ABSTRACT
The positive expectations for expanded human rights and decolonization were wartime pledges of the victorious Allied forces. International war crimes tribunals put leaders of Germany and Japan to death for crimes against humanity. The trials brought the charge of genocide to public attention for the Holocaust in Europe and for the savagery against innocents in Asia. Swift decolonization ambitions were undermined by the bipolarity of the Cold War. Conflict over loyalties and economic ties stalled the realization of idealistic goals. Anti-colonial wars in Algeria, Vietnam, Mozambique and elsewhere carried on racist and capitalist imperatives that included torture and massive civilian destruction. National boundary disputes, debt dependency and the institutional remains of the colonial past were combined with capital ambition, racial division and political opportunism throughout the era. No anti-communist tyranny that carried out racist attacks or oppression was without allies on the pro-capitalist side. No democratically elected government that imposed limitations on capital was safe from overthrow in the divided world. Newer forms of institutionalized regression revived familiar racial segregation practices and inequalities. The end of the Cold War in 1991 sparked hopes that pathways to democratic and human rights could once again be undertaken.
