News: Shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum

We are sad to note the death of a security guard at the Holocaust Museum. The New York Times reports that the shooter was a white supremacist who "who embraces various conspiracy theories involving Jews, blacks and other minority groups and has at times waged a personal war with the federal government."

The alleged shooter is in critical condition. He maintains a telling website. He is, among other things, a WWII vet and member of Mensa.

On the Politics of Denial

After the airing on the local-language Kinyarwanda BBC radio of a broadcast dealing with the events in Rwanda of April 1994, Kigali has suspended the BBC's operations in the country. The broadcast featured an interview with former Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, who stated positions of blatant denial of the genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus during 1994: these explicit denials were not juxtaposed by official statements from the government, because (according to the BBC), when asked to offer a statement for the story, Kigali turned down the opportunity. Accusing the BBC of having "become a real poison with regard to the reconciliation of the Rwandan people," Kigali has stated that until the BBC alter "the divisive and disparaging nature" of its broadcasts, it will not be able to operate in the country.


Since the (internationally acknowledged) genocide against Tutsi and moderate-Hutu people in Rwanda in April 1994, the country has made the use of ethnic labeling illegal, considering "divisionism" (which is loosely-defined as speech which can lead to genocidal propoganda) a crime. The legacy which the use of "hate radio" (via the station RTLM) during the genocide has left on the recovering country is clear: the utter destruction that was arguably enabled in large part by the power of speech has left Rwanda in a position where it may be quite difficult to not define certain kinds of expression as "unacceptable speech." It is clear through this incident that genocide denial is one of the main things to be condemned as unacceptable by Kigali: while the interpretation of the Rwandan government is that limited expression of genocidal denial will allow the country to proceed in reconciliation and recovery, groups like Human Rights Watch disagree. Georgette Gagnon (HRW's Africa director) has stated that "If Rwanda is truly committed to the fundamental right of free expression, it should allow differing viewpoints on genocide issues and related government policies."



The Rwandan government has clearly chosen to ban genocide denial as a hindrance to progress: while an analysis of the potential effects of this decision is outside the scope of this post, it is also interesting to note a different kind of policy towards genocide denial regarding another genocide. Turkey has adopted a stringent policy against genocide admittance with regards to the events of World War I. When President Obama visited the country, he shied away from repeating his belief that the events constituted genocide, although he noted that his views "on that history [has] not changed]" since statements he made in the US. Yet, according to the Turkish foreign ministry - which vehemently denies that genocide had taken place - has stated that "history can be construed and evaluated only on the basis of undisputed evidence and documentation," and in the case of the Armenian killings during World War One, this documentation and evidence does not constitute such proof.

Thus, perhaps the type of freedom of speech that will be encouraged or denied after a genocide depends largely on whose voice emerges in the aftermath and ruling party.

Genocide Only by the Army?

As the BBC has reported, Joseph Mpambara - who is a Rwandan Hutu - has just been found guilty of torture by a Dutch court. He was not found guilty of charges of war crimes, however: despite his role in ordering the torture and brutal execution of at least two women and four children, Mpambara was not found guilty of war crimes "because he was not part of the Rwandan government army fighting Tutsis." The implications of this conclusion include concern about the rise of a fundamentally different kind of warfare; the 21st century world is one in which more people are coming to commit horrific acts against civilians even if/when they are unaffiliated with a governmental army. Does this lack of affiliation legally imply that civilians cannot - for whatever reasons - commit acts with the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" and thus not be found guilty of genocide or even war crimes?

Absence and Facebook

Many apologies for some continued absence. Mid-terms are hell for academics -- one of us in the midst of taking exams, another is finishing a dissertation, and I have a looming book deadline. The fleeting nature of semesters, however, means that all this will end all to soon.

In the meantime, we leave you with..... the Facebook page......of Iosif Vissarionovich Jugashvili, aka Stalin. Perhaps not surprisingly, he has no friends.

‘Unacceptable’

In his first public reaction to the expulsion of 13 aid groups from Sudan last week, President Obama has said that "It is not acceptable to put that many people's lives at risk...We need to be able to get those humanitarian organizations back on the ground." While many might applaud his expression of concern - and certainly the decision by Khartoum to ban these groups from aid operations puts at least 2 million people at dire risk in Sudan - President Obama’s response is similar to the form which has become typical of much of the West. In addressing world problems (and even those physically closer to home), it is tempting to address symptoms, not causes. Surely the starvation, gross deprivation of medical care and shelter, and lack of established education that is sweeping across conflict affected areas of Sudan are symptoms which must be addressed, and immediately: it is for this reason that the Obama administration can and has criticized Khartoum for the aid expulsion without any political repercussions. Yet the roots of these problems - war crimes, crimes against humanity, allegations of genocide, and even the socioeconomic, political, and resource-oriented conditions which allow for the former three causes - often remain unanalyzed and unaddressed, even though a concerted move towards addressing actual causes of devastation would be more efficientand therefore beneficial to all parties involved.


