Horrific Acts of Genocide - Essay Example

Genocide, Holocaust and Humanitarian Response The term “genocide,” has, for purposes of international law and assigning legal blame (as opposed to circumvention or intervention), been defined since 1933, when international scholars, legal experts and politicians came together in Madrid, Spain at the Conference for Unification of Criminal Law where Raphael Lemkin “declared” to the conference the meaning of genocide to be, “. . . the criminal intent to destroy or to cripple permanently a human group. The acts are directed against groups as such, and individuals are selected for destruction only because they belong to these groups (Andreopoulos, G., 1994:1).” Perhaps, since there must indeed be a definition of genocide, Lemkin’s definition stands to suffice. However, in the minds of many that definition does not go far enough, since it lacks the necessary accompanying definition of humanity’s responsibility to respond to genocide. Today, the definition of genocide should be inclusive of humanity’s responsibility to respond to the atrocity of genocide. If it is not the natural response, the innate and inborn human response, to respond the needs of another human being in way to sustain and improve another human being’s life, then it is certainly the right of those who are so inured of that response to do so. Thus, the definition applied to the term genocide must be revised for the international community to extend Lemkin’s definition to include the responsibility and right of humanity to respond to the atrociousness of the act of genocide. The Complexities of Sovereign Borders It is, however, a complex issue, which is why, in 1933, when experts in international law, international foreign affairs, and world governments met in Madrid, Lemkin’s definition sufficed to establish the definition of genocide which formed “the backbone UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereinafter the Genocide Convention or “Convention”), focused on the legal task of defining a crime, and thus placed emphasis on intention and on the individual and/or collective responsibility of a well defined set of actors (the perpetrators) (Andreopoulous, 1994:1-2).” It’s plain to see where the “Convention,” fell short, in that it to define and describe an initiative of response to be taken by the world community. While the European Union continues as an emerging concept, it is still in the “pre-natal” stages of its birth as a “unified” Europe. To date, it has failed to accomplish what some would argue was the original idea behind it, the unification of European nations in a cohesive governmental, economic and social block which, if achieved, could have rendered it the most powerful force on the planet. However, it could not be achieved, and today the European stands united largely in theory, having created commissions and bodies that bring together legal, social, economic and political experts who continue to works what now seems an elusive goal. Descriptions of the EU have long ceased to exhalations of the enthusiasm of the original concept, and today, based on information it puts out (Europa, 2006:on-line) and information from other sources (CIA, 2006:on-line), the EU is “not a federation in the strictest sense (CIA, 2006:on-line).” Meaning, of course, that the 25 member nations of the Union could not relinquish sovereignty in the interest of a greater European nation state; one which could have been the most powerful political and military force on the planet. A large part of the problem in achieving a unified Europe is independent nation sovereignty. The fear of relinquishing sovereignty to a unified collection of states that are politically, economically, and culturally diverse in nature that might fail the diversity of any one member; or at least so might the fear be. It is that same sovereignty that prevents nations achieving greatness that prevents governments and humanitarian organizations from trespassing sovereign borders of another nation even when the atrocious act of genocide is being committed to prevent that act. There is, it seems, a fear of precedent should that ever be allowed to occur; the fear that perhaps genocide would be an excuse to invasion – although, if it is occurring, and it is being committed a sitting government, and if the 1933 Madrid definition of genocide has indeed been found to be have been committed, and the assignment of blame lands on the sitting government; should not that sitting government be held accountable? And it is perhaps the answer to this question – having thus far gone unanswered in the face of well documented acts of genocide since 1933, which is avoided by world government leaders and representatives around the world today. No example better exemplifies the reluctance of the free world to trespass the borders of a sovereign nation than the events which unfolded in the African nation of Rwanda, in 1994, when at 500,000 people – and some estimates go as high as 750,000 people – were massacred as the United Nations stood by, refusing to intervene in the events going on around them (Constantine, G., and Sands, D. R., 2000:12). A seven member panel “composed mostly of African leaders blamed the 1994 genocide of more than 500,000 people in Rwanda on the United States, the United Nations, France, and the Catholic Church because they “’allowed it to go ahead (Constantine, G., and Sands, D. R., 2000:12).’” Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has repeatedly made statements saying that one of his major regrets is not having taken action in Rwanda at that time (Renshon, S., 2005:608). However, as modern events have shown, President George W. Bush, claiming a goal of regime change in Iraq as a result of the atrocities committed there against the Kurds, and dictator Saddam Hussein’s bent towards further human destruction and his publicly proclaimed pursuit of weapons of mass annihilation, even though no such weapons were subsequently found, and even though the dictator made public declarations as to that capability and furthering those capabilities (Burck, G. and Flowerree, C. C., 1991:31); George W. Bush has been sharply criticized by American leaders and world governments for invading Iraq in 2003 to bring about “regime change,” in that country. It is the reverse criticism launched against former President Clinton for not taking action in Rwanda, and serves to exemplify the problems associated with crossing borders to deal with the internal conflicts of another nation, or to prevent or circumvent a perceived threat as posed by that nation. No doubt George W. Bush will continue to face the problems arising from his administration’s decision to invade Iraq long after he has left the White House, however when assigning blame, as in the case of Rwanda (where 2500 UN troops were present, and no American troops, although American troops were part of the UN peace keeping contingency in Rwanda (Constantine, G., and Sands, D. R., 2000:12)), there is a tendency on the part of other nations to assign the United States responsibility for preventing events such as occurred in Rwanda, and likewise for intervening such as happened in Iraq. What can be expected is that Iraq will constitute the first and last time America takes pre-emptive action against another nation who represents a perceived threat to America or the world at large. Celebrity Credit Cards Today, too, we know that the definition of genocide is in the face of raw film footage from World War II archives (Fanning, D., 1985:PBS Motion Picture Documentary), as well as the news film and documentary materials that might be found on the atrocities “…committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the late 1970s, those committed by Idi Amin in Uganda during his rule (1971-1979), the Tutsi massacre of the Hutu Brundi in the late 1960s and the 1970s, the Iraqi massacres of the Kurds in the late 1980s, and most recently the killings of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzogovina are troubling reminders of genocide’s staying power (Andreopoulous, 1994:1).” If not the staying power of the act, certainly the lack of human conscience and the lack of initiative on the part of world organizations to step in and take action to either prevent or stop these atrocities from continuing to occur. Add to the aforementioned the more recent atrocities which are going on as the stroke of computer keys write this paper; the genocidal mass murders and ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of the Sudan (Doolittle, A., and Wagner, A, The Washington Time, 2006:A01); the extreme brutal treatment, deprivation of human rights, and perhaps genocidal direction of the treatment of women in Iran (Ganji, M., 2002:108); and it becomes clear and obvious that the need exists not just for a definition of the term “genocide,” or the legal criteria for affixing blame as to such acts in hindsight, but the need for a directive, a law, an international initiative that has responsibility, and the support of the nations of the world, in stepping in to circumvent, prevent, and, when that fails and genocide ensues, to stop the forces behind these acts of unacceptable human atrociousness. While the Bush administration is, and rightly so, reluctant to step forward and take any military action in the Sudan, President Bush has voiced his support for the growing contingent of public and private efforts to bring about an end to the genocide going on there (Doolittle, A., and Wagner, A., 2006:A01). At the forefront of those efforts is celebrity actor George Clooney, who, with his father, Nick, traveled to the Darfur region of the Sudan where they secretly filmed interviews of the refugees and the camp. Later, returning to the United States, Clooney and his aging father appeared on numerous talk shows touting the footage of their trip to the region and discussing the ongoing genocide taking place there. Those shows were followed with an organized march in Washington, DC, attended by political and religious leaders, athletes and other supporters in the effort to bring about an end to the suffering in Darfur. “However, it was Mr. Clooney’s recent trip to Darfur with his father, Nick – and his credit card of celebrity, as he described it last week in the District – that sparked much of the interest in the rally (Doolittle, A., and Wagner, A., 2006:A01).” Following Clooney’s trip to Darfur, and his public showing of film footage he secretly taped, reports linked a message directly from Osama bin Laden calling for mujahideen to go to the region to aid the forces of Islam there (BBC News, April 24, 2006:on-line). Later, it was reported that the refugees in the camp where Clooney and his father interviewed refugees and made their secret documentary tape were slaughtered (FemaleFirst.co.uk 2006:on-line). There is a high risk associated with using celebrity credit cards and stepping out of the conventional lines of diplomacy to make secret documentaries even in the name of a good cause. Since we have the definition of the term “genocide,” and since we have the process for assigning blame to the act, it is time now to define the responsibility, the role of humanity, at the national and the private levels, as to who is responsible for stepping in and stopping these acts of human atrocity. It is clear that such a “convention” has become necessary, but at what point and by who is the decision to be made as to when to take that action; and having decided upon the action, who or what is the mechanism for the action? These are questions that require serious and immediate attention, before further atrocities can be calculated in the 21st century (Sura, V., 2002:20). The Camps As the Allied forces liberated the prisoners held at Dauchau, Buchenwald, Belsen and other camps; the brutality of genocide bent on annihilating other human beings was captured on film in ways that it had never been before, and perhaps has