The Belgian defence minister, Andre Flahaut, came under fire yesterday for approving an official document asserting that the biggest genocide of the past 500 years occurred in North America.
The 16-page report, entitled Genocides, was released to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1994 massacre in Rwanda in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.
The document put North America at the top of a list of genocides, saying an ongoing genocide of Native Americans had claimed 15 million lives since 1492, when Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas.
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"This publication puts our relations with all North and South American countries at risk," De Standaard said in an editorial, calling Mr Flahaut "unfit or incompetent".
The report ranked South America second, with 14 million deaths of indigenous people since 1500. It suggested both genocides were continuing.
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