Whether one’s political orientations guide one towards or away from intervention in the case of mass atrocities and war crimes (which Susan Rice, the US’s Ambassador to the UN, has called - in the case of Darfur - an "ongoing genocide"), it is undeniable that the Obama administration was addressing symptoms, not causes, through his statement today. The implications of offering humanitarian assistance as a band-aid for greater social, political, and militaristic problems are far-reaching and far from unprecedented: speaking about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, internationally-acclaimed journalist Philip Gourevitch has said:


"The humanitarian aid and relief industry consists of multi-hundred million dollar organizations run by the United Nations and private nongovernmental organizations, whose business is to rush into crisis situations and dispense aid and medical relief automatically. I was quickly struck by how often the genocide was called a "humanitarian crisis." The phrase itself began to operate as a way of divorcing the political reality from the human suffering. It is like calling a sucking chest wound a respiratory problem after somebody has just been shot in the chest."


Humanitarian aid can certainly be interpreted as important - and essential in saving countless lives - as a short-term measure for addressing horrific situations people are trying to survive through. Yet, expressing true concern for people being victimized by natural or human-made disasters may have to come in the form of reaching far beyond the condemnation of the expulsion of humanitarian aid groups: instead, a concerned party may wish to examine and address the factors that produced the situation in which people are in need of vital assistance to begin with (works - not limited to but exemplified by - such as Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide by Gerard Prunier and ENOUGH Project reports by John Prendergast and Colin Thomas-Jensen offer this sort of analysis).

Some Implications of the ICC's Arrest Warrant

In keeping with the two preceeding posts, herein lies more commentary on the ICC's unprecendented decision to issue an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity against a sitting president, namely Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan. The implications of the warrant can easily be seen in the short term, as the UN is becoming increasingly concerned over Sudan's expulsion of 13 aid organizations, including Oxfam, CARE, and MSF: these organizations have not only been expelled from Darfur, but from the East and North of the country as well. According to the International Rescue Committee, these organizations collectively aid upwards of 1.75 million people, and thus the question is again begged: to what extent does this International Criminal Court itself share any responsibility for these immense short term dangers?

While this legal and humanitarian question is of pressing importance, it is also essential to bear closely in mind the longer-term implications of the arrest warrant. As for the future of Sudan, it has been argued that the warrant will completely destablize an already precarious peace effort: it is for this stated reason that the Arab League has taken such a firm stance against the ICC's decision. Yet it has also been argued that the arrest warrant for Bashir is a long-awaited beacon of hope for those being victimized in Sudan, signifying a potentially large stride towards attaining peace in the region. Examining the arrest warrant in the context of previous indictments of Liberian President Charles Taylor and the former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, as well arguing that the dramatically increased pressure that the warrant places on all parties involved with Bashir will be conducive to a halt in the bloodshed, the ENOUGH Project's recent report illustrates the counterpoint to the position of the Arab League and, indeed, Khartoum itself.

Such are the broad strokes of the debate surrounding the longer-term implications for Sudan itself. Perhaps even more murky - if indeed that is possible! - are the wider implications for the future of international law and prosecution of the crime of genocide. It must not be forgotten that ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo did not only request that Bashir be arrested for crimes against humanity and war crimes: the Prosecutor also called for charges to be pressed against Bashir for genocide. Yet, in a 2-1 vote, it was decided that genocide would not be included on the arrest warrant because it was alleged that the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa ethnic groups being targeted in Sudan did not constitute a "national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" as specified in the Genocide Convention of 1948.

While it is unlikely that activists will now drop the term - many will undoubtedly raise the points that Moreno-Ocampo was denied an investigation within Darfur, as well as the fact that no one called the genocide in Rwanda genocide while it was occurring - the legal implications of the decision to drop the genocide charges are enormous. To what extent and for how long will the Court's strict interpretation of what constitutes a potentially victimized group hold for future cases? In what way will the dropping of the charge of genocide affect the legacy of the mass destruction in Darfur? Ultimately, are horrific acts horrific acts because we label them as such or because they are instrinsically terrible? Yet it is this precise labeling practice which allows - and obligates - the international community to take action on behalf of those being victimized: legally, there is a lot to be beheld in a name.

Figes and Kristof

Orlando Figes, scholar of Russian history, reports that his recent book on the lives of Stalin's victims and their families has had its Russian edition contract revoked. The organization with which he collaborated to do his archival research, Memorial, has had its office raided by police in St. Petersburg, its materials confiscated. Figes maintains a fascinating website with downloadable interview transcripts and archival documentation. Much of it is in Russian, but the site is worth perusal nonetheless.

Nicholas Kristof writes that the Sudanese government has responded to Al Bashir's arrest warrant by kicking out all aid workers, effectively reconstructing a regime of starvation and deprivation for civilians of Darfur. He also includes one of those "pay attention to the suffering" photographs of a Sudanese boy with no hands and a face half scarred, both after a grenade accident. Kristof's tagline is that the boy would applaud the warrant....but cannot. Yuk.

Photo credit: Mikhail Metzel