It has been the strong view of several of us that the situation in Sudan is genocide, under the 1948 Convention against genocide--and that it is important to name it such, in order to get aid into the country--including police and military protection for victims.
In a report published this Monday morning in The New York Times, Amnesty International details the use of rape and torture against women in Sudan, but declines to declare the situation a genocide, despite testimony including the following:
"You blacks, you have spoiled the country," one in a group of women recounted the militia men telling them. "We are here to burn you. We will kill your husbands and sons, and we will sleep with you! You will be our wives!"
Earlier tonight I came across a dialogue between Nicholas Kristof--who has been reporting from and about Sudan and Africa for The New York Times--and one of his readers:
nicholaskristof - 5:43 PM ET July 7, 2004 (#513 of 516)
Norman writes:
I disagree strongly with your insistent call for using the word "genocide" to describe the history of the Sudanese events. It is mean to quibble about use of a term, when so many tens of thousands are suffering and may die. Yet we should use terms -- especially in these tragic situations -- that fit their appropriate historical and judicial meanings. Rwanda was genocide from the get-go. Forced deportation of Armenians in 1915 turned into genocide. Repression of and vicious discrimination against German Jews in the 1930s was transformed into genocide during the war. Bosnia was a case of ethnic cleansing; Srebrenica demonstrated that ethnic cleansing could literally bleed into genocide. The borders between the two are permeable. But I still believe we are dealing with two different kinds of actions, whose intents are different and whose consequences (and potential solutions) are different. Darfur, so far, is an almost classic case of ethnic cleansing, except there seems to be -- tragically -- no one to pick up the pieces. But that doesn't make it genocide.
Kristof replies:
I disagree, and I've talked with a number of scholars on the issue. First, there doesn't seem to be any standard definition of "ethnic cleansing," so the expression doesn't have legal meaning. But the term "genocide" clearly does have legal meaning, and it's defined precisely in the 1948 Convention against genocide.
Article Two of the convention clearly encompasses the kind of behavior we're seeing in Darfur -- a mix of killing, rape and expulsion, without a determination to wipe out every last person. So, sure, this is ethnic cleansing. But it's also genocide. It's a common mistake -- but still a mistake -- to believe that "genocide" requires intent to exterminate a group entirely.
I agree that it would be foolish to worry about the term for what's going on, if that were an impediment to assistance. But rather, I think it's a spur to assistance. As I see it, this is clearly genocide, and I think if we face that fact we have not only a legal obligation under the 1948 convention to act, but also an even clearer moral obligation.
Sunday, The Washington Post published a profile of militia leader Musa Hilal that is more complete than another published recently in the Guardian and reviewed here, and provides more details of his personal history and involvement with the government. Here is a copy on Sudan.net, which requires no subscription.
Kristof, in regards to your statement about the power or need for specific terms in specific situations, I must disagree. If we don't label the situation "genocide" than neither NATO, or the U.N. has any actual obligation to act on the matter. As you stated the term "ethnic cleansing" means nothing, if something actually is to be done we have to address a problem for what it is, no matter what that "is" may be.
Posted by: Dnanidref | April 16, 2007 at 08:17 PM