The Armenian Reporter
28 Nov 08
In a two-hour special report, CNN chief international correspondent
Christiane Amanpour will report on the recurring nightmare of genocide
and the largely unknown struggles of the heroes who witnessed evil –
and "screamed bloody murder" for the international community to stop
it. The program will premiere on CNN on December 4 at 9 p.m. Eastern
and Pacific.
"We have profiled individuals," Ms. Amanpour told the Armenian
Reporter in an interview, "who have had the courage to stand up and
tell their governments what was going on and how it needed to be
stopped."
Ms. Amanpour said, "One of the people we look back on is Raphael
Lemkin, who . . . coined the term genocide specifically after the
Armenian Genocide and put that word right there in our vocabulary and
lobbied very, very hard for the Convention that would define that
word." The occasion for the documentary is the 60th anniversary of
the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide. The program touches briefly on the Armenian
Genocide in the context of Lemkin’s outrage that the murder of one
person is a capital crime, but the murder of an entire people was not
defined as such.
Past as prologue
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew and lawyer, narrowly escaped the
Holocaust, but his parents and 40 other members of his family perished
in the slaughter. In the 1940s, Lemkin coined the term "genocide" and
lobbied the then-fledgling U.N. for an international convention
compelling nations to prevent and stop genocide.
Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN
Productions says: "Lemkin hoped that the international community would
ensure that genocide never happened again, but other crusaders against
genocide met the same indifference and resistance Lemkin
encountered. This film is about their stories – and what we can learn
from them."
Just one generation later, Father François Ponchaud, a Catholic
missionary working in Cambodia, tried to alert the world to the
torture and mass executions following the rise of the brutal Khmer
Rouge regime. Fr. Ponchaud published articles, a book, and even spoke
before the U.N. to urge action to stop the killing.
"No one believed us" Fr. Ponchaud tells Ms. Amanpour in the
documentary. In fewer than four years, the Khmer Rouge’s reign of
terror claimed the lives of nearly two million men, women, and
children – one fourth of Cambodia’s population. "No one defends human
rights," the priest says in the documentary. "Governments are cold
beasts looking out for their own interests."
Committing genocide in front of the news cameras
In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein unleashed poison gas on the Iraqi Kurdish
population, killing tens of thousands of people. Ms. Amanpour draws on
U.S. government documents that show the Reagan administration opposed
measures to sanction Iraq – because it was trying to cultivate Iraq as
an ally against Iran in 1988.
Peter Galbraith, at the time an idealistic staffer in the U.S. Senate,
witnessed Hussein’s brutal policy and tried unsuccessfully to get
Congress to punish Iraq. The White House continued its support for
Hussein. Ms. Amanpour questions the Reagan administration officials
who made the decisions at the time, including former U.S. Secretary of
State George Shultz.
Ms. Amanpour returns to the former Yugoslavia – where in the 1990s she
reported on the "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims by Serbs. She reminds
viewers that the slaughter in Bosnia happened in full view of the
world, captured on 24-hour television news.
Ms. Amanpour describes the efforts of Richard Holbrooke, a private
citizen who would later become one of President Bill Clinton’s most
influential advisors=3B Mr. Holbrooke tried to persuade the Clinton
administration to use military force to stop the principal aggressors,
the Bosnian Serbs. It would take three years – and the massacre of
8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica – for him to make
his case and secure U.S. military support to end the "ethnic
cleansing."
Speaking to the Armenian Reporter, Ms. Amanpour said, "When I ask
former U.S. officials who were in national security or the State
Department during the Clinton administration – in which genocide
happened in Bosnia and in Rwanda – I ask them why was there this
collective failure to act, and some of them said to me, `Look, we need
our public behind us. This is something very difficult for us to
intervene when our national security is not directly threatened. We
need our public behind us.’"
She said her purpose was to raise awareness of international affairs
among Americans, the citizens of the most powerful nation on earth.
During an international news conference in 1994, Ms. Amanpour
challenged Mr. Clinton: "Do you not think that the constant flip-flops
of your administration on the issue of Bosnia set a very dangerous
precedent?"
Ms. Amanpour also returns to Rwanda – where she reported on genocide
there 14 years ago. The atrocities still haunt retired Canadian
Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire. In 1994, Mr. Dallaire was the commander of
the U.N. peace-keeping troops in Rwanda. He sounded early warnings
about an impending human tragedy but was prohibited from taking
military action to prevent the slaughter that eventually claimed the
lives of at least 800,000 people. Mr. Dallaire, ordered to leave
Rwanda by his bosses, tells Ms. Amanpour, "I refused a legal
order. But it was immoral."
Avoiding the G word
Ms. Amanpour recounts the Clinton administration’s refusal to use the
word "genocide" to describe the killing in Rwanda, and the U.N.’s
refusal to reinforce Mr. Dallaire’s troops. Former
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and former U.S. National Security
Advisor Anthony Lake discuss the failures in Rwanda. Ms. Amanpour also
interviews current Rwandan president Paul Kagame, who says the world
was indifferent to the fate of Rwandans.
Finally, Ms. Amanpour reports on what many consider to be the first
genocide of the 21st century: Darfur.
"There was no lack of information, there was no lack of understanding,
there was a lack of will to stop genocide – year after year after
year," says Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor and one of the
founders of grassroots activism to end genocide in
Darfur. Ms. Amanpour interviews Dr. Mukesh Kapila, the U.N.’s former
top official in Sudan, who notes what he says is today’s challenge:
The U.N. is powerless to compel its members to act, even in the face
of mass murder.
But, Ms. Amanpour said to the Armenian Reporter, "Something incredible
happened in the last few years over Darfur. The reason Darfur is an
issue in the United States, perhaps more than in any other Western
country is because it has become a grassroots issue on campuses, in
NGOs, and even in places like Hollywood and such. Darfur has become a
rallying cry, and I think this is amazing. It really is amazing. And
that’s what gives me hope for the future."
Six decades after Lemkin’s challenge to never let genocide happen
again, Ms. Amanpour ponders what it will take for the world to live up
to his challenge and the promise of the Genocide Convention he worked
so tirelessly to bring about. The next time the killing starts and
someone stands up to scream bloody murder, will anyone listen?