The Star Phoenix (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
October 26, 2004 Tuesday
Final Edition
Genocide: A crime against humanity: Millions have died in unchecked
crimes around the world
by Michael Lawson, The Canadian Press
Several thousand people died on Sept. 11, 2001, in terrorist attacks on
the United States that instantly became global news. Shocking as it
was, that day of horror pales in comparison to what was then — and is
now — occurring, occasionally beyond the scope of the media’s eye.
It’s something that has come to be known as genocide.
Since the beginnings of recorded history, entire peoples have been
wiped into oblivion in a concerted effort at ethnic, religious or
political cleansing. Millions upon millions have perished in the 20th
century alone. Yet the international community has often been slow to
react — sometimes not reacting at all — and the atrocities persist.
Just as the Sept. 11 attacks gave rise to a new and now globally
recognized term — “9-11” — the word “genocide” is relatively is
relatively recent, formulated by a Polish expert in international law,
Raphael Lemkin, in 1944 during the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi
Germany. Derived from Greek and Latin roots, the word means the
eradication of a race. The United Nations has since expanded the
definition to include the destruction of any national, ethnic, racial
or religious group.
The most extreme example in modern times, if only in terms of sheer
numbers, was the Holocaust, in which some six million Jews were gassed,
shot, worked to death as slave labourers or subjected to inhumane
surgical and other so-called medical experimentation, often fatal. Tens
of thousands of Roma — or Gypsies — as well as homosexuals and other
“undesirables” were similarly victimized.
Most recently and still ongoing is the carnage in Darfur, the
western-most region of the African country Sudan. An estimated one
million blacks have been uprooted from their land, whole masses raped
and massacred, their villages razed and their crops and livestock
plundered. As many as 200,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring Chad,
itself pressed for resources; many more Sudanese face death by
starvation or disease.
The Darfur crisis did not develop overnight. In a country impoverished
and drought-stricken, Arab herdsmen from the north moved into the
western region to reap what they could from the meagre natural
resources of Darfur — water and scrubby grasslands. In the face of
uprisings from the desperate locals, mounted Arab militias known as
Janjaweed moved in to conduct a campaign of slaughter and forced
relocation, the latter a virtual death sentence for many.
Humanitarian groups such as Medecins sans frontieres (Doctors Without
Borders), the United Nations children’s organization UNICEF and some
western governments have claimed that the Sudanese government in the
capital, Khartoum, supports the Janjaweed. The government denies the
charges. The Bush administration in Washington has, as of last month,
declared the Darfur situation a genocide.
Again in recent memory is the politically charged genocide in Rwanda,
also in Africa, in which opposing Hutu and minority Tutsi peoples
clashed at the cost of an estimated 500,000 lives, with many more
displaced. Most of those killed were Tutsis. The year was 1994; the
initial carnage occurred over mere months, and then continued. It
wasn’t until 1996 that a Canadian-led international force moved in to
try to stem the bloody unrest.
Just this past August, in a small-scale mirror image of the Rwandan
infamy, some 200 Tutsi men, women and children were shot or hacked to
death in a UN refugee camp in neighbouring Burundi. Hutu rebels
justified the action as a weeding-out of the opposing Burundi army and
Congolese militia.
The grim reality of genocide has been most apparent since the advent of
modern media technology, bringing the horrors of the Third World into
western homes nightly. World leaders tune in to the same thing. So why
does it continue?
Politics and semantics are two factors. When the United Nations was
formed with scores of countries in 1945 following the horrors of the
Second World War, the multinational grouping combined diverse mind-sets
in the quest for peace, security and international co-operation. The UN
did adopt a covenant on genocide, but the term itself became a focus of
debate. Should, for instance, the extermination of a political group be
counted as genocide? Some UN members argued against it.
Then there was the matter of sovereignty. One state’s right to govern
within its borders became — and remains — an issue. As recently as
this past August, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, on the question
of military intervention into the Darfur crisis, said: “This is not a
simple military solution. This is a matter for the Sudanese government
to handle.”
Political solutions take time, but time is a luxury the victims of mass
oppression can’t afford.
EXAMPLES OF GENOCIDE FROM THE LAST 100 YEARS
The stain on humanity that has come to be known as genocide has a long
history. Here are a few events from the last 100 years that have been
labelled genocides:
OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1915)
More than one million Christian Armenians were forced from their homes
into the Syrian desert by the Muslim government of the then-Ottoman
empire, along the way to face slaughter and starvation. Decades later,
Third Reich dictator Adolf Hitler is said to have been inspired by the
events. He was quoted as saying: “Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?”
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (1917-21)
Amid political upheaval that saw the fall of the czarist regime and the
rise of communism, organized mobs waged pogroms against Jewish
communities at the cost of more than 60,000 lives.
Stalinist Soviet Union (1931-33)
Under the banner of communism, landholdings and crops of prosperous
Ukrainian farmers were seized. Up to 10 million in Ukraine were driven
out to starve to death.
NAZI GERMANY (1939-45)
Hitler’s “Final Solution” in the quest for a pure Aryan nation
accounted for the deaths of some six million Jews and tens of thousands
of other “undesirables.” Many were gassed and then incinerated in death
camp furnaces.
CAMBODIA (1975-79)
The Khmer Rouge communist party was responsible for the deaths of more
than 1.5 million Cambodians through execution, slave labour and
starvation. The country recently agreed to a UN-supported plan to bring
surviving leaders to trial.
BOSNIA (1992-95)
The breakup of Yugoslavia, as individual republics — Croatia,
Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina — sought independence,
brought the wrath of the Serbian government, leading to widespread
exterminations. Some 18,000 victims have been discovered in mass
graves. Ex-Serb president Slobodan Milosevic is currently before an
international war-crimes tribunal on charges including genocide. Other
military aides have been indicted.
RWANDA (1994)
Some 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu
extremists in political strife. More Tutsis were massacred this summer
in a UN refugee camp in neighbouring Burundi.
SUDAN (CURRENT)
An estimated 300,000 people will die by year’s end as residents of
western Darfur region are forced from their lands. Many have been
slaughtered; many more face starvation and disease. The Arab-led
central government has been blamed for supporting the genocide.
GRAPHIC: Colour Photo: Ben Curtis, Associated Press; Women sit on a
wadi (dry riverbed) at a makeshift camp for internally displaced people
in Sudan’s West Darfur province. The camp is home to thousands of
Sudanese who have fled their towns and villages due to fighting and
unrest.;
Colour Photo: Ben Curtis, Associated Press; A camp near Seleah village
in Sudan’s West Darfur province.;
Photo: Associated Press; (See hard copy for graphic/diagram).;
Graphic/Diagram: Associated Press; (See hard copy for graphic/diagram).