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Realist's case for genocide intervention
Kurdish Media
24 April 2005
Global Politician - By Sean-Paul Kelley
It was a breezy May afternoon in San Pedro de Alcantara, on the southern
coast of Spain, when first I heard of Rwanda's horrors. Lazily sitting
on a veranda overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, I casually read the
International Herald Tribune. The photos, rivers of bodies all decaying,
beheaded, mangled, and deformed seemed too horrific to be real. A true
conception of what was happening in Rwanda could not be real to my best
friend and I as we sat there discussing, so carelessly, where we would
go next. "Perhaps," I said, "we'll go to Gibraltar, or Cueta and then
Morocco? Hey, why not the other direction and Roma?" Yet quietly, almost
guiltily, I thought about the Rwandans, several thousand miles to the
south of us, whose world was coming unhinged. The crime of genocide,
committed while we sat on an ivy-shaded veranda in Southern Spain,
raged. Roving Hutu gangs hacked to death "a maximum number of people."
And as we drank cool beer, women and children, uttering parched screams
of mercy, cowered in churches; as we lay on the beach watching beautiful
Spanish girls go by, thousands of Rwandan women were systematically
raped and murdered. Somewhere around 800,000 people died in the most
clear cut case of Genocide since the Holocaust. One of every ten people
in a tiny, impoverished Central African country of no strategic value to
any nation, were hacked to death while the West did nothing. Genocide is
so inconceivable that to those who have witnessed it there is no going
back-and there is hardly any going forward.[i] The deliberate,
systematic and intentional attempt to destroy an ethnic, religious,
national or racial group, outlawed in the aftermath of the Holocaust,
has happened at least four times since it was said: "never again."[ii]
"An Unnamable Crime"
Before the Holocaust was seared into our consciousness genocide was
known by another name. Woodrow Wilson's Ambassador to Turkey, Henry
Morgenthau, Sr., called it race murder, after what he had witnessed in
Turkey during WWI. It took a polyglot Holocaust refugee and
Polish-Lithuanian Jew named Ralph Lemkin to coin a term that had the
sound of the opprobrium the crime called for and the power to check its
would-be perpetrators in the future. Fascinated by words, their meanings
and consequences, Lemkin was obsessed by the crime committed against his
people-including the extinction of his entire family, except for one
brother-during World War II. Like an old Talmudic scholar he poured over
words trying to divine their hidden meanings. In her recently published
book, "A Problem from Hell," Samantha Power recounts Lemkin's need to
name this horrific crime, quite well. After struggling with a multitude
of formulations, inspiration delivered Lemkin of his obsession. In
November 1944 he published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe in which he
coined the term genocide. It stuck and was soon admitted into Webster's
New International Dictionary. Brian Urquhart, writing in a recent New
York Review of Books quotes the Washington Post as calling it, "the only
possibly appropriate word.[iii]
But Lemkin's obsession was not limited to linguistics. In the late
twenties, while a young Armenian awaited trial for the murder of Talaat
Pasha (the Turkish mastermind of the Armenian genocide) Ralph Lemkin
read a news clipping about his assassination. Lemkin was puzzled that a
single man could be prosecuted for murder yet the murdered man could
have walked away from the extermination of nearly a million souls. "It
is a crime for [this young Armenian] to kill a man, but it is not a
crime for his oppressor to kill more than a million? This is most
inconsistent." Lemkin is quoted as asking his annoyed law professor.[iv]
A budding legal scholar, Lemkin spent much of the thirties in a vain
attempt to create an international convention banning the horrors of the
Armenian genocide. So outspoken was Lemkin that he was fired as the
Polish deputy public prosecutor. After escaping to America, by way of
neutral Sweden, from the ravages of WWII and the Holocaust, Lemkin
determined that a convention outlawing "genocide" be adopted by the
newly formed United Nations. Known to walk about the halls of UN
conventions, papers dangling out of his pockets-each with some legal
citation against this heinous crime which he opposed with all of his
being-he searched for an ear to abuse, a heart to convince or a mind to
change. He knew people didn't care for him. It mattered, but only in
inverse proportion to how much he wanted the treaty passed. He would
forsake anything, even love, that this convention pass.[v] So involved
in the adoption of the Genocide Treaty was he, that it is now known by
international law initiates as "Lemkin's Law." What he had so long
obsessed over, fought for and dreamed of was finally passed by the UN
two days before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. America would not ratify the convention in his lifetime.
In 1959, a penniless and heartbroken Lemkin died. There were seven
people at his funeral.
*****
In 1967, Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, an admirer of Lemkin's,
rose in the empty well of the Senate to give the first of his 3,211
speeches about genocide. He pledged to give a speech every working day
until the convention was ratified. From 1967 to 1986 he spoke daily,
trying desperately to antagonize the Senate into action, perhaps even
attempting to shame it. At times he spoke about the deaths of millions
of Nigerians in the Biafran War. "In 1971 he drew attention to the
murder of more than a million Bengalis in Pakistan," recounts Samantha
Power in a March 2002 interview in the Atlantic Monthly.[vi] With
persistent prescience he drew attention to the deaths of more than
100,000 Hutu in Burundi and during the darkest days of the Cambodian
horror he called attention to its most blatant inhumanities. In 1985
Ronald Reagan visited the Bitburg Cemetery in Germany: infamous home to
many SS graves. The resulting domestic outrage and pressure convinced
Reagan that pushing for the ratification of the Convention for the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide would "appease his
critics."[vii] After 19 years of haranguing the United States Senate,
Proxmire saw an opportunity. An astute, if quixotic, politician, he
gladly accepted the support and hurried the treaty through the Senate.
In 1986, "with various reservations that immunized the United States
from being charged with genocide" the Senate ratified the treaty by a
vote of eighty-three in favor, eleven opposed and six not voting.[viii]
It would be the 98th nation to ratify the convention. Perhaps "never
again" finally meant "never again."[ix]
The Legal Case: an Excuse for Inaction
"Recognizing that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great
losses on humanity, and Being convinced that, in order to liberate
mankind from such and odious scourge . . . The contracting parties
confirm that Genocide, whether committed in time of peace or of war, is
a crime under international law that they undertake to prevent and
punish (emphasis added)."[x]
The solemn preamble of the landmark 1951 Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 U.N.T.s 277 (henceforward
referred to as CPPCG) unequivocally designates genocide as a crime under
international law. "Genocide whether in time of war or peace, [is
considered as] any acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."[xi]
Genocide consists of, but is not limited to, "killing members of the
group, imposing measures to prevents births within the group, [and]
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group."
According to the CPPCG, genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct
public incitement to genocide, attempt to commit genocide and complicity
in genocide are all actionable crimes.[xii]
The United States, as signatory to the CPPCG, has a legal-and of course
moral-obligation to prevent and/or punish acts of genocide in concert
with the United Nations, or alone if necessary.[xiii] Signed by the
president and ratified by the Senate, the treaty is, based on Article
VI, ?? 2 of the United States Constitution, the supreme law of the
land.[xiv]
Why then have American policymakers so uniformly failed to act in the
face of genocide? The conflict between sovereignty and the legal
obligations of the global community is the most frequently cited
objection. Often American policy makers claim they have "no mandate."
