WHY ARE THE RESCUERS ALWAYS TOO LATE

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WHY ARE THE RESCUERS ALWAYS TOO LATE?

• THE FAILURE TO HALT GENOCIDE AND OTHER CRIMES
  AGAINST HUMANITY ANALYZED

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GENOCIDE IN CRIMINAL LAWTHE UN DEFINTION, 1948

• ARTICLE II of the U. N. Genocide Convention
• Genocide means any of the following acts
  committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
  part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
  group, as such
• (a) Killing members of the group
• (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to
  members of the group . . .

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U.N. DEFINTION OF GENOCIDE (continued)

• (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group
  conditions of life calculated to bring about its
  physical destruction in whole or in part
  
• (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births
  within the group
  
• (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group
  to another group.

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ELEMENTS OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

• ARTICLE III of the U. N. Genocide Convention
• The following acts shall be punishable
• a) Genocide
• b) Conspiracy to commit genocide
• c) Direct and public incitement to commit
  genocide
  
• d) Attempt to commit genocide
• e) Complicity in genocide.

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FOUR MOTIVES FOR GENOCIDEFROM ANCIENT TIMES TO
THE PRESENT

• TO ELIMINATE A REAL OR POTENTIAL THREAT
• TO SPREAD TERROR AMONG ENEMIES
• TO ACQUIRE ECONOMIC WEALTH
• TO IMPLEMENT A BELIEF, A THEORY, OR AN IDEOLOGY

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SOME EXAMPLES OF GENOCIDES IN HISTORY

• THE ISLAND STATE OF MELOS, 416 B.C.
• THE CATHARS, EARLY 13TH CENTURY
• THE CHRISTIANS OF JAPAN, 1637
• THE YUKI INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA, 1859
• THE HEREROS OF GERMAN SW AFRICA, 1904
• THE ARMENIANS, 1915
• UKRAINIANS, EARLY 1930S
• THE HOLOCAUST (SHOAH), 1939-1945
• EAST PAKISTAN, CAMBODIA, EAST TIMOR, BURUNDI,
  RWANDA, BOSNIA, 1971-1995

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The Chalk-Jonassohn Research Definition of
Genocide

• Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in
  which a state or other authority intends to
  destroy a group, as that group and membership in
  it are defined by the perpetrator.

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What are crimes against humanity?

• In 1945, the United States and other Allies
  developed the Agreement for the Prosecution and
  Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the
  European Axis and Charter of the International
  Military Tribunal (IMT), sitting at Nuremberg,
  which contained the following definition of
  crimes against humanity in Article 6(c)
• Crimes against humanity murder, extermination,
  enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts
  committed against civilian populations, before or
  during the war or persecutions on political,
  racial or religious grounds in execution of or in
  connection with any crime within the jurisdiction
  of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of
  the domestic law of the country where
  perpetrated.

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CANADAS CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND WAR CRIMES
ACT, 2000, and the new Intl. Criminal Court, 2003

• Crime Against Humanity" means murder,
  extermination, enslavement, deportation,
  imprisonment, torture, sexual violence,
  persecution or any other inhumane act or omission
  that is committed against any civilian population
  or any identifiable group and that, at the time
  and in the place of its commission, constitutes a
  crime against humanity according to customary
  international law or conventional international
  law or by virtue of its being criminal according
  to the general principles of law recognized by
  the community of nations, whether or not it
  constitutes a contravention of the law in force
  at the time and in the place of its commission.

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The Armenian Genocide, 1915

• Perpetrators Extreme nationalist leaders of the
  Committee for Union and Progress
  
• Victims Some 800,000 to 1,200,000 Armenian
  citizens of the Turkish Republic
  
• Methods Shooting of Armenian men of military
  age, massacres and death caravans of deported
  women, children and the elderly on forced marches
  through the desert with no provision of food and
  water

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25 April 1915 Anzac soldiers landing at
Gallipoli during World War One
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Turkish machine gunners
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Turkish soldiers in a trench, Gallipoli, 1915
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Australian troops charging near a Turkish trench,
Gallipoli, 1915
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Photos of Armenian Deportees to the Syrian
Desert, Armin Wegner, German Army medical
orderly, 1915
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U.S. State Department Telegram, Sec. State Wm. J.
Bryan, 29 May 1915
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The Guardian (London) Exterminating the Armeni
ans
11/09/1915
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A Literary Response to the Armenian Genocide

• The Forty Days of Musa Dagh is a historical novel
  depicting the battle of Musa Dagh which took
  place in 1915. The novel was written in 1933 by
  the Austrian Jewish writer Franz Werfel
  (1890-1945).

