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TechnoratiThis year marks the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on Dec. 9, 1948, the Convention reflects the tireless work of Raphael Lemkin, a Polish linguist and Jew who had survived the Holocaust. But in the long and too often darkened years that followed, the Convention has never prevented a single genocide, even as "prevention" receives pride of place in the ponderous convention title. Despite the many instances in which international action was desperately required, the demanding words of the Convention have always rung hollow:
"The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and punish."
To be sure, whether genocide occurred in a particular place or time is debatable. Was Cambodia in the 1970s a genocide or a massive and brutal political purging guided by ideological madness? Was Nigeria's Biafra region the site of genocide in the late 1960s or self-inflicted starvation engineered by Biafran separatists? Was the Pakistani occupation of Bangladesh in the early 1970s a genocide?
But if the primary purpose of the Genocide Convention is prevention, the UN and international community must act before there is juridical or historical certainty. We are obliged to act when there is compelling evidence of large-scale destruction of a "national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such." We might wish for a more detailed account of the mechanism for prevention than is offered in Article 8 of the Convention, but the obligation to act is clear.
Instead, failure beyond doubt, beyond mitigation is too often in evidence, whether we look to Bosnia, Rwanda, or Kurdish Iraq. Continuing international acquiescence before genocide is not a matter of an imperfect document but of moral cowardice or a ghastly solipsism.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Sudan's Darfur region. Only a hopelessly constrained reading of the Genocide Convention, or a refusal to look at the systematic nature of ongoing ethnic destruction, can sustain diffidence or agnosticism.
The National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum continues to commit all the genocidal acts enumerated in Article 2 of the Convention, even if one such act now has particular prominence: "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." We need look no further than the "systematic" denial of humanitarian access to targeted African ethnic groups that has been reported by UN and nongovernmental organizations for more than four years. While violence may have declined from the ferocious levels of 2003-04, it continues, if in more chaotic fashion.
And even this chaos in Darfur is "by design," as a recent report from Human Rights Watch authoritatively demonstrates. Nor were the consequences of Khartoum's genocidal counterinsurgency campaign difficult to discern early on in the conflict. Four years ago, it was clear that in the absence of international humanitarian intervention many tens of thousands of civilians would die. Today the death toll - from violence, disease, and malnutrition - is measured in the hundreds of thousands, and the future looks just as grim.
If the slowly deploying UN/African Union force fails to halt the violence, or aborts - a possibility explicitly raised by head of UN peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guéhenno - then genocidal destruction will almost certainly accelerate and hundreds of thousands more will probably die. If the international community fails to commit the resources required by this extraordinarily difficult mission, the lack of security will become intolerable. Humanitarian groups - the essential lifeline for more than 4.2 million human beings in Darfur - will be obliged to suspend operations or withdraw. A critically weakened population could face a cataclysm of death and suffering.
More than any genocide following the Holocaust, Darfur's killing fields are the measure of whether, 60 years after its ratification, the UN Convention has any remaining force or meaning. The debacle of deployment in Darfur argues that the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations desperately requires a substantial, robust standing force, prepared to deploy urgently to protect civilian populations facing geno-cide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity. Actual deployment would be at the request of the Secretary-General, and while a two-thirds majority of the Security Council should be formally required, deployment must not be held hostage to the veto of the five permanent members. This requires substantial revision of the UN Charter, but fundamental changes at the UN are widely recognized as critical for the organization to remain relevant in the 21st century.
Darfur reveals the consequences of having no such international force. If a ruthless regime of génocidaires can insulate itself from international action simply by claiming "national sovereignty," then Mr. Lemkin's labors will have been in vain. And a Genocide Convention that remains impotent in the face of ongoing, fully reported genocidal destruction will mark in us the deepest hypocrisy.
Eric Reeves, a professor of English language and literature at Smith College, is the author of "A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide."
Copyright © 2008 The Christian Science Monitor
9 Comments so far
Show AllFirst, you have to grasp this as a concept that by cognitive dissonance allows you to tolerate without having to think to much. It would not be that difficult to come up with a better idea, just about anything would be better than living in a complete vacuum devoid of truth. Deal with it, there is no antidepressant that will make this better state of affairs. Make an objection, I object!!!!Make it loud. I OBJECT TO BEING MANIPULATED AND LIED TO BY MY GOVERNMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what do you wise people propose to replace the UN? Without denying that it is manipulated and used selectively, how do you know it isn't doing at least some good? Darfur has a genocide ongoing and some small UN presence. Perhaps without the UN, the genocide would have been completed already. At least this way there is some venue, however imperfect, for help and hope. There hasn't been a genocide in Cyprus, for example, and the UN patrolled border is one of the reasons why. And if it wasn't for the UN, where would these nations have a venue to be heard?
Furthermore, what makes you think that there aren't "whiny liberals" protesting both the Iraq/Afghanistan war, Guantanamo, Sudan, and other crises?
Finally, safiyyah, you call on the US or whatever country you're in to stop the Sudanese genocide because through our corporations and money, we do have some (potential) influence. On the other hand, if you look at how little reported these stories are, you'll realize that the influence flows only one way. A thousand anti-war protesters may not even get covered here; how much less influence does poor people, not reported in the media, have over an overtly dictatorial government?