The convention, however, clearly affirms that states are to "call upon
the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action . . . as
they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of
genocide . . .."[xv] Furthermore, a broad interpretation of the CPPCG
does not preclude unilateral acts of suppression or prevention.[xvi]
The persuasive voices of intervention make an identical claim: "states
are responsible for protecting their citizens from avoidable
catastrophe, but if they are unwilling or unable to do so, that
responsibility must be borne by the broader community of states."[xvii]
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, recently made the same argument:
. . . If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault
on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda or a Srebrenica--to
gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every
precept of our common humanity?[xviii]
States, in cases like Rwanda, where no outside nations have any vital
interests at stake, should act on their own if necessary.
Another common excuse governments make is denial. "In each case
government officials-from low-level diplomats to Presidents-said they
didn't really know what was going on, or didn't know it at the time, or
even if they had known, they couldn't feasibly have done anything to
stop it."[xix] During WWII a young Polish diplomat named Jan Karski
traveled to Washington DC to meet with Supreme Court Justice Felix
Frankfurter. He told Justice Frankfurter of Nazi policies toward the
Jews and what was really happening. Frankfurter's response was an
incredulous, "I don't believe you."[xx] Late in 1944 the director of
Roosevelt's War Refugee Board "wanted to publish the report of two
Auschwitz escapees," writes Power. His request was denied.[xxi] During
Hussein's Kurdish repression Larry Pope, former State Department office
director for Iran and Iraq, says, "We knew something dreadful was going
on."[xxii] Alas, nothing was done. The Clinton Administration's record
on Bosnia and Rwanda is no better.
Avoiding intervention in cases of genocide by "spin" is another timeless
government favorite. "Great pains were taken in Washington [during the
Bosnian crisis] to suppress any use of the word 'genocide,' for fear of
activating the obligations of the convention," writes Urquhart.[xxiii]
"The Clinton Administration," writes Urquhart again, "obsessed with the
loss of eighteen Rangers in Somalia six months before, was determined to
block any serious UN action in Rwanda. To this end it once again engaged
in ignominious efforts to avoid the use of the word 'genocide.'"[xxiv]
By calling genocide "crimes against humanity," "atrocities," "ethnic
cleansing," "and possible acts of genocide" (one of the more dubious and
unoriginal excuses) politicians hope that spin will excuse their
inactivity. Ms. Power eloquently describes the many more American
attempts to avoid using the "G" word because, as she says, "actually
using the word" and calling it the crime it is "would create a legal and
moral obligation to intervene."[xxv] "Be careful," states one internal
Defense Department from May of 1994, "Legal at State was worried about
this yesterday-genocide finding could commit [the U.S. government] to
actually 'do something.'"[xxvi] Ignominious indeed.
If the legal case is clear why has America failed in its legal duty?
More often than not the United States government abdicates its
international obligations when acts of genocide are being committed
because it is unwilling to expend (often times minimal) resources for
humanitarian intervention. "The battle to stop genocide," Power writes,"
has thus been repeatedly lost in the realm of domestic politics."[xxvii]
One of the more persuasive critics of American inaction, Power
"concludes that the failure of the United States to act [is mostly] a
lack of will."[xxviii] Again, the American failure to take action in
Rwanda is instrumental. Remembering former Clinton National Security
Advisor Anthony Lake's quote that we had "no mandate" in Rwanda, the
Defense Department's internal memo discussing the necessity of avoiding
the word genocide, and Clinton's obsession with loosing 18 soldiers in
Somalia, it becomes clear that domestic issues were paramount. Although
avoiding political problems is the hallmark of all presidential
administrations dissembling about genocide is inexcusable.
American policy makers are not solely blameworthy. The American media
and the American public are equally to blame. "Ancient hatreds going
back hundreds of years," has been a constant refrain in many of the more
sad episodes of the nineties. How many times during the Bosnia genocide
did pundits and politicians on CNN utter this remark? "But the next time
you hear a story like the one that ran on the front page of The New York
Times in October 1997, reporting on 'the age old animosity between the
Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups,' remember," writes Phillip Gourevitch,
"that until 1959 there had never been any systematic political violence
recorded between Hutus and Tutsis-anywhere."[xxix] Blanket
generalizations of this sort convince people that such conflicts are
"biblical" in scope and ultimately insoluble. They convince us that we
have no responsibility to be informed citizens of the world.
By Way of History
A brief survey of twentieth century historical examples is necessary to
clarify what is and what isn't genocide. If a nation is committed to a
course of action it must understand what it is attempting to prevent and
punish first. The most common definition of genocide, how it is
beginning and what it really looks like is straightforward. The CPPCG
states that, any acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group," shall be
considered as attempted genocide or actual genocide. Such acts as
preventing births, inciting genocide, the creation and utilization of
concentration camps, resettlement (i.e. ethnic cleansing), the
documentation of genocidal activities, such as Nazi documents found at
the end of WWII can all be considered evidence of attempted genocide or
actual genocide. Further indicators of genocide, most often downplayed
by the press, are survivor accounts that are so terrifying as to be
unbelievable.[xxx] An examination of the historical record is
instructive on this point.
Armenia
Armenia was as clear a case of genocide as the Holocaust or Rwanda. In
1915 the Turkish government embarked upon a systematic course of events
designed to eradicate Anatolia of its Armenian problem. Armenian
intellectuals and local notables were rounded up and executed first.
Then Armenian schools were closed. Teachers who refused to convert to
Islam were executed. Deportation orders were posted all over Anatolia.
"By continuing the deportation of the orphans to their destinations
during the intense cold," one Turkish leader wrote, "we are insuring
their eternal rest."[xxxi]
The Holocaust
The Holocaust is, in some ways unfortunately, the standard definition of
what genocide is. The nature of the Holocaust is so well known that
often, other cases of genocide, that do not measure up to the Holocaust,
are not considered real genocide at all. We are all to aware of the gas
chambers and ovens at Auschwitz, the guerilla war that raged in the
Warsaw ghetto, the dehumanization that Jews were treated to at the hands
of their tormentors. The Holocaust is still with us, here in America,
home of the Holocaust Memorial.
Cambodia
The next generally accepted case of genocide occurred in Cambodia.
However, Cambodia fails the genocide test on the most important count.
The Genocide Convention states that, any acts committed with the intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group," shall be punishable as genocide. It is important to
note that the genocide convention does not include political groups as a
"suspect" category. No matter how horrific the events in Cambodia were
(and they were apocalyptic) it was not genocide. Autocide, perhaps,
genocide, no.[xxxii] It was systematic, large scale, organized and well
documented. What occurred in Cambodia were certainly "crimes against
humanity." But it was not directed at one ethnic, national, religious or
racial group in particular. The horrific events in Cambodia were
inflicted upon Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics, Capitalists and just about
every one else who was not Khmer Rouge, which it is important to note,
was a political group. All suffered horribly. >From a legalistic point
of view the case for genocide cannot be made. Was what happened in
Cambodia unimaginable? Yes, it was. Could it have been prevented? Yes,
the Nixon administration had been trying to make that point for several
years. Should the leaders of the Khmer Rouge be held accountable for
their crimes? Yes, they should be punished, but it should be under
domestic Cambodian law or other appropriate international legal remedies.
