Confronting mass atrocities 60 years after the Genocide Convention

Published: Thursday December 11, 2008

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On this 60th anniversary of the passage of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the prevention of genocide is emerging as an important issue for the political and media establishment. For this we are grateful.

The President-Elect

The president-elect, Barack Obama, has made a point of selecting an outspoken advocate of action against genocide, Susan Rice, as the next U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations.

During the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama said repeatedly that he had a principled commitment to genocide prevention, and that as president he would act to end the genocide in Darfur. The selection of Ms. Rice is a sign that Mr. Obama takes this commitment very seriously.

The Task Force

A high-profile project started last November, the Genocide Prevention Task Force, has issued its final report, Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers. The report includes a set of sensible recommendations directed at the president, the Congress, the American people, and the national-security establishment.

The recommendations call for early warning and early engagement before genocide is undertaken; preventive diplomacy; the availability of military options; as well as strengthening international norms.

We welcome the report as a positive step forward.

The task force began with a handicap: the identity of its co-chairs. The co-chairs, former secretary of state Madeline Albright and former secretary of defense William Cohen, on the eve of their appointment to this task force signed a letter urging Congress not to adopt the Armenian Genocide resolution. Asked on 60 Minutes on May 11, 1996, whether she was troubled by the fact that sanctions on Iraq in the Clinton era may have resulted in the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, Ms. Albright had replied callously, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."

Thus, the task force had a credibility gap to overcome.

Did it overcome that credibility gap? On the negative side, the report is deliberately ahistorical; that is to say, it avoids history. While the authors necessarily draw on the lessons of history, they do not do so explicitly. The words Jew and gypsy do not occur in the final report even once; and the report makes only a couple of passing references to the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust.

Preventing genocide "starts with acknowledging the tragic instances of genocide in world history." These are the words of Mr. Obama, and we agree with them wholeheartedly. The willingness to avoid history in order to appease a state benefiting from the fruits of genocide, Turkey, is a bad sign; it means the task force has failed to learn probably the biggest lesson of the past, that impunity breeds contempt for law. Those contemplating genocide today need to know that they and their successors will not be able to sweep their crimes under the rug while they enjoy the fruits of those crimes against humanity.

On the positive side, the task force has further raised the profile of genocide prevention as a national priority. It consulted widely, and succeeded in developing sound recommendations.

We welcome the final report as a step in the right direction, and look forward to working within a broad coalition - the report calls it "a permanent constituency for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities" - to build on the recommendations.

The CNN documentary

The effort to build such a "permanent constituency" got a boost from a new CNN documentary, Scream Bloody Murder, which premiered on December 4.

As leading voices in that constituency for the prevention of genocide, Armenian-Americans should welcome the attention of CNN and its chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, who hosts the documentary, to fighting genocide.

The documentary puts Ms. Amanpour and CNN firmly in the camp of those who recognize the importance of fighting genocide - and not sticking our heads into the sand. As we contemplate future confrontations between the forces of complacency and the "constituency for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities," we are pleased to have these powerful media partners.

The documentary movingly and effectively focuses on the need for political will to confront genocide. It starts, albeit briefly, with the Armenian experience. Outraged by the Turkish state effort to eradicate the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, a young lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, coined the word genocide and set out to get the world to recognize it as a crime against humanity, subject to universal jurisdiction. Quoting Mr. Lemkin on the destruction of Armenians, a voice in the documentary chillingly intones, "Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of a single individual?"

The bulk of the documentary, as we reported previously, focuses on recent instances of genocide or mass atrocities. These are the stories Ms. Amanpour has covered over the years, and she goes back to them to focus on the voices that spoke out and screamed "bloody murder." The question is why, even with the Genocide Convention in place, world powers do little to prevent and stop genocide as it happens.