Craig
Darfur is only one of many genocides and holocausts we are witnessing without raising a word of protest. The Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people is one of the great crimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This holocaust is supported by the US Congress and the current administration. All of the current presidential candidates support Israel's holocaust of the Palestinians, and none has raised a single word against Israel's genocide in Gaza. The UN Security Council has consistently turned a blind eye to Israel's war crimes, invasions, land theft, torture, and human rights violations. How long can the Israeli's continue to con the world into thinking they are civilized and democratic?
Funny how he left out the genocide of the Palestinians and Iraqis.
And notice how most of these genocides happen in places that have valuable resources or are otherwise geostrategically important.
Genocide is a useful tool for the Eugenics movement led by those who seek global government. The US was the leading pioneer in Eugenics in the early 20's with the American Eugenics Society which was financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, which also financed Hitlers Eugenics program putting some of these ideas into practice, at least up until 1939.
After WW II (world wars are great for population reduction), Eugenics had a bad name as a result of Hitler and the holocaust which was far more extensive than a program against Jews, but included gypsies and those who where were deemed poor genetic quality, including those of the German race who were retarded or mentally ill. So the name was changed to Population Council in the early 50's, which was a crypto-Eugenics organization.
Kissinger, a former member of the Rockefeller Foundation formalized the US governments participation in population control with NSSM 200 in 1975 which was signed by Ford. He was quoted as stating the US should use food aid as an instrument of power and would ration it's food aid "to help those who can't or won't control ther populations". Starve or sterilize. Those who sterilize their women get food aid (or economic aid).
In 1991, the Brazil government was shocked to learn after investigating allegations of widespread sterilization that 44% of Brazilian women betwen 15-44 had been sterilized under USAID programs, and up to 90% of Black women in some areas (African-Brazilians made up about 50% of the population).
The UN is not part of the solution, they are a front organization for the culling of inferior races and those flawed genetically. The UN was built on land given to them by the Rockefellers. Revising the UN charter is pointless until those behind the global crimes against humanity are rooted out and punished. The Fox is guarding the hen house, and the hens know better than to ask the Fox for help. Too bad most people don't know this, although I suspect most of Latin America has figured it out.
Darfur can't be reduced to a mere herring incarnadined.
But it's certainly true that genocide is hidden in a semantic fog, and it is always something that is happening elsewhere.
This is nonsense! Sudan - a poor country in Africa that cannot defend itself from outside machinations - has become a convenient target of white liberals who dare not confront the powerful, rich countries of the West that are now carrying out genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan and are responsible for so many past crimes. I chaallenge any of the "Save Darfur" liberals and their whimsical, attention-craving celebrities in Hollywood to get on a "Free Guantanamo Detainees," or "Save Iraq/Afghanistan from US/NATO genocide" campaign. Darfur has become a major occupation of white liberals because they are terrified of confronting their own governments and holding them accountable for their crimes against humanity. The Save Darfur campaign serves as nothing more than a distraction from the major purveyor of genocide and other crimes against humanity today: The United States government. Calling on this government to stop genocide in the Darfur is like asking the Devil to rescue people from hell.
As soon as you see the word 'genocide' being used these days, you know it will be some academic liberal whining that the US government needs to intervene against the Sudanese government. They will say that we need to punish the government of this empoverished country with an economic war, we need to stop them Arabs on horses cold! We need to spank the Chinese... we need to care more ...blah, blah, blah.
What is it with these people? They never seem to call on the Sudanese government to stop the US government genocides against Palestinians, Iraqis, Somalis, and Afghans, do they? Do we ever hear of them talking about that old genocide against the Vietnamese by the American people? Oh,, NO! Americans are never, never guilty of genocide. They only stop genocides and never should be called a genocidal people at all. In fact, Americans must be called on by good people like the dear professor to force their government to send in the military to save folk in far corners of the planet... Oh I mean the 'peacekeeping troops'. Sorry... What's wrong with these folk who think like that? Isn't the conservative thugs calling for 'humanitarian interventions' enough to handle alone, but the supposed liberal set have to be calling for it, too?
You want to stop murder of poor people in Africa, Professor Reeves? Then send in the money. The entire aid package of the UN ($3 bil) for food relief on that entire continenet is less than the military spending impact on my local city where I live of about 400,000 people ($4 2/3 bil). Instead, you want to arm the United Nations more. Haven't you heard though? The UN is just a back up unit for the Pentagon these days. You're calling for the Pentagon to save the people of Darfur, just like they are 'saving' the people of Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
Let's be clear about why it failed. Because the "great" powers on the security council (mainly the US) both resisted accepting the authority of the UN and protected genocides when the guilty parties were their allies. So Suharto's massacres passed without effective curbs because he was America's ally and killing communists. So long as the UN was twisted into serving the national interests of the superpowers (which were threatening genocide on a global scale with their WMDs), international law had no chance to gain authority and respect. It would require all governments to accept the primacy of international law over their own interests to really make the dream that is the UN come true.
This poses a legitimate is it OK to go in with guns and tell other cultures how to live their lives if their lives include genocide? Invading Sudan could be the next iraq or the next next next vietname or whatever. So what are good people supposed to do?