Tibet
The history of China in Tibet is not very positive. The Chinese occupied
("liberated") Tibet in the fifties after the communist revolution had
been consolidated. They soon embarked upon a campaign to assimilate and
Sinicize the Tibetans. They overthrew the old religious regime in Tibet
and began a rapid modernization process. Tibet suffered the Cultural
Revolution as much as any other Chinese province. Claims of genocide in
Tibet have centered on Chinese attempts to assimilate the Tibetans and
the "one child" policy. For years, many outsiders claim, the Chinese
have tried to prevent births within the group and that the desecration
of Buddhist temples constitutes "serious mental harm" and "deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part."[xxxiii] To be sure, Chinese
behavior in Tibet is appalling. But Chinese behavior inside of China is
appalling as well. What many do not realize is that the Chinese "one
child policy" does not apply to the hundreds of state classified
minorities, of which the Tibetans are one. There is no forced
resettlement, and there is no deliberate attempt to desecrate Tibetan
religious sanctuaries. On a recent trip to Tibet the author saw no
evidence of such things at many of the famous Tibetan monasteries. The
Chinese authorities actually seem eager to preserve Tibetan heritage as
a boon to tourism. The claims of Chinese genocide in Tibet are, in the
author's opinion, bogus.
Iraq
Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part an
ethnical group shall be considered genocide.[xxxiv]
Kurdistan is as rugged as its people are hardy. When, however, Sadaam
Hussein set out to eradicate rural Kurdish life (as a result of their
support for the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war) they faced a foe unlike
any they had ever encountered before; one armed with invisible chemical
agents. The genocide in Kurdistan started as most other genocides begin:
mass resettlement. Kurds were herded into "collective centers where the
state would be able to monitor them."[xxxv] Next Hussein's troops
"destroyed several thousand . . .villages and hamlets and killed close
to 100,000 Kurds, nearly all of whom were unarmed and many of whom were
women and children," writes Power.[xxxvi] In March of 1988 Kurdish
rebels, in cooperation with the Iranians "routed" the Iraqi's in a
village called Halabja. Many have regarded the reprisal as a "Kurdish
Hiroshima". On March 16, 1988 the Iraqis launched the first of many
chemical attacks against the Kurds. Mustard gas, VX and the biological
agent aflatoxin were all used. After a long campaign, Hussein and his
lieutenants exterminated rural Kurdish life. "Hussein," writes Power,
"did not set out to exterminate every last Kurd in Iraq," but it was the
destruction of rural Kurdish life that he accomplished. Clearly this was
genocide.
Bosnia
Bosnia, beginning in the early nineties, was splashed all over the
television. Most remember the haunting footage of the concentration
camps. The stories of ethnic cleansing, the forced resettlements, the
rapes of Bosnian women, the forced deportations, murders of military
aged men and the fatal shellings of markets are still with us. The case
for Bosnia, although not over, has been settled to a great extent. Even
now Slobodan Milosevic, the butcher of Belgrade, is on trial for
genocide in the Hague.
Rwanda
The case of Rwanda is also near to being closed. There is a functioning
tribunal that even now is trying Hutu perpetrators of the Rwandan
genocide. Many have been convicted. Rwanda began as most cases of
genocide begin. First, the demonization and dehumanization of the
persecuted minority begins. In Rwanda there was no resettlement
interregnum. The Hutus proceeded straight to massacre and genocide.
Almost 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. It was an awful spectacle
that no nation wanted any part in.
Kosovo
Kosovo in many respects can be regarded as genocide prevented. It was
clear to everyone what Milosevic and his cronies were attempting. The
world had witnessed what was done in Bosnia. Finally, the West acted. 79
days of bombing commenced until Serbia relented and thousands of Kosovar
Muslims returned home.
The "Realists" Case for Intervention
The realist's primary complaint about the "idealist's" foreign policy
agenda is his reliance on naked diplomacy. "Diplomacy," says the
realist, "must be backed by the credible threat of force to succeed."
But humanitarians recoil at the use of force all too often, fearing
collateral damage more than a hundred thousand shattered lives. Action
has a price and the world is as the world is, not as we would have it.
Utopia cannot exist in a world where power remains the only effective
currency. When people are slaughtered simply for whom they were born as
an activist, preventive foreign policy is demanded. Here the realist,
the pragmatist, if you will, has his day. The best case for intervention
can be summed up by a five hundred year old political maxim: "you only
postpone a crisis to your own disadvantage."[xxxvii] It is that simple.
Might intervention in Rwanda have prevented the disintegration of Zaire?
Could it have prevented the bombings of American Embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania? Had we warned Hussein that his actions against the Kurds would
entail unpleasant consequences; would there have ever been a Gulf War?
And what of Bosnia? Had intervention been attempted from the start,
perhaps there would never have been a Kosovo that threatened to split
NATO and erupt in Macedonia and Bulgaria, among other places, not to
mention the hundreds of thousand of Muslims that would still be alive
today, enjoying their lives as best they can.
The statesman has, as his ultimate task, the preservation of peace for
the greater good of the community in which his nation resides. If his
nation resides in a community of shared values then this moral charge
becomes even more sacred. Not only is it morally right to prevent and
punish acts of genocide; it is politically prudent as well. This is a
realism for our time; a realism guided by a clear sense of our shared
values. The prevention and suppression of genocide can preclude
region-wide instability and create incentives for positive and
responsible international behavior. But that is not its limit.
Preventing and suppressing genocide enhances American prestige and
credibility. Finally, by fostering a humane international society
America can promote the spread of its values. We can create a better
world but it requires action.
Intervening in Iraq, in some forcible way, whether by cutting off
Sadaam's $500 million in agriculture credits or by the credible threat
of force, could have deterred his subsequent invasion of Kuwait. Our
hands-off policy emboldened him instead. Constantly American policy
makers refuse to take small steps to prevent bigger catastrophes. As
such we inevitably court the disaster we seek to avoid.
A serious interest in Rwanda might have prevented a great deal of
disintegration in Central Africa as well. General Dallaire's request for
only 5000 men and a minor alteration in the rules of engagement might
have prevented the deaths of 800,000 people. Kofi Annan, however, said
"no." A clear interest in the region, instead of abdication, might
possibly have deterred Osama bin Laden. After September 11, perhaps
American policymakers see that abdication does not equal solution.
Finally, a forceful, early intervention in Bosnia would most likely have
prevented the Kosovo crisis several years later. "You only postpone a
war to your own disadvantage," sayeth the Sage of Florence.[xxxviii]
Each of these examples fit a narrow interpretation of what the "realist"
would call the "national interest." In a time of hyper, 24/7 media, the
classic definition of what the "national interest" is must be enlarged.
Critics will certainly level the charge that "hindsight is 20/20." So be
it-but we do not elect our leaders to be wrong-we elect them to be
right, to lead, protect and inspire us. Churchill is a hero today
precisely because he saw the future. He used all of the necessary tools
at his disposal to guide his nation and his young upstart cousins into a
new world. Yet he was a deeply moral man, and this, more than anything
else, is the statesman's charge.
A framework for prevention
Several steps can be taken in the future to prevent, halt and punish the
perpetrators of genocide. There are warning signs.
When newly democratic nations move from a state of ethnic tension to
that of ethnic polarization, demonizing and "scapegoating" are next.
