MaxedOutMama
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
No Genocide Here!
I was going to write about the cynicism inherent in the UN's determination that there is no genocide taking place in Sudan, but then Spiegel, hardly a bastion of pro-American rhetoric, summarized matters nicely:
More to the point, what have we achieved in this new world order if we are afraid to even tell the truth, because it might require action under the rules the UN has freely adopted? And a final question - if the UN cannot conduct an honest inquiry into a matter such as this, why should the US feel constrained to cooperate with institutions such as the International Criminal Court in the Hague? If political advantage rules the UN, why will political advantage not rule such a court?
The long and the short of it is that the UN does not feel the obligation to intervene in Sudan. It's estimated that over 2 million people have died in the several decades of the Sudan conflict, and an organized attempt to destroy an ethnic group is occurring. So when and where would such deaths inspire a moral obligation in the highest international body? At some point in the future this determination will be regarded as one of the turning points in world history. We don't yet know in which direction the world will turn, but it has begun.
The special United Nations commission convened to determine whether genocide is being perpetrated in the Darfur region of war-torn Sudan finally released its report on Monday. What did it find? Apparently, the mass killings, which have cost some 70,000 innocent villagers their lives and made refugees of a further 1.8 million, do not constitute genocide.and:
So why not call it genocide? There are at least two possible reasons. The first is that the definition of the term genocide used by the UN is quite narrow. A government must be found guilty of intent to "destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." To the lay observer, however, this definition seems to be fulfilled in Sudan. The Janjaweed militia, supported by the Sudanese government, targeted black, non-Muslim African civilians in their slaughters with apparently little concern as to whether they were participating in the Darfur uprising or not. Even the United States House of Representatives and Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to the Darfur slaughter as genocide.Even the US? The US was the major political force outside of Africa pushing for an aggressive approach toward the problem. We brokered the cease-fire. We pushed the claims of genocide in the UN. See this prior post and the Spiegel article linked. Spiegel now continues:
The second reason for avoiding the term genocide is that it carries with it a number of legal obligations for the UN. Namely, as soon as genocide is identified, the UN is obligated to take steps to stop it. Indeed, it is this legal obligation that explains the adoption of the term "ethnic cleansing" during the Bosnia War -- a semantic method to avoid action. In the case of Sudan, the UN just last month brokered a peace agreement to end the decades-long north-south civil war in the country (a peace treaty that was approved on Tuesday by the Sudanese parliament). It could be that the UN was hesitant to put more pressure on Sudan over Darfur (a conflict not included in the peace treaty) thus jeopardizing that peace agreement -- a success the UN would very much like to present as proof of its relevancy.Hehehe. Maybe Colin Powell's relevancy. Not the UN's. Even Spiegel knows this is an evasion of responsibility. The US has been talking to the African Union to try to get them to do more, and now Kofi Annan is following suit. How spineless can the UN be?
More to the point, what have we achieved in this new world order if we are afraid to even tell the truth, because it might require action under the rules the UN has freely adopted? And a final question - if the UN cannot conduct an honest inquiry into a matter such as this, why should the US feel constrained to cooperate with institutions such as the International Criminal Court in the Hague? If political advantage rules the UN, why will political advantage not rule such a court?
The long and the short of it is that the UN does not feel the obligation to intervene in Sudan. It's estimated that over 2 million people have died in the several decades of the Sudan conflict, and an organized attempt to destroy an ethnic group is occurring. So when and where would such deaths inspire a moral obligation in the highest international body? At some point in the future this determination will be regarded as one of the turning points in world history. We don't yet know in which direction the world will turn, but it has begun.
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They (theUN) didn't see any genocide in Rwanda either.
Only later when it turnout to be genocide.
I am sure they are working on a statement condemning Australia's treatment of illegal immigrants.
You have to get you priorities right.
Only later when it turnout to be genocide.
I am sure they are working on a statement condemning Australia's treatment of illegal immigrants.
You have to get you priorities right.
Another 11 resolutions condemning Zionism and a couple for Australia on refugees, right. After Howard's comments the Aussies will have risen in the ranks. It's ALL about priorities.
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