not been since (the atomic holocaust in Japan standing separate). Hitler and his Holocaust have come to represent the most egregious acts of intent of destruction of humanity, and now stand as the official symbolic imagery and historical archives of pain and suffering of humanity associated genocide. It is no different than the acts of atrocity committed since that time, but it stands alone by way of several distinctions. First, that the course towards exterminating the European Jewry actually began with a set of laws that would, theoretically (since they were later circumvented by the “Final Solution (Reitlinger, G., 1953), by legal doctrine eliminate the Jewish race in Germany, and subsequently in those nations conquered by, and to be conquered by Germany; those laws were the Nuremberg Laws (Reitlinger, G., 1953:7). However, the Nuremberg Laws did represent the speed with which the Reich wanted to confront the problem of the Jews; thus the most remarkable event of the war, the conference at Wannsee, just outside of Berlin, in an elaborate home where once lived a Jewish family (Reitlinger, G., 1953:95). There, at Wannsee, members of Hitler’s military and government gathered to discuss and finalize the “final solution,” or the plans by which to abandon immigration and deportation of Jews, and to go around the Nuremberg Laws, to a final and permanent solution that would lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews then being held in concentration camps throughout Germany, Poland and other of the European states held by Germany (Reitlinger, G., 1953:95). Never before, and never since has humanity’s archives contained the intent to systematically annihilate a race as do the records that survived Gross-Wannsee conference, and World War II Germany. The sheer numbers involved, totaling lives in the millions, has never before or since been recorded in subsequent acts of genocide – though that in and of itself should not detract from the atrocity of the crime itself. In the case of World War II, Hitler might never have seen himself in a position of power but for the fear that arises out of ignorance, fed by the jealousy and power hungry greed of those who are more educated, but more racist than ignorant. It is clear that a few must rely on the many to carry out plans on the scale of that with which Germany carried out its plans of annihilation against the European Jews; that those in power ply the ignorance of the less powerful, the lesser educated whose passions are easily stirred to fanaticism and irrational response. Hitler waged a war of propaganda against the Jews, playing upon the population’s fear of cultural differences, traditional differences, and especially utilizing the religious differences between Christians and Jews to invigorate and incite the hatred of the non-Jewish population in order to get them to both turn their heads away from the atrocities being committed around them, and to participate in those acts of violence. That the events of the World War II Holocaust were committed during the actual engagement of World War, added but another unique facet to the act in the case of the World War II Holocaust. However, since that time, as evidenced by Rwanda, the world has had an opportunity to intervene, and still it has not acted in the best interest of humanity. Thus, the case for a much needed revision of how we perceive and respond to genocide has been established; the World War II Holocaust stands as a reminder of the extent to which mankind will go without humanitarian intervention. The time has come to fill in the blanks left at the 1933 Madrid convention (Van Schaack, B. 1997:2259-2291). LIST of REFERENCES Andreopoulos, G. J. (Ed.).,(1994). Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, Bin laden Call Falls on Deaf Ears (April 24, 2006), BBC News, on-line, found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4937416.stm> retrieved 5 January 2007. Burck, G. M., & Flowerree, C. C., (1991).. International Handbook on Chemical Weapons Proliferation. New York: Greenwood Press. CIA World Fact Book, (2006), on-line, found at https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ee.html> retrieved 4 January 2007. Constantine, G., & Sands, D. R. (2000, July 8). U.S., U.N. Allowed Rwanda Genocide. The Washington Times, p. 1. Retrieved January 4, 2007, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001054457. Europa, (2006), on-line, found at http://europa.eu/abc/panorama/index_en.htm> retrieved 4 January 2007. Fanning, D., (1985), PBS Frontline, ‘In Memory of the Camps’ (film documentary) found on-line at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/view/, retrieved 20 December 2006. FemaleFirst.co.uk ,(2006), on-line found at http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/eastenders/Clooney+s+Darfur+Refugees+Killed+As+Genocide+Reaches+A+New+High.-27279.html> retrieved 5 January 2007. Rally Decries Darfur Killings; Celebrities and Religious Leaders Urge an End to A Genocide. (2006, May 1). The Washington Times, p. A01. Retrieved January 4, 2007, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5014927187 Reitlinger, G. (1953). The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-1945 (1st ed.). New York: Beechhurst Press. Retrieved January 4, 2007, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=10996755 Renshon, S. A. (2005). President Clintons Memoirs: Caveat Emptor. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 35(3), 608+. Retrieved January 4, 2007, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5011049288. Sura, V. (2002, December). Experts Debate Humanitarian Intervention. UN Chronicle, 39, 20+. Retrieved January 4, 2007, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001691678. Van Schaack, B. (1997). The Crime of Political Genocide: Repairing the Genocide Conventions Blind Spot. Yale Law Journal, 106(7), 2259-2291. Retrieved January 4, 2007, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000440876 Read More