Aiding nations with their early experiment in democracy by encouraging
dialogue, consensus and reconciliation is a good first step. The success
of South African truth commissions is instructive on this point. Options
such as these will fail at times. The anger and rage of perceived
injustices is difficult to overcome. In such cases little massacres, as
trial balloons, will follow. Sometimes these will be preceded by
expulsions and resettlement. Firm credible warnings, followed by
sanctions must be used. When conditions of wholesale slaughter, mass
deportations and concentration camps emerge, armed intervention must be
made in concert with the United Nations, or unilaterally if necessary.
When refugees pour across international borders nations must shift their
bias towards believing the victims of genocide versus being skeptical of
their claims. The burden of proof must be shifted to the perpetrators of
crimes against humanity away from the victims. Too often the American
government persists in "blaming the victim." This was all too evident in
the early days of the Bosnian crisis when Bush I spoke at length about
"atrocities" being committed by all sides. Man has proven with great
alacrity his ability to commit the unbelievable. We must listen when we
do not want to.
Genocide is preventable. With a little more knowledge, understanding and
willingness to engage the world another Rwanda or Bosnia might never
happen again. It is possible to prevent this most unfathomable of crimes.
*****
When the Armenians were being persecuted and Ambassador Morgenthau
pleaded with the US Dept of State to find some way to intervene, whether
financially or just verbally the claim that, "we just don't know what is
going on," was used. In the case of the Holocaust, the United States
turned back Jewish migrants. We refused to believe anything that we
heard and often reverted to blaming the victim. This went on for a long
time during WWII. There were proposals to bomb the railheads leading
into Auschwitz and Dachau but we were afraid it would lead to reprisals.
How bad could it really get? When you are being gassed daily, does the
fear of bombs raining down on you and your oppressor really register?
In Kurdistan, after several thousand Kurds showed up at the Turkish
border, use of the "G" word was vigorously avoided. Even after video
footage was released, showing Sadaam's gassed victims in Kurdistan, the
American government still refused to acknowledge that genocide was being
committed. As Bush II readies its campaign against Sadaam Hussein the
charge of genocide is not one of the indictments being made against him.
He is called a serial aggressor, a brute, and a tyrant, yet we still
fail to label him as a genocidaire. In Bosnia, as the whole world
witnessed video footage of skeletal Muslim men in concentration camps,
giving the victim the benefit of the doubt was out of the question. Bush
I went to great lengths to avoid the use of the word genocide.
Speaking loudly, clearly and precisely is the first step towards ridding
the world of this grave menace.
The doctrine of non-intervention, the foundation of all post-Westphalia
interstate relations, died the day the first bomb was dropped in Kosovo.
Perhaps at the dawn of the 3rd Millennium, the old reasons for killing,
tribe, state, power and greed, have been superceded by the powerful
moral contention that human rights must be enforced and crimes against
humanity be punished. It is an idea worth pursuing, an idea whose time
has come. To say "never again" is no longer enough. We must prove it.
WORKS CITED
"A People Killed Twice," Guardian Weekend, January 27, 2001.
Katie Bacon, "Never Again, Again," Atlantic Unbound: Online Edition,
March, 2002.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78
U.N.T.S 277, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/x1cppcg.htm
The Constitution of the United States of America.
Phillip Gurevitch, "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be
Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda." Picador; New York, 1998.
Niccol?? Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated and edited by Robert M.
Adams, New York: Norton, 1977.
Minutes of the 1999 UN General Assembly
Samantha Power, "A Problem From Hell." New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Samantha Power," America and Genocide," The New York Review of Books.
March 14, 2002.
Report of the ICISS, International Development Research Center: The
Responsibility to Protect: December 2001.
Brian Urquhart, "Shameful Neglect," The New York Review of Books. April
25, 2002.
SOURCES
[i] The life of General Romeo Dallaire is instructive on this account.
He was discharged from the Canadian Military in the late nineties for
"medical reasons" and was recently found passed out drunk in a park in
his native province. But just a Dalllaire's life is shattered, those
too, of countless Rwandans and Bosnians are wrecked even more so.
[ii] Brian Urquhart, Shameful Neglect, New York Review of Books, April
25, 2002, 12-14.
[iii] Ibid. 12.
[iv] Ibid. 12. See also, Power, "A Problem from Hell."
[v] See Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell."
[vi] Samantha Power, Atlantic Monthly Online Edition, March 14, 2002.
[vii] See Urquhart, 13.
[viii] Urquhart, 13.
[ix] The reservations are considered by many nations as violations of
the Treaty of Vienna, which states that, "a party may not invoke the
provisions of its internal law as justification for failure to perform a
treaty." See Danish objection, dated 27, December, 1989, in the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78
U.N.T.S 277, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/x1cppcg.htm
[x] Convention on the Prevention and Punishmen of the Crime of Genocide,
78 U.N.T.S 277, entered into force Jan. 12 1951.
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/x1cppcg.htm
[xi] CPPCG, Article 2
[xii] CPPCG, Article 2, '? a, b, d, e, and Article 3 sections a through e.
[xiii] The United States acceded to the CPPCG on 25, November 1988 with
two reservations and four special understandings. These reservations and
understandings notwithstanding should not prevent the United States of
America from acting in obvious and egregious cases of genocide such as
Rwanda, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo.
[xiv] Article VI, Section 2 of the United States Constitution states:
all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.
[xv] CPPCG, Article 8.
[xvi] However, it should be noted that acts of punishment are to be
tried by "a competent tribunal of the state in the territory of which
the acts were committed . . .."
[xvii] The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the ICISS, International
Development Research Center (of Canada), December 2001, p. vii.
[xviii] Minutes of the 1999 UN General Assembly.
[xix] Katie Bacon, "Never Again Again,"
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2002-03-14.htm.
[xx] Power, 33-34
[xxi] Power, 35.
[xxii] Power, 186.
[xxiii] Urquhart, 13.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Bacon, Atlantic Unbound.
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] Samantha Power, "Genocide and America," The New York Review of
Books, March 14, 2002.
[xxviii] Quoted in Urquhart, 14.
[xxix] Phillip Gourevitch, "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We will
Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda." Picador; New York. P. 59.
[xxx] See Samantha Power, op. cit.
[xxxi] Quoted in Power, 2. See also, "A People Killed Twice," Guardian
Weekend, January 27, 2001, p. 35.
[xxxii] I would define Autocide as the wholesale destruction of a
nation's political elite by that nation's leaders, whether they are
legitimate or not.
[xxxiii] See Article 2, ?? b, c, d of the CPPCG.
[xxxiv] Article 2, CPPCG.
[xxxv] Power, 171.
[xxxvi] Power, 172.
[xxxvii] Machiavelli, Niccol??. The Prince. Translated and edited by
Robert M. Adams, New York: Norton, 1977. page 11.
[xxxviii] Ibid.
Sean-Paul Kelley is the Editor of The Agonist, an online global
commentary and news community. He has traveled widely and is currently
writing a book on his adventures in Central Asia. He graduated with a
B.A. in Diplomatic History from the University of Houston and is
currently completing his Masters in History.
