Real tragedy is refusal to call this genocide
By KATE SMITH
The Scotsman, UK
June 20 2004
AFTER the horrors of the Holocaust, Winston Churchill called it
“a crime without a name”. Now we know these acts of mass murder and
destruction as genocide.
What can it possibly matter to the families destroyed by the violence
and persecution in Sudan how the West categorises their suffering
and loss?
‘The problem is not in detection but in the world’s political will’
It matters for two reasons. Firstly, determining a genocide triggers
the 1948 UN International Convention of the Prevention and Punishment
of Genocide, which compels the member states to intervene. Secondly,
it starts the collection of evidence for any subsequent prosecution
of perpetrators.
Raphael Lemkin coined genocide in 1944, and the key phrase of the UN
convention is “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group”. This includes killing, bodily or
mental harm, preventing births, immiseration and forcibly transferring
children.
It seems beyond doubt that the actions of the Janjaweed Arab militias
against the Christian and Animist of Darfur constitute genocide,
but why does the West delay and resist naming Sudan as genocide?
The world has been here before. Bill Clinton has said that one of
the greatest mistakes of his presidency was in not declaring Rwanda
genocide. In 1998, Clinton tried to explain America’s failure to
respond to the tragedy by saying the speed and extent of the murders
were just not appreciated by Washington DC.
But here again, 10 years later and 1,000 miles north of Rwanda, a
different group of world leaders resists involvement by obfuscation
and deliberation over declaring a genocide.
George W Bush’s hesitation, it must be acknowledged, is influenced
by his military commitments elsewhere. Estimates are that 10,000
peacekeepers would be needed to end the genocide in southern Sudan.
The tragedy is made all the worse because genocide is both predictable
and preventable. Genocide takes organisation and preparation. The
business of preparing for genocide inevitably leaves a paper trail
of military correspondence, invoices and purchase orders.
General Romeo Dallaire, UN chief of staff in Rwanda, learned of plans
for the genocide three months before it began and requested extra
peacekeepers when he discovered training camps and massive shipments
of machetes arriving in Rwanda.
His reports to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations drew
the response that his request exceeded the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Rwanda’s mandate and the peacekeepers that were in the
country were subsequently withdrawn.
Dallaire has since said that even those 2,800 withdrawn troops could
have saved hundreds of thousand of lives.
This failure of the international community to declare and intervene
explains why there are still genocides. The problem is not in
detection but in the political will of the global public and the
world’s leaders. The world has not developed the international
institutions needed to prevent it.
Sudan underlines the need for reform of the international
institutions. The UN Security Council needs a strong independent
early-warning system to predict genocide and to advise the Security
Council on options for prevention.
The UN also needs a standing professional rapid-response force that
does not depend on member governments’ military contributions. There
could also be agreement from the permanent five members of the Security
Council that no member will exercise their right of veto when genocide
prevention is needed.
The massacres in Sudan show once again the failure to take decisive
action and demonstrate clearly that effective mechanisms to prevent
or halt massive acts of violence still do not exist.
As for the lack of political will, it is a phenomenon of genocide
that it is surrounded by silence. It is what the perpetrators hope
for and have come to expect.
By failing to define it as genocide, the denial and silence of the
international community gives the perpetrators the space they need
to commit their crimes with impunity.
Eight hundred thousand people were killed in Rwanda in the first six
weeks. Some sources now estimate a million are dead in Darfur. Unless
we act, protest and lobby our politicians, we are all complicit in
the silence.
After all, Adolf Hitler told his army commanders to plan the genocide
of the Polish nation with the justification of “Who still talks
nowadays about the Armenians?”
Kate Smith is a Fellow of the Yale University Genocide Studies
Program. Her book, End of Genocide, is published by Praeger early
next year