Call a spade a spade Mr. Annan?

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis

Wednesday February 02, 2005 16:57

by Marvin Gaye

How can genocide NOT be genocide??

The United Nations took another step in its long road to irrelevancy on January 31 with a report announcing that the Sudanese government was not conducting a genocidal campaign in the Darfur region. It agreed that there were indeed mass killings of civilians, torture, rape, pillaging, possible war crimes and perhaps crimes against humanity, but there was no evidence of genocide.

"Some of these violations are very likely to amount to war crimes and given the systematic and widespread pattern of many of the violations, they would also amount to crimes against humanity," the report said.

The report hung its conclusion on the belief that there was no "genocidal intent" by the Sudanese government to kill off a particular group on the grounds of ethnicity, religion or any other reason, a rather dubious finding. No such policy was implemented, the report maintains, by the government, either directly or through militia groups under its control.

Such an assertion comes as a surprise to anyone with basic familiarity with Sudan. Although the Sudanese government denies it, it's widely believed that it supports an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed -- the group chiefly culpable for causing the region's strife -- in an effort to put down a rebellion by non-Arab African groups. Experts believe that the Janjaweed is attempting to exterminate three tribes so that they can take their land.

Since the campaign began in March 2004, thousands of homes in several villages have been destroyed in the fighting. At least 70,000 people have died from disease, hunger and fighting, hundreds of thousands have fled the region to neighbouring Chad, and two million are now affected by the conflict.

Even if one accepts that the Janjaweed aren't backed by Khartoum, the idea that the government has had nothing to do with the killings is laughable. The commission responsible for the report compiled a list of suspects that includes government officials and government-backed militias responsible for some of the worst crimes committed in Darfur. The report also maintained that most attacks "were deliberately and indiscriminately directed against civilians." At some point an official declaration of genocidal policy merely acknowledges the reality of what's already going on.

And yet according to the United Nations, although conditions that lead to mass killings and the targeting of a particular group exist, it falls short of being genocide. While the United Nations can engage in bureaucratic hair-splitting in trying divine whether genocide is taking place, the rest of us don't have to. As is commonly said of art, we may not know how to define it, but we know genocide when we see it.

It's ironic that we recently celebrated the liberation of Auschwitz. After the full scale of the Nazi atrocities was revealed to the world we all joined together to say "Never Again." Words have rarely translated into real action, particularly when it comes to Africa. In January 1994 Kofi Annan and the United Nations ignored a cable by now retired Canadian Major General Roméo Dallaire reporting that the Hutu planned to launch a genocidal campaign against the Tutsis. Three months later a 100-day orgy of killing began that resulted in the murder of over 800,000 people.

Where eleven years ago one might have argued it was unlikely that a massacre on the scale of Rwanda could occur, today we are under no such misconception. The evidence is staring us in the face in the victims of Darfur. The United Nations can afford to engage in technicalities in defining genocide and willful blindness to when it occurs but doesn't mean that the world has to. We must either act to end the genocide in Darfur or once again we'll wonder how mass murder occurred in front of our eyes and no one did a thing to stop it. "Never Again" wasn't meant to be a mantra, it was meant as a call to arms.

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Comments (5 of 5)

A most interesting article but what lessons are being learnt from the Genocides

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice Activist

Wed Feb 02, 2005 22:02

A Judge once shared a few words of wisdom - 'Beware of the vested industry'.

Your article brings this to mind.

I lived in Zimbabwe and have a little knowledge of the Continent of Africa, the outcome of the Congress of Berlin in the 1870's when it was divided into 48 countries without any regard from tribal entities etc.
The continent provided the spoils, the plantations, the oil, the rubber etc. The Congo in those days was known as 'King Leopold's Garden (Belgium).

Our own Roger Casement is in fact the first Humanitarian acknowledged by the English for his in situ reports of the atrocities, plundering, looting and violence in Africa and South America. The Amazon Journal (three volumes) by Roger Casement is worth reading.

I want to ask one question - it relates to Capitalism, assets, and powerful entrepreneurs/stakeholders today (formerly landlords).

Lord Mansfield said (again 1800's) 'Absolute power corrupts and power corrupts absolutely' .......... No greedy human being appears to have paid any heed yet....'

Back to the question: Who accepts the funds/assets from corrupt Country Leaders, Entreprenneurs, corrupt beings/companies etc.