Global Politician
http://www.kurdmedia.com/reports.asp?id=2594
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Kurdish Media
24 April 2005
Global Politician - By Sean-Paul Kelley
It was a breezy May afternoon in San Pedro de Alcantara, on the southern
coast of Spain, when first I heard of Rwanda's horrors. Lazily sitting
on a veranda overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, I casually read the
International Herald Tribune. The photos, rivers of bodies all decaying,
beheaded, mangled, and deformed seemed too horrific to be real. A true
conception of what was happening in Rwanda could not be real to my best
friend and I as we sat there discussing, so carelessly, where we would
go next. "Perhaps," I said, "we'll go to Gibraltar, or Cueta and then
Morocco? Hey, why not the other direction and Roma?" Yet quietly, almost
guiltily, I thought about the Rwandans, several thousand miles to the
south of us, whose world was coming unhinged. The crime of genocide,
committed while we sat on an ivy-shaded veranda in Southern Spain,
raged. Roving Hutu gangs hacked to death "a maximum number of people."
And as we drank cool beer, women and children, uttering parched screams
of mercy, cowered in churches; as we lay on the beach watching beautiful
Spanish girls go by, thousands of Rwandan women were systematically
raped and murdered. Somewhere around 800,000 people died in the most
clear cut case of Genocide since the Holocaust. One of every ten people
in a tiny, impoverished Central African country of no strategic value to
any nation, were hacked to death while the West did nothing. Genocide is
so inconceivable that to those who have witnessed it there is no going
back-and there is hardly any going forward.[i] The deliberate,
systematic and intentional attempt to destroy an ethnic, religious,
national or racial group, outlawed in the aftermath of the Holocaust,
has happened at least four times since it was said: "never again."[ii]
"An Unnamable Crime"
Before the Holocaust was seared into our consciousness genocide was
known by another name. Woodrow Wilson's Ambassador to Turkey, Henry
Morgenthau, Sr., called it race murder, after what he had witnessed in
Turkey during WWI. It took a polyglot Holocaust refugee and
Polish-Lithuanian Jew named Ralph Lemkin to coin a term that had the
sound of the opprobrium the crime called for and the power to check its
would-be perpetrators in the future. Fascinated by words, their meanings
and consequences, Lemkin was obsessed by the crime committed against his
people-including the extinction of his entire family, except for one
brother-during World War II. Like an old Talmudic scholar he poured over
words trying to divine their hidden meanings. In her recently published
book, "A Problem from Hell," Samantha Power recounts Lemkin's need to
name this horrific crime, quite well. After struggling with a multitude
of formulations, inspiration delivered Lemkin of his obsession. In
November 1944 he published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe in which he
coined the term genocide. It stuck and was soon admitted into Webster's
New International Dictionary. Brian Urquhart, writing in a recent New
York Review of Books quotes the Washington Post as calling it, "the only
possibly appropriate word.[iii]
But Lemkin's obsession was not limited to linguistics. In the late
twenties, while a young Armenian awaited trial for the murder of Talaat
Pasha (the Turkish mastermind of the Armenian genocide) Ralph Lemkin
read a news clipping about his assassination. Lemkin was puzzled that a
single man could be prosecuted for murder yet the murdered man could
have walked away from the extermination of nearly a million souls. "It
is a crime for [this young Armenian] to kill a man, but it is not a
crime for his oppressor to kill more than a million? This is most
inconsistent." Lemkin is quoted as asking his annoyed law professor.[iv]
A budding legal scholar, Lemkin spent much of the thirties in a vain
attempt to create an international convention banning the horrors of the
Armenian genocide. So outspoken was Lemkin that he was fired as the
Polish deputy public prosecutor. After escaping to America, by way of
neutral Sweden, from the ravages of WWII and the Holocaust, Lemkin
determined that a convention outlawing "genocide" be adopted by the
newly formed United Nations. Known to walk about the halls of UN
conventions, papers dangling out of his pockets-each with some legal
citation against this heinous crime which he opposed with all of his
being-he searched for an ear to abuse, a heart to convince or a mind to
change. He knew people didn't care for him. It mattered, but only in
inverse proportion to how much he wanted the treaty passed. He would
forsake anything, even love, that this convention pass.[v] So involved
in the adoption of the Genocide Treaty was he, that it is now known by
international law initiates as "Lemkin's Law." What he had so long
obsessed over, fought for and dreamed of was finally passed by the UN
two days before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. America would not ratify the convention in his lifetime.
In 1959, a penniless and heartbroken Lemkin died. There were seven
people at his funeral.
*****
In 1967, Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, an admirer of Lemkin's,
rose in the empty well of the Senate to give the first of his 3,211
speeches about genocide. He pledged to give a speech every working day
until the convention was ratified. From 1967 to 1986 he spoke daily,
trying desperately to antagonize the Senate into action, perhaps even
attempting to shame it. At times he spoke about the deaths of millions
of Nigerians in the Biafran War. "In 1971 he drew attention to the
murder of more than a million Bengalis in Pakistan," recounts Samantha
Power in a March 2002 interview in the Atlantic Monthly.[vi] With
persistent prescience he drew attention to the deaths of more than
100,000 Hutu in Burundi and during the darkest days of the Cambodian
horror he called attention to its most blatant inhumanities. In 1985
Ronald Reagan visited the Bitburg Cemetery in Germany: infamous home to
many SS graves. The resulting domestic outrage and pressure convinced
Reagan that pushing for the ratification of the Convention for the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide would "appease his
critics."[vii] After 19 years of haranguing the United States Senate,
Proxmire saw an opportunity. An astute, if quixotic, politician, he
gladly accepted the support and hurried the treaty through the Senate.
In 1986, "with various reservations that immunized the United States
from being charged with genocide" the Senate ratified the treaty by a
vote of eighty-three in favor, eleven opposed and six not voting.[viii]
It would be the 98th nation to ratify the convention. Perhaps "never
again" finally meant "never again."[ix]
The Legal Case: an Excuse for Inaction
"Recognizing that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great
losses on humanity, and Being convinced that, in order to liberate
mankind from such and odious scourge . . . The contracting parties
confirm that Genocide, whether committed in time of peace or of war, is
a crime under international law that they undertake to prevent and
punish (emphasis added)."[x]
The solemn preamble of the landmark 1951 Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 U.N.T.s 277 (henceforward
referred to as CPPCG) unequivocally designates genocide as a crime under
international law. "Genocide whether in time of war or peace, [is
considered as] any acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole
or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."[xi]
Genocide consists of, but is not limited to, "killing members of the
group, imposing measures to prevents births within the group, [and]
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group."
According to the CPPCG, genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct
public incitement to genocide, attempt to commit genocide and complicity
in genocide are all actionable crimes.[xii]
The United States, as signatory to the CPPCG, has a legal-and of course
moral-obligation to prevent and/or punish acts of genocide in concert
with the United Nations, or alone if necessary.[xiii] Signed by the
president and ratified by the Senate, the treaty is, based on Article
VI, ?? 2 of the United States Constitution, the supreme law of the
land.[xiv]
Why then have American policymakers so uniformly failed to act in the
face of genocide? The conflict between sovereignty and the legal
obligations of the global community is the most frequently cited
objection. Often American policy makers claim they have "no mandate."
