Please view this video before reading blog entry...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhoV5iF3TiM&feature=related
Ever since the Holocaust, the Genocide Convention has made a promise to “never again” allow the “targeted destruction of a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group” to happen (Straus 1). This promise has raised the debate of whether or not the crisis in Darfur should be classified as ‘genocide’ under the terms of the Genocide Convention. Ultimately it is this debate that is causing the delay of help reaching the suffering people in Darfur. Without the crisis in Darfur being classified as genocide under the terms of the Genocide Convention, no immediate help can come.
What happens if the crisis in Darfur is not classified as genocide?
The mass murder of innocent Sudan citizens will continue, unstopped until there are no more African Darfurians left alive.
What happens if the crisis in Darfur is classified as genocide?
A world-wide response will take place. All the countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention are bound to an oath that says they must prevent and punish whoever is responsible for the beginning and carrying out of the genocide.
My personal problem with the debate on whether or not to classify the crisis in Darfur as a genocide is that while they are debating, thousands of people continue to be displaced from their homes and killed. If the mass murders off innocent men, women, and children is not enough to be called genocide then what is? How many thousands... millions of people have to die for these killings to be classified as genocide? There is plenty of evidence that it is genocide that is taking place in Darfur. Maybe the question is whether or not people want to call it genocide because it would mean they would have to step in and help? By debating how to define the crisis in Darfur, it takes away from the more important questions about how to create an effective way to stop the mass violence.
Here is the evidence it is genocide that is taking place ( all info. below taken from http://www.goshenschools.org/staff/mnichols/documents/PowellDarfurArticle_000.pdf):
Under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide occurs when the following three criteria are met:
· Specified acts are committed:
a) killing;
b) causing serious bodily or mental harm;
c) deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction of a group in whole or in part;
d) imposing measures to prevent births; or
e) forcibly transferring children to another group;
· These acts are committed against members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group; and
· They are committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, [the group] as such”.
The totality of the evidence from the interviews we conducted in July and August, and from the other sources available to us,
shows that:
· The jinjaweid and Sudanese military forces have committed large scale
acts of violence, including murders, rape and
physical assaults on nonArab
individuals;
· The jinjaweid and Sudanese military forces destroyed villages, foodstuffs, and other means of survival;
· The Sudan Government and its military forces obstructed food, water, medicine, and other humanitarian aid from
reaching affected populations, thereby leading to further deaths and suffering; and
· Despite having been put on notice multiple times, Khartoum has failed to stop the violence.
First the Holocaust, then Cambodia, then Bosnia, then Rwanda, now Darfur...will we ever learn?...Who's next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhoV5iF3TiM&feature=related
Ever since the Holocaust, the Genocide Convention has made a promise to “never again” allow the “targeted destruction of a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group” to happen (Straus 1). This promise has raised the debate of whether or not the crisis in Darfur should be classified as ‘genocide’ under the terms of the Genocide Convention. Ultimately it is this debate that is causing the delay of help reaching the suffering people in Darfur. Without the crisis in Darfur being classified as genocide under the terms of the Genocide Convention, no immediate help can come.
What happens if the crisis in Darfur is not classified as genocide?
The mass murder of innocent Sudan citizens will continue, unstopped until there are no more African Darfurians left alive.
What happens if the crisis in Darfur is classified as genocide?
A world-wide response will take place. All the countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention are bound to an oath that says they must prevent and punish whoever is responsible for the beginning and carrying out of the genocide.
My personal problem with the debate on whether or not to classify the crisis in Darfur as a genocide is that while they are debating, thousands of people continue to be displaced from their homes and killed. If the mass murders off innocent men, women, and children is not enough to be called genocide then what is? How many thousands... millions of people have to die for these killings to be classified as genocide? There is plenty of evidence that it is genocide that is taking place in Darfur. Maybe the question is whether or not people want to call it genocide because it would mean they would have to step in and help? By debating how to define the crisis in Darfur, it takes away from the more important questions about how to create an effective way to stop the mass violence.
Here is the evidence it is genocide that is taking place ( all info. below taken from http://www.goshenschools.org/staff/mnichols/documents/PowellDarfurArticle_000.pdf):
Under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide occurs when the following three criteria are met:
· Specified acts are committed:
a) killing;
b) causing serious bodily or mental harm;
c) deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction of a group in whole or in part;
d) imposing measures to prevent births; or
e) forcibly transferring children to another group;
· These acts are committed against members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group; and
· They are committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, [the group] as such”.
The totality of the evidence from the interviews we conducted in July and August, and from the other sources available to us,
shows that:
· The jinjaweid and Sudanese military forces have committed large scale
acts of violence, including murders, rape and
physical assaults on nonArab
individuals;
· The jinjaweid and Sudanese military forces destroyed villages, foodstuffs, and other means of survival;
· The Sudan Government and its military forces obstructed food, water, medicine, and other humanitarian aid from
reaching affected populations, thereby leading to further deaths and suffering; and
· Despite having been put on notice multiple times, Khartoum has failed to stop the violence.
First the Holocaust, then Cambodia, then Bosnia, then Rwanda, now Darfur...will we ever learn?...Who's next?
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