I note the following:

Iraq pleads for Asset return (ex. BBC newspage).

Yes, Iraq, like others, is questioning the assets frozen overseas. They ask that the funds be returned to fund humanitarian and reconstruction needs.

Now here is the scary part. $1.6 Billion is invested in the US; $600 m. is placed elsewhere. There is a UN Security Resolution dated 22nd May 2003 from Security Council via the US Ambassador. Then take account of the Oil Commodity and the vested interests there............crippling is the word that comes to mind.

As far as I am aware this has not been repaid.

Lurking all round Africa are predators for Oil, Diamonds, minerals, cheap labour....etc. Currency is a powerful tool for newly emerging leaders and alas money is often not invested in their own country but overseas in investments, bank accounts etc. Who hold the interests in some of elite hotels in London, Paris, the US?

Divide and conquer worked in Ireland and we got Civil War. The same happened in Zimbabwe.......and so it goes on.

Recently, we note that Sir Mark Thatcher may have avoided prison for his alledged involvement as financier in a group of professional, well-known mainly English people, in an African Country. The coup proved a disaster when the plane came down in an emergency landing in Harare, Zimbabwe......The country that the coup was planned for has the 2nd highest supply of oil.......yes that researve that may exist no longer in thirty years!!!! No time really!!!
and people just exploit the resource for the power/money component associated with right wing capitalism.

Simon Mann now is in jail in Zimbabwe - what a place to be for a former SAS man and Etonian.......How many other hidden faces/portfolios have escaped jail?

Whose side were these looters on......Yes it was their own personal gain, it was a greed for power and control and ultimately subservience of those not in their league.

Auschwitz - let us look at this history. Let us look at all the funds hidden away in Swiss bank accounts and other places.......let us start looking at the moral view of history and ensuring the morality in transactions today.

Personal I would recommend Transparency Ireland to get a brief on meetings held in Bulgaria, Switzerland etc. and their policies and disgussinn groups for defeating corruption. Former Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell and Professor Niamh Kenny are some of the Irish peole involved......this needs to be further catapulted onto the political arena........

Integrative policies are needed to blitz discrimination, disadvantage, plunder of resources.

Michelle Clarke.

Incorrect Quotation

by Irish Cultural Attache in San Francisco

Thu Feb 03, 2005 01:57

irishculturalattache at gmail dot com

It was Lord Acton (1887) who said: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. "

Note the word "tends".

Parsing

by Pedant

Thu Feb 03, 2005 17:40

Notice the absence of "tends" in the second clause and then try to demarcate power and absolute power.

Cinedhíothú nó Coireanna Cogaidh

by Duine

Fri Feb 04, 2005 16:40

Ní thagaim leis an ainilís go hiomlán anseo.
Tá staid ar bun i nDarfúr na Súdáine. Is cuí a léamh go hoibeachtúil , an locht a aithint agus leigheas a mholadh.
Deir comhfhreagraí anseo go bhfuil amhras ar gach pairtí anseo bheith claonta, go bhfuil ba le chur treasna acu. B'fhéidir gurb ea.
Ach is dual dúinn an fhirinne a scagadh comh maith agus is féidir linn gan dul i mbun seancheisteanna agus seanfhreagraí.
Is mithid dúinn bheith ionraic.
Más "cinedhiothú", beidh ar na NA gníomhú , dar leo, agus i láthair na huaire, ní hacmhainn dóibh, nó ní toil dóibh de dheasca a mbaill a bheith ar a mhalairt de meon. Íoróineach go leor, is é na SAM is mó a ghlaonn cinedhiothú ar staid na taobh tíre sin.
Más "coireanna cogaidh" iad, ní dual dona NA gníomhú, dar leo.
Ach is dual gníomhú toisc go bhfuil éagóir mhór ar bun. Glaoimis ar ár rialtais fhéin gníomhú agus a dtoil a chur le toil na NA.

Lord Acton - mis quote by Michelle

by Michelle Clarke - Social Justice and Ethics - Please

Fri Feb 04, 2005 20:24

Thank you for your response.

Post accident memory problems sometimes means I get a little mixed up.

I note your comment about Tends. You are of course correct........but corruption is proving a critical problem in the World Today.

We need Checks and Balances; Audits; transparency; accountability; Ethics audits to ensure the world order does not change to Corporatism........

Michelle Clarke

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Call a spade a spade Mr. Annan?

Comments (5 of 5)