The convention, however, clearly affirms that states are to "call upon
the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action . . . as
they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of
genocide . . .."[xv] Furthermore, a broad interpretation of the CPPCG
does not preclude unilateral acts of suppression or prevention.[xvi]
The persuasive voices of intervention make an identical claim: "states
are responsible for protecting their citizens from avoidable
catastrophe, but if they are unwilling or unable to do so, that
responsibility must be borne by the broader community of states."[xvii]
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, recently made the same argument:
. . . If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault
on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda or a Srebrenica--to
gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every
precept of our common humanity?[xviii]
States, in cases like Rwanda, where no outside nations have any vital
interests at stake, should act on their own if necessary.
Another common excuse governments make is denial. "In each case
government officials-from low-level diplomats to Presidents-said they
didn't really know what was going on, or didn't know it at the time, or
even if they had known, they couldn't feasibly have done anything to
stop it."[xix] During WWII a young Polish diplomat named Jan Karski
traveled to Washington DC to meet with Supreme Court Justice Felix
Frankfurter. He told Justice Frankfurter of Nazi policies toward the
Jews and what was really happening. Frankfurter's response was an
incredulous, "I don't believe you."[xx] Late in 1944 the director of
Roosevelt's War Refugee Board "wanted to publish the report of two
Auschwitz escapees," writes Power. His request was denied.[xxi] During
Hussein's Kurdish repression Larry Pope, former State Department office
director for Iran and Iraq, says, "We knew something dreadful was going
on."[xxii] Alas, nothing was done. The Clinton Administration's record
on Bosnia and Rwanda is no better.
Avoiding intervention in cases of genocide by "spin" is another timeless
government favorite. "Great pains were taken in Washington [during the
Bosnian crisis] to suppress any use of the word 'genocide,' for fear of
activating the obligations of the convention," writes Urquhart.[xxiii]
"The Clinton Administration," writes Urquhart again, "obsessed with the
loss of eighteen Rangers in Somalia six months before, was determined to
block any serious UN action in Rwanda. To this end it once again engaged
in ignominious efforts to avoid the use of the word 'genocide.'"[xxiv]
By calling genocide "crimes against humanity," "atrocities," "ethnic
cleansing," "and possible acts of genocide" (one of the more dubious and
unoriginal excuses) politicians hope that spin will excuse their
inactivity. Ms. Power eloquently describes the many more American
attempts to avoid using the "G" word because, as she says, "actually
using the word" and calling it the crime it is "would create a legal and
moral obligation to intervene."[xxv] "Be careful," states one internal
Defense Department from May of 1994, "Legal at State was worried about
this yesterday-genocide finding could commit [the U.S. government] to
actually 'do something.'"[xxvi] Ignominious indeed.
If the legal case is clear why has America failed in its legal duty?
More often than not the United States government abdicates its
international obligations when acts of genocide are being committed
because it is unwilling to expend (often times minimal) resources for
humanitarian intervention. "The battle to stop genocide," Power writes,"
has thus been repeatedly lost in the realm of domestic politics."[xxvii]
One of the more persuasive critics of American inaction, Power
"concludes that the failure of the United States to act [is mostly] a
lack of will."[xxviii] Again, the American failure to take action in
Rwanda is instrumental. Remembering former Clinton National Security
Advisor Anthony Lake's quote that we had "no mandate" in Rwanda, the
Defense Department's internal memo discussing the necessity of avoiding
the word genocide, and Clinton's obsession with loosing 18 soldiers in
Somalia, it becomes clear that domestic issues were paramount. Although
avoiding political problems is the hallmark of all presidential
administrations dissembling about genocide is inexcusable.
American policy makers are not solely blameworthy. The American media
and the American public are equally to blame. "Ancient hatreds going
back hundreds of years," has been a constant refrain in many of the more
sad episodes of the nineties. How many times during the Bosnia genocide
did pundits and politicians on CNN utter this remark? "But the next time
you hear a story like the one that ran on the front page of The New York
Times in October 1997, reporting on 'the age old animosity between the
Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups,' remember," writes Phillip Gourevitch,
"that until 1959 there had never been any systematic political violence
recorded between Hutus and Tutsis-anywhere."[xxix] Blanket
generalizations of this sort convince people that such conflicts are
"biblical" in scope and ultimately insoluble. They convince us that we
have no responsibility to be informed citizens of the world.
By Way of History
A brief survey of twentieth century historical examples is necessary to
clarify what is and what isn't genocide. If a nation is committed to a
course of action it must understand what it is attempting to prevent and
punish first. The most common definition of genocide, how it is
beginning and what it really looks like is straightforward. The CPPCG
states that, any acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group," shall be
considered as attempted genocide or actual genocide. Such acts as
preventing births, inciting genocide, the creation and utilization of
concentration camps, resettlement (i.e. ethnic cleansing), the
documentation of genocidal activities, such as Nazi documents found at
the end of WWII can all be considered evidence of attempted genocide or
actual genocide. Further indicators of genocide, most often downplayed
by the press, are survivor accounts that are so terrifying as to be
unbelievable.[xxx] An examination of the historical record is
instructive on this point.
Armenia
Armenia was as clear a case of genocide as the Holocaust or Rwanda. In
1915 the Turkish government embarked upon a systematic course of events
designed to eradicate Anatolia of its Armenian problem. Armenian
intellectuals and local notables were rounded up and executed first.
Then Armenian schools were closed. Teachers who refused to convert to
Islam were executed. Deportation orders were posted all over Anatolia.
"By continuing the deportation of the orphans to their destinations
during the intense cold," one Turkish leader wrote, "we are insuring
their eternal rest."[xxxi]
The Holocaust
The Holocaust is, in some ways unfortunately, the standard definition of
what genocide is. The nature of the Holocaust is so well known that
often, other cases of genocide, that do not measure up to the Holocaust,
are not considered real genocide at all. We are all to aware of the gas
chambers and ovens at Auschwitz, the guerilla war that raged in the
Warsaw ghetto, the dehumanization that Jews were treated to at the hands
of their tormentors. The Holocaust is still with us, here in America,
home of the Holocaust Memorial.
Cambodia
The next generally accepted case of genocide occurred in Cambodia.
However, Cambodia fails the genocide test on the most important count.
The Genocide Convention states that, any acts committed with the intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or
religious group," shall be punishable as genocide. It is important to
note that the genocide convention does not include political groups as a
"suspect" category. No matter how horrific the events in Cambodia were
(and they were apocalyptic) it was not genocide. Autocide, perhaps,
genocide, no.[xxxii] It was systematic, large scale, organized and well
documented. What occurred in Cambodia were certainly "crimes against
humanity." But it was not directed at one ethnic, national, religious or
racial group in particular. The horrific events in Cambodia were
inflicted upon Buddhists, Muslims, Catholics, Capitalists and just about
every one else who was not Khmer Rouge, which it is important to note,
was a political group. All suffered horribly. >From a legalistic point
of view the case for genocide cannot be made. Was what happened in
Cambodia unimaginable? Yes, it was. Could it have been prevented? Yes,
the Nixon administration had been trying to make that point for several
years. Should the leaders of the Khmer Rouge be held accountable for
their crimes? Yes, they should be punished, but it should be under
domestic Cambodian law or other appropriate international legal remedies.
