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WHEN ARE ATROCITIES NOT CONSIDERED GENOCIDE? UN SAYS INTENT AND NUMBER OF VICTIMS ARE KEY FACTORS
The National Post, Canada
Feb 9 2015
In its recent ruling neither Croatia or Serbia committed genocide, the
UN's highest court showed how high the bar is set to prove genocide.
Intent is an important factor, as well as the numbers killed, The
Post's Steven Gelis reports:
What's the definition of genocide?
The UN's convention says it must be "committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
This was not proved in either Serbia or Croatia in the war that led
to the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the International Court
of Justice said. "[While] there is evidence of crimes by Serbia and
Croatia of atrocities that are consistent with genocide, [the judges]
are saying that they do not find specific intent to destroy substantial
portions of the target groups," notes Adam Jones, a genocide scholar
at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
So what counts?
In the Serbia/Croatia cases, the court "would have expected to see
more systematic, physical killing and corralling and exterminating
of populations to more clearly meet the intent requirement," says Mr.
Jones. Adds political scientist David B. MacDonald at the University
of Guelph, "It's not enough to kill people, or move them around and
steal their land. You have to be able to prove that [the perpetrators]
had this bigger motivation to destroy the group in whole or in part."
Some clear examples
Intent is unmistakable in cases such as Rwanda, Cambodia and Srebrenica
genocide, when Serbian paratroopers killed more than 8,000 Bosnian
Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian War. Canada also considers the
Holocaust, Ukrainian famine in 1930s Soviet Russia and the Ottoman
empire killings of Armenians as genocide.
Related
There were widespread war crimes in Balkan wars, but neither side
committed genocide: UN's top court
What sort of numbers?
In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge under dictator Pol Pot is estimated to
have killed as many as two million people in 1975-79. In Rwanda, up
to 800,000, mainly ethnic Tutsis, perished in a matter of 100 days
in 1994, killed by ethnic Hutu extremists.
What about Canada?
Some scholars argue Canada has its own history of genocide. They point
to residential schools and continuing violence against First Nations'
peoples, especially women. "The residential school system in Canada,
and certainly the structural extermination of Native peoples in many
other parts of the colonized world, qualifies because of the mortality
involved," says Mr. Jones.
Local pushback
Electronic music group A Tribe Called Red pulled out of performing at
the opening festivities for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in
Winnipeg because they felt the museum misrepresented and downplayed
"the genocide that was experienced by Indigenous people in Canada by
refusing to name it genocide."
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/02/09/when-are-atrocities-not-genocide-un-says-intent-and-number-of-victims-are-key-factors/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
The National Post, Canada
Feb 9 2015
In its recent ruling neither Croatia or Serbia committed genocide, the
UN's highest court showed how high the bar is set to prove genocide.
Intent is an important factor, as well as the numbers killed, The
Post's Steven Gelis reports:
What's the definition of genocide?
The UN's convention says it must be "committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
This was not proved in either Serbia or Croatia in the war that led
to the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the International Court
of Justice said. "[While] there is evidence of crimes by Serbia and
Croatia of atrocities that are consistent with genocide, [the judges]
are saying that they do not find specific intent to destroy substantial
portions of the target groups," notes Adam Jones, a genocide scholar
at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
So what counts?
In the Serbia/Croatia cases, the court "would have expected to see
more systematic, physical killing and corralling and exterminating
of populations to more clearly meet the intent requirement," says Mr.
Jones. Adds political scientist David B. MacDonald at the University
of Guelph, "It's not enough to kill people, or move them around and
steal their land. You have to be able to prove that [the perpetrators]
had this bigger motivation to destroy the group in whole or in part."
Some clear examples
Intent is unmistakable in cases such as Rwanda, Cambodia and Srebrenica
genocide, when Serbian paratroopers killed more than 8,000 Bosnian
Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian War. Canada also considers the
Holocaust, Ukrainian famine in 1930s Soviet Russia and the Ottoman
empire killings of Armenians as genocide.
Related
There were widespread war crimes in Balkan wars, but neither side
committed genocide: UN's top court
What sort of numbers?
In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge under dictator Pol Pot is estimated to
have killed as many as two million people in 1975-79. In Rwanda, up
to 800,000, mainly ethnic Tutsis, perished in a matter of 100 days
in 1994, killed by ethnic Hutu extremists.
What about Canada?
Some scholars argue Canada has its own history of genocide. They point
to residential schools and continuing violence against First Nations'
peoples, especially women. "The residential school system in Canada,
and certainly the structural extermination of Native peoples in many
other parts of the colonized world, qualifies because of the mortality
involved," says Mr. Jones.
Local pushback
Electronic music group A Tribe Called Red pulled out of performing at
the opening festivities for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in
Winnipeg because they felt the museum misrepresented and downplayed
"the genocide that was experienced by Indigenous people in Canada by
refusing to name it genocide."
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/02/09/when-are-atrocities-not-genocide-un-says-intent-and-number-of-victims-are-key-factors/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress