THE GENOCIDE CONVENTION AT 60: A RECORD OF FAILURE –AND DOUBLE STANDARDS
By Bill Weinberg
Published on World War 4 Report ()
Created 01/12/2011 – 20:45
Sixty years ago, on Jan. 12, 1951, the UN Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide [1], took effect, its text [2]
for the first time defining the crime of genocide under international
law, establishing punishments and the responsibility of signatory
nations to act against it. The world has nonetheless witnessed several
genocides since then.
The first genocide of the 20th century was the liquidation of
approximately one and a half million Armenians [3] in Turkey between
1915-17. But it was Adolf Hitler’s systematic annihilation of Jews
(and Roma [4]) during the Second World War that crystalized the issue
for the world. The postwar Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals took
place prior to the adoption of the Genocide Convention by the UN
General Assembly in December 1948.
The Convention, which entered into force in January 1951, became
the first international document referring to the concept of
genocide–first coined by the Polish-Jewish lawyer Rafael Lemkin
during World War II. In the beginning the term existed only in the
Polish language (ludobójstwo), but in 1944 Lemkin adapted it for use
in the English language as “genocide,” from the Greek genos (race,
nation) and the Latin cide (to kill).
The Convention establishes that genocide is a crime according
to international law, whether committed during a time of war
or peace. Actions intended to destroy, in whole or in part,
a national, ethnic, racial or religious group of people are
considered genocide. The aim of the Convention is to punish this
crime, the prosecution of which may never be subject to a statute
of limitations, and to deter potential perpetrators. The fact that
some evident cases of genocide have been found not to fall under
the Convention’s definition means the definition has never become a
generally recognized measurement for distinguishing actual genocides
from other, less serious cases of mass killing.
The first trial of a genocide began in the year 1993 with the creation
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY [5]), based at The Hague. In 2001, Slobodan Milosevic [6],
the president of Yugoslavia and then Serbia, was brought to trial
there. He died during the proceedings in March 2006. Former Bosnian
Serb leader Radovan Karadzic [7] was brought to trial there in October
2009. Ratko Mladic [8], the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army,
is also wanted for genocide and war crimes, but remains at large.
The most famous case of genocide reviewed by the tribunal is evidently
the Srebrenica massacre [9]. In February 2007 the International Court
of Justice handed down a judgment in 14 cases from the Bosnian War
(1992-1995). The court found the murder of 8 000 Bosnian Muslims at
Srebrenica had been a genocide which Belgrade could have prevented,
but ruled that Serbia did not bear direct responsibility [10] for
the killing.
Genocide charges have been brought by international courts against
two other heads of state: former president of Liberia Charles Taylor
[11], whose trial was resumed in 2008, and Sudanese President Omar
al-Bashir[12], who was sued by the International Criminal Court (ICC
[13]) for crimes and genocide committed in the west Sudanese region
of Darfur [14].
In 1999, a commission investigating the mass killings in Rwanda [15]
said the UN and its member states must “clearly apologize” to the
Rwandan people for not preventing the genocide of roughly 800,000
minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus there in 1994. The commission said
the UN had failed by not demonstrating enough political will to end
the killing. Belgium, France and the USA were also criticized.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR [16]) has
already sentenced many people for their crimes. In 2008, former
colonel Theoneste Bagosora [17], the leader of the Hutu militia,
was sentenced to life in prison for genocide; one year later,
Tharcisso Renzaho, the former governor of Kigali, received the same
punishment. Other war criminals have also been sentenced by various
African and European courts.
The chemical weapon attack on the Kurdish population of the Iraqi city
of Halabja [18] in 1988, the killing sprees of the Khmer Rouge [19]
in Cambodia during the 1970s, and the use of the Chinese Army in Tibet
[20]during the 1950s have all been pointed to by legal scholars as
showing signs of having been genocide. The international community
did not effectively intervene in those cases. (Czech Press Agency
[21], Jan. 12)
A total of 137 nations are now party to the Convention, but 50
nations–including Indonesia [22], Japan [23] and Nigeria [24]–are
not. Bolivia [25] became the newest party to the Convention in 2005
(and has charged former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada [26]
with the crime of genocide under its national law). (Prevent Genocide
[27], June 14, 2005)
The long delay in United States ratification of the Convention stemmed
in part from fears that US officials might come under “frivolous”
accusations of genocide. Not until February 1986–nearly four decades
after the convention was signed–did the US Senate vote 83 to 11 in
favor of ratification, albeit with a list of “reservations” in the
resolution of ratification. It took another two years before Congress
passed legislation that actually implemented the convention, by
making genocide a crime under US law. Even after the ratification was
approved (with reservations), US officials and legislators continued
to debate the scope of the convention and the means of enforcement. As
demonstrated during the mass killings in Rwanda, US and other Western
leaders have been reluctant to enforce the Convention. As a result,
they have refrained from using the term “genocide” to describe even
clear instances of systematic, ethnically targetted killing. (Science
Encyclopedia [28])
Few commentaries on the Convention have noted cases in which the US not
only failed to intervene to halt genocide, but also directly backed
regimes that were carrying it out–most notably Guatemala. The 1999
findings of the UN-backed Guatemala Historical Clarification Commission
[29] estimated 200,000 dead in the civil war that lasted from 1962 to
1996, squarely accusing the Guatemalan state of “genocide.” Guatemala
was a major recipient of US aid nearly throughout this period. While
President Jimmy Carter cut off military aid under his “human rights”
policy, but Ronald Reagan moved to have it restored, saying that the
regime had received a “bum rap [30].”
Romeo Lucas GarcÃa [31], who had masterminded the worst of the
genocide in the early ’80s, died a free man in 2006. His successor
as dictator, EfraÃn Rios Montt [32], who continued the genocidal
campaign against the country’s indigenous Maya population, has never
faced charges before any international body, and remains active in
Guatemalan politics today.
Another such example is provided by East Timor [33] which won
independence from Indonesia in 2002 after years of atrocities. An
independent report commissioned by the UN transitional administration
in East Timor said that at least 100,000 Timorese died as a result
of Indonesia’s 25-year occupation. (BBC Country Profile [34]) The US
provided military aid to Indonesia for much of this period. President
Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence, former Pentagon
Pacific Command chief Adm. Dennis C.
Blair [35], is accused of having given Jakarta a “green light [36]”
for repression in East Timor when the killing was at its worst in 1999.
From: A. Papazian