Tibet
The history of China in Tibet is not very positive. The Chinese occupied
("liberated") Tibet in the fifties after the communist revolution had
been consolidated. They soon embarked upon a campaign to assimilate and
Sinicize the Tibetans. They overthrew the old religious regime in Tibet
and began a rapid modernization process. Tibet suffered the Cultural
Revolution as much as any other Chinese province. Claims of genocide in
Tibet have centered on Chinese attempts to assimilate the Tibetans and
the "one child" policy. For years, many outsiders claim, the Chinese
have tried to prevent births within the group and that the desecration
of Buddhist temples constitutes "serious mental harm" and "deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part."[xxxiii] To be sure, Chinese
behavior in Tibet is appalling. But Chinese behavior inside of China is
appalling as well. What many do not realize is that the Chinese "one
child policy" does not apply to the hundreds of state classified
minorities, of which the Tibetans are one. There is no forced
resettlement, and there is no deliberate attempt to desecrate Tibetan
religious sanctuaries. On a recent trip to Tibet the author saw no
evidence of such things at many of the famous Tibetan monasteries. The
Chinese authorities actually seem eager to preserve Tibetan heritage as
a boon to tourism. The claims of Chinese genocide in Tibet are, in the
author's opinion, bogus.
Iraq
Acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part an
ethnical group shall be considered genocide.[xxxiv]
Kurdistan is as rugged as its people are hardy. When, however, Sadaam
Hussein set out to eradicate rural Kurdish life (as a result of their
support for the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war) they faced a foe unlike
any they had ever encountered before; one armed with invisible chemical
agents. The genocide in Kurdistan started as most other genocides begin:
mass resettlement. Kurds were herded into "collective centers where the
state would be able to monitor them."[xxxv] Next Hussein's troops
"destroyed several thousand . . .villages and hamlets and killed close
to 100,000 Kurds, nearly all of whom were unarmed and many of whom were
women and children," writes Power.[xxxvi] In March of 1988 Kurdish
rebels, in cooperation with the Iranians "routed" the Iraqi's in a
village called Halabja. Many have regarded the reprisal as a "Kurdish
Hiroshima". On March 16, 1988 the Iraqis launched the first of many
chemical attacks against the Kurds. Mustard gas, VX and the biological
agent aflatoxin were all used. After a long campaign, Hussein and his
lieutenants exterminated rural Kurdish life. "Hussein," writes Power,
"did not set out to exterminate every last Kurd in Iraq," but it was the
destruction of rural Kurdish life that he accomplished. Clearly this was
genocide.
Bosnia
Bosnia, beginning in the early nineties, was splashed all over the
television. Most remember the haunting footage of the concentration
camps. The stories of ethnic cleansing, the forced resettlements, the
rapes of Bosnian women, the forced deportations, murders of military
aged men and the fatal shellings of markets are still with us. The case
for Bosnia, although not over, has been settled to a great extent. Even
now Slobodan Milosevic, the butcher of Belgrade, is on trial for
genocide in the Hague.
Rwanda
The case of Rwanda is also near to being closed. There is a functioning
tribunal that even now is trying Hutu perpetrators of the Rwandan
genocide. Many have been convicted. Rwanda began as most cases of
genocide begin. First, the demonization and dehumanization of the
persecuted minority begins. In Rwanda there was no resettlement
interregnum. The Hutus proceeded straight to massacre and genocide.
Almost 800,000 people were killed in 100 days. It was an awful spectacle
that no nation wanted any part in.
Kosovo
Kosovo in many respects can be regarded as genocide prevented. It was
clear to everyone what Milosevic and his cronies were attempting. The
world had witnessed what was done in Bosnia. Finally, the West acted. 79
days of bombing commenced until Serbia relented and thousands of Kosovar
Muslims returned home.
The "Realists" Case for Intervention
The realist's primary complaint about the "idealist's" foreign policy
agenda is his reliance on naked diplomacy. "Diplomacy," says the
realist, "must be backed by the credible threat of force to succeed."
But humanitarians recoil at the use of force all too often, fearing
collateral damage more than a hundred thousand shattered lives. Action
has a price and the world is as the world is, not as we would have it.
Utopia cannot exist in a world where power remains the only effective
currency. When people are slaughtered simply for whom they were born as
an activist, preventive foreign policy is demanded. Here the realist,
the pragmatist, if you will, has his day. The best case for intervention
can be summed up by a five hundred year old political maxim: "you only
postpone a crisis to your own disadvantage."[xxxvii] It is that simple.
Might intervention in Rwanda have prevented the disintegration of Zaire?
Could it have prevented the bombings of American Embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania? Had we warned Hussein that his actions against the Kurds would
entail unpleasant consequences; would there have ever been a Gulf War?
And what of Bosnia? Had intervention been attempted from the start,
perhaps there would never have been a Kosovo that threatened to split
NATO and erupt in Macedonia and Bulgaria, among other places, not to
mention the hundreds of thousand of Muslims that would still be alive
today, enjoying their lives as best they can.
The statesman has, as his ultimate task, the preservation of peace for
the greater good of the community in which his nation resides. If his
nation resides in a community of shared values then this moral charge
becomes even more sacred. Not only is it morally right to prevent and
punish acts of genocide; it is politically prudent as well. This is a
realism for our time; a realism guided by a clear sense of our shared
values. The prevention and suppression of genocide can preclude
region-wide instability and create incentives for positive and
responsible international behavior. But that is not its limit.
Preventing and suppressing genocide enhances American prestige and
credibility. Finally, by fostering a humane international society
America can promote the spread of its values. We can create a better
world but it requires action.
Intervening in Iraq, in some forcible way, whether by cutting off
Sadaam's $500 million in agriculture credits or by the credible threat
of force, could have deterred his subsequent invasion of Kuwait. Our
hands-off policy emboldened him instead. Constantly American policy
makers refuse to take small steps to prevent bigger catastrophes. As
such we inevitably court the disaster we seek to avoid.
A serious interest in Rwanda might have prevented a great deal of
disintegration in Central Africa as well. General Dallaire's request for
only 5000 men and a minor alteration in the rules of engagement might
have prevented the deaths of 800,000 people. Kofi Annan, however, said
"no." A clear interest in the region, instead of abdication, might
possibly have deterred Osama bin Laden. After September 11, perhaps
American policymakers see that abdication does not equal solution.
Finally, a forceful, early intervention in Bosnia would most likely have
prevented the Kosovo crisis several years later. "You only postpone a
war to your own disadvantage," sayeth the Sage of Florence.[xxxviii]
Each of these examples fit a narrow interpretation of what the "realist"
would call the "national interest." In a time of hyper, 24/7 media, the
classic definition of what the "national interest" is must be enlarged.
Critics will certainly level the charge that "hindsight is 20/20." So be
it-but we do not elect our leaders to be wrong-we elect them to be
right, to lead, protect and inspire us. Churchill is a hero today
precisely because he saw the future. He used all of the necessary tools
at his disposal to guide his nation and his young upstart cousins into a
new world. Yet he was a deeply moral man, and this, more than anything
else, is the statesman's charge.
A framework for prevention
Several steps can be taken in the future to prevent, halt and punish the
perpetrators of genocide. There are warning signs.
