal chart with data from Astrodienst. It has only a "C" rating = caution. I think the caution warning applies mainly to the ascending degree/sign.

Born 26 December 1893 in Siangtan, China at 7:30 AM.

With a view to discovering whether there's any common denominator among "Abominables" I'm going to look only for likely astro-potential for what I'll call "abominality".

There are three oppositions: Mercury opposite Pluto/Neptune; Mars opposite Jupiter; Venus opposite Moon. That means four of the most personal planets are involved in opposition aspects. Some also form part of a Grand Square configuration, in concert with square aspects linking Uranus/Moon/Jupiter/Venus. While these aspects and the configuration are not uncommon and almost always do NOT produce an abominable character, they do perhaps provide the basis for morphing in that direction. I haven't mentioned the signs involved to keep things clearer.

This Yod (Finger of Fate) with Pluto at its apex could be significant. It is formed by a sextile linking a traditionally inclined Capricorn Sun to a rebellious Uranus in passionate Scorpio, those two then meet via two quincunx aspects to Pluto (darkness, death) (+Neptune?) in Gemini.

There's a chain of sextiles too (some a wee bit loose) from Pluto to Moon, to Saturn, to Mercury, to Venus. With so much death and destruction involved in "abominality" I'd expect to see Pluto well-integrated, and here it is!

During the period of "The Great Leap Forward" (See here) between 1958 and 1962 Neptune and Pluto were transiting in fairly close sextile to one another in Scorpio and Virgo respectively. Mao had these two planets conjoined in Gemini in his natal chart, and forming part of the integrated pattern described above. I'm not sure whether the fact that the two planets conjoined at his birth and linked by sextile in transit during the time of some of his most monstrous decisions is in any way significant, but worth making a note of anyway.

Fixed Stars - I'm never sure how much credence to give to the interpretations of these, but let's have a look. All interpretations From HERE

Mao Zedong had Jupiter at 22.09 Taurus. At the time of his birth that dread Fixed Star, Algol , was at around 24 degrees and some minutes. Algol: Primitive female sexuality; strangulation, beheading, danger to throat and neck, murder, violence, mass catastrophe, the "Evil One", the Demon Star; passionate; intense; hysterical. Very Unfortunate; (character of) Saturn/ Jupiter.

I haven't researched exact positions of the rest of the Fixed Stars mentioned as at the time of his birth, but they'd have been in very slightly earlier positions than stated.

Current position of Capulus 24.12 Taurus; his Jupiter, again, was at 22.09.
Capulus: Primitive male sexual energy; penetrating; ruthless; adventurous; dishonesty; mass effects, esp. meteorological. Unfortunate; Mars/ Mercury.

Aldebaran now at 9.47 Gemini - his Pluto at 9.21 Gemini, his Neptune at 11.33.
A Royal Star. The archangel Michael, the Watcher of the East. Eloquence, high honours, integrity, popularity, courage, war mongering, agitation. Unfortunate; Mars

Spica now at 23.50 Libra his Saturn at 23.52 Libra
Wealth, fame, honour, glamour, the "Fortunate One". Very Fortunate; Venus/ Mars

Polis now at 3.13 Capricorn. His Sun at 4.30 Capricorn - Martial desires, high ambitions, domination, keen perception, success.. Very Fortunate; Jupiter/ Mars

His Venus at 20.11 Aquarius. Castra: 20°12 Aquarius: Destructiveness, uncontrollable temper, malevolence. Unfortunate; Saturn/ Jupiter.

Some very unfortunate, some fortunate. Interesting though.


It could prove easier to decide what to look for (if anything) after seeing a couple more charts of Abominables during coming weeks. In the meantime, working somewhat in the dark, any additional points by commenters will be appreciated.

THE ABOMINABLES (no relation to the book!)

I didn't exactly fall down an internet rabbit hole this time, rather I wandered gingerly into one to take a look while casting around for a subject to blog about. An article by Manly Hall in my volume of "Best of the Illustrated National Astrological Journal 1933-35" about Genghis Khan and his astrology set me hopping down the burrow.

From detailed sources the author determined, or rather estimated, the birth date of Genghis Khan "a storm that shook the world", as 16 September in A.D. 1186. Cross-checking with Astrodienst, I noted that his birth date there is stated as :

14 September 1186 Jul.Cal. (21 Sep 1186 greg.) at 23:50 (= 11:50 PM )
Place Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 51n42, 115e50

Do take a look - it's a very unusual chart!

Astrodienst's source notes say Manly Hall gave 14 September in the NAJ 1933 - but in my copy he gave 16 September. That's rather odd! Anyway, concentration was on the Libra/Virgo cusp, either way.

Reading around, though, I found some different estimated birth dates for GK - different months and even even different years proposed. So, it was looking as though studying a birth chart for him would be a lost cause.

 Russian sculptor Dashi Namdakov's statue of Genghis Khan, Marble Arch, London, UK.

Wandering further down the burrow I found a brief set of exchanges on a message board from 2011. , headed: Leaders of Genocides in the 21st century.
One person responding to the original poster (original post is at the bottom of that page) mentioned Genghis Khan and his supposed date of birth as 23 September - different again. It was the original poster's list that sparked my interest though.

This list entails some of the worst genocides of the 21st century, some of which deaths amounted in the 78 millions (Mao Ze-Dong), 23 millions (Stalin), 12 millions (Hitler), to 800,000 (Jean Kambanda) of the Rwanda genocide. All are a cause of conflicts such as: religious, political, or cultural beliefs. These genocides are an estimated of number of people killed by the orders of the leader, but however, do not reflect the indirect number of gross deaths from such: hunger, civilians.

Let's see what signs these leaders were... (I only listed genocides # of >100,000 body count)

Mao Ze-Dong: Dec. 26 (CAPRICORN)
Josef Stalin: Dec. 21 (SAGITTARIUS)
Adolf Hitler: Apr. 20 (ARIES)
Leopold II of Belgium: Apr. 9 (ARIES)
Hideki Tojo: Dec. 30 (CAPRICORN)
Ismail Enver: Nov. 22 (SAGITTARIUS)
Pol Pot: May 19 (TAURUS)
Kim Il Sung: April 15 (ARIES)
Menghistu: May 21 (GEMINI)
Yakubu Gowon: Oct. 19 (LIBRA)
Leonid Brezhnev: Dec. 19 (SAGITTARIUS)
Jean Kambanda: Oct. 19 (LIBRA)
Suharto: Jun. 8 (GEMINI)
Saddam Hussein: Apr. 28 (TAURUS)
Tito: May 7 (TAURUS)
Fumimaro Konoe: Oct. 12 (LIBRA)
Jonas Savimbi: Aug. 3 (LEO)
Idi Amin: Jan. 1 (CAPRICORN)
Yahya Khan: Feb. 4 (AQUARIUS)
Benito Mussolini: Jul. 29 (LEO)
Mobutu Sese Seko: Oct. 14 (LIBRA)
Charles Taylor: Jan. 28 (AQUARIUS)
Foday Sankoh: Oct. 17 (LIBRA)
Slobodan Milosevic: Aug. 20 (LEO)
Jean-Bedel Bokassa: Feb. 22 (PISCES)

It could be interesting to take a closer look at some of these characters' natal charts, adding a very brief run down on their history, linking to details at Wiki or elsewhere - maybe at the rate of one a week - to discover whether any common denominators emerge. I'm sure something similar must have been done before, by someone, somewhere, but no matter. I might kick-of with the guy at the top of the list later this week.

To balance that masculine majority, if I'm not too sickened I'll make a start on these women, who didn't pracice genocide, but were horrendously cruel.