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The Aftermath of the Armenian Genocide

• The Allied forces reached the Armenians too late
  to save most of them
  
• Armenian survivors, including many orphans, found
  refuge in the Middle East, Western Europe, the
  United States and Canada
  
• The promised trials of the genocides
  perpetrators were indefinitely suspended by the
  British as the price of Kemal Ataturks
  cooperation in their anti-Bolshevik intervention
• Denial that the deaths of the Armenian victims
  were part of an intentional, planned annihilation
  of the Armenians in Turkey continues as a staple
  of Turkeys curriculum and diplomatic activities,
  although progress is being made with the help of
  some Turkish and other specialist scholars

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The Holocaust, 1939 to 1945, and the Failure of
Rescue

• The Great Depression, 1929-1939, and rising
  antisemitism in Europe and America barred the
  gates of immigration in many countries
  
• Many Jewish refugees were murdered after Germany
  occupied most of Western Europe and a large part
  of Eastern and Southern Europe during the war
  
• The Allies top priority was to win the war and
  they regarded the rescue of Jews as endangering
  that aim

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The Conflict between Military Victory and Rescue
in WW II

• The Allies ignored evidence that the Germans
  would murder Europes Jews and Gypsies before
  they won the war and refused to undertake special
  efforts on their behalf
• The Allies viewed the rescue of Jews as
  undermining suppport for the Allied cause among
  their own peoples and citizens of the lands they
  intended to liberate in eastern Europe
• The Allies feared a Middle East and North African
  revolt if they rescued large numbers of Jews and
  moved them to Palestine or North Africa

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BANGLADESH, 1971

• West Pakistan invaded East Pakistan to implement
  a reign of terror aimed at demands for a better
  share of Pakistans wealth
  
• The army of West Pakistan and its militias in
  East Pakistan murdered about one million Bengalis
  and others, while some ten million refugees fled
  to nearby India

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U. S. Policy in 1971

• Despite the largest protest ever mounted by
  members of the U.S. Foreign Service, Secretary of
  State Kissinger and President Nixon refused to
  halt U.S. military aid to Pakistan during the
  genocide
• Kissinger argued that since Pakistan was Chinas
  close ally and he was rebuilding Sino-American
  diplomatic and strategic cooperation, he could
  not offend China by intervening in East Pakistan

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Aftermath of the Bangladesh Genocide

• India invaded Pakistan in 1971/72 to end the
  genocide
  
• The United Nations condemned the Indian invasion
  as a violation of Pakistans territorial
  sovereignty
  
• The United States cut off economic assistance to
  India

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Rwanda, 1994

• Some 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis, as well as Hutu
  human rights advocates were murdered
  
• Fearing a political backlash against his
  presidency after the 1993 disaster in Somalia
  which saw the killing of American soldiers,
  Clinton refused to acknowledge that a genocide
  was underway in Rwanda
• Dallaire was prohibited from seizing arms
  intended for use in the genocide

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The U.N. and the Rwanda Genocide

• At the U.N., the Great Powers called for the
  withdrawal of the U.N. peacekeeping force led by
  Canadian General Romeo Dallaire
  
• The U.S., France, etc. refused to heed calls from
  Belgium for the rapid deployment of troops to
  stop the genocide
  
• The Great Powers denied that they had any vital
  interests in the Great Lakes struggle

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LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE

• Until very recently, the Great Powers defined
  their self-interest narrowly in terms of their
  own military, economic, and political security
  
• Isolationism and unilateralism were the order of
  the day
  
• It will take a revolution in the mentality of
  their citizens for the Great Powers to
  acknowledge the link between security and human
  rights