When newly democratic nations move from a state of ethnic tension to
that of ethnic polarization, demonizing and "scapegoating" are next.
Aiding nations with their early experiment in democracy by encouraging
dialogue, consensus and reconciliation is a good first step. The success
of South African truth commissions is instructive on this point. Options
such as these will fail at times. The anger and rage of perceived
injustices is difficult to overcome. In such cases little massacres, as
trial balloons, will follow. Sometimes these will be preceded by
expulsions and resettlement. Firm credible warnings, followed by
sanctions must be used. When conditions of wholesale slaughter, mass
deportations and concentration camps emerge, armed intervention must be
made in concert with the United Nations, or unilaterally if necessary.
When refugees pour across international borders nations must shift their
bias towards believing the victims of genocide versus being skeptical of
their claims. The burden of proof must be shifted to the perpetrators of
crimes against humanity away from the victims. Too often the American
government persists in "blaming the victim." This was all too evident in
the early days of the Bosnian crisis when Bush I spoke at length about
"atrocities" being committed by all sides. Man has proven with great
alacrity his ability to commit the unbelievable. We must listen when we
do not want to.
Genocide is preventable. With a little more knowledge, understanding and
willingness to engage the world another Rwanda or Bosnia might never
happen again. It is possible to prevent this most unfathomable of crimes.
*****
When the Armenians were being persecuted and Ambassador Morgenthau
pleaded with the US Dept of State to find some way to intervene, whether
financially or just verbally the claim that, "we just don't know what is
going on," was used. In the case of the Holocaust, the United States
turned back Jewish migrants. We refused to believe anything that we
heard and often reverted to blaming the victim. This went on for a long
time during WWII. There were proposals to bomb the railheads leading
into Auschwitz and Dachau but we were afraid it would lead to reprisals.
How bad could it really get? When you are being gassed daily, does the
fear of bombs raining down on you and your oppressor really register?
In Kurdistan, after several thousand Kurds showed up at the Turkish
border, use of the "G" word was vigorously avoided. Even after video
footage was released, showing Sadaam's gassed victims in Kurdistan, the
American government still refused to acknowledge that genocide was being
committed. As Bush II readies its campaign against Sadaam Hussein the
charge of genocide is not one of the indictments being made against him.
He is called a serial aggressor, a brute, and a tyrant, yet we still
fail to label him as a genocidaire. In Bosnia, as the whole world
witnessed video footage of skeletal Muslim men in concentration camps,
giving the victim the benefit of the doubt was out of the question. Bush
I went to great lengths to avoid the use of the word genocide.
Speaking loudly, clearly and precisely is the first step towards ridding
the world of this grave menace.
The doctrine of non-intervention, the foundation of all post-Westphalia
interstate relations, died the day the first bomb was dropped in Kosovo.
Perhaps at the dawn of the 3rd Millennium, the old reasons for killing,
tribe, state, power and greed, have been superceded by the powerful
moral contention that human rights must be enforced and crimes against
humanity be punished. It is an idea worth pursuing, an idea whose time
has come. To say "never again" is no longer enough. We must prove it.
WORKS CITED
"A People Killed Twice," Guardian Weekend, January 27, 2001.
Katie Bacon, "Never Again, Again," Atlantic Unbound: Online Edition,
March, 2002.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78
U.N.T.S 277, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/x1cppcg.htm
The Constitution of the United States of America.
Phillip Gurevitch, "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be
Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda." Picador; New York, 1998.
Niccol?? Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated and edited by Robert M.
Adams, New York: Norton, 1977.
Minutes of the 1999 UN General Assembly
Samantha Power, "A Problem From Hell." New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Samantha Power," America and Genocide," The New York Review of Books.
March 14, 2002.
Report of the ICISS, International Development Research Center: The
Responsibility to Protect: December 2001.
Brian Urquhart, "Shameful Neglect," The New York Review of Books. April
25, 2002.
SOURCES
[i] The life of General Romeo Dallaire is instructive on this account.
He was discharged from the Canadian Military in the late nineties for
"medical reasons" and was recently found passed out drunk in a park in
his native province. But just a Dalllaire's life is shattered, those
too, of countless Rwandans and Bosnians are wrecked even more so.
[ii] Brian Urquhart, Shameful Neglect, New York Review of Books, April
25, 2002, 12-14.
[iii] Ibid. 12.
[iv] Ibid. 12. See also, Power, "A Problem from Hell."
[v] See Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell."
[vi] Samantha Power, Atlantic Monthly Online Edition, March 14, 2002.
[vii] See Urquhart, 13.
[viii] Urquhart, 13.
[ix] The reservations are considered by many nations as violations of
the Treaty of Vienna, which states that, "a party may not invoke the
provisions of its internal law as justification for failure to perform a
treaty." See Danish objection, dated 27, December, 1989, in the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78
U.N.T.S 277, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/x1cppcg.htm
[x] Convention on the Prevention and Punishmen of the Crime of Genocide,
78 U.N.T.S 277, entered into force Jan. 12 1951.
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/x1cppcg.htm
[xi] CPPCG, Article 2
[xii] CPPCG, Article 2, '? a, b, d, e, and Article 3 sections a through e.
[xiii] The United States acceded to the CPPCG on 25, November 1988 with
two reservations and four special understandings. These reservations and
understandings notwithstanding should not prevent the United States of
America from acting in obvious and egregious cases of genocide such as
Rwanda, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo.
[xiv] Article VI, Section 2 of the United States Constitution states:
all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.
[xv] CPPCG, Article 8.
[xvi] However, it should be noted that acts of punishment are to be
tried by "a competent tribunal of the state in the territory of which
the acts were committed . . .."
[xvii] The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the ICISS, International
Development Research Center (of Canada), December 2001, p. vii.
[xviii] Minutes of the 1999 UN General Assembly.
[xix] Katie Bacon, "Never Again Again,"
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2002-03-14.htm.
[xx] Power, 33-34
[xxi] Power, 35.
[xxii] Power, 186.
[xxiii] Urquhart, 13.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Bacon, Atlantic Unbound.
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] Samantha Power, "Genocide and America," The New York Review of
Books, March 14, 2002.
[xxviii] Quoted in Urquhart, 14.
[xxix] Phillip Gourevitch, "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We will
Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda." Picador; New York. P. 59.
[xxx] See Samantha Power, op. cit.
[xxxi] Quoted in Power, 2. See also, "A People Killed Twice," Guardian
Weekend, January 27, 2001, p. 35.
[xxxii] I would define Autocide as the wholesale destruction of a
nation's political elite by that nation's leaders, whether they are
legitimate or not.
[xxxiii] See Article 2, ?? b, c, d of the CPPCG.
[xxxiv] Article 2, CPPCG.
[xxxv] Power, 171.
[xxxvi] Power, 172.
[xxxvii] Machiavelli, Niccol??. The Prince. Translated and edited by
Robert M. Adams, New York: Norton, 1977. page 11.
[xxxviii] Ibid.
Sean-Paul Kelley is the Editor of The Agonist, an online global
commentary and news community. He has traveled widely and is currently
writing a book on his adventures in Central Asia. He graduated with a
B.A. in Diplomatic History from the University of Houston and is
currently completing his Masters in History.
Global Politician
http://www.kurdmedia.com/reports.asp?id=2594
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