Is the brutality in Sudan genocide?
An article by Doug Saunders at the Globe discusses the international hand-wringing surrounding use of the word "genocide" to describe the atrocities currently occurring in western Sudan.
It is an argument that bears a sickening resemblance to a debate that took place almost exactly 10 years ago, when the world waffled over the precise status of what became known as the Rwandan genocide as more than 500,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were hacked to death by Hutus over 100 days. World leaders resolved not to let this happen again, but many of this week's disputes sounded uncannily familiar.All week, top diplomats such as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Allan Rock, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, have described the crisis in stark and urgent tones while deliberately avoiding use of the word genocide.
According to a 1948 UN convention, member states are required to take action to put an end to a genocide. But now the burden of proof combined with reluctance to take action leaves situations like Darfur in a grey area despite the indisputable fact that hundreds of thousands of people are being terrorized and displaced. Saunders discusses the attempts of some scholars to provide a framework for what should be obvious:
"I think it's time to move away from these fine legal distinctions; those can be saved for after the fact. Now it's much more important to sensitize the public and the policy-makers into action," said Frank Chalk, a historian specializing in genocide at Montreal's Concordia University.He is one of several scholars who are calling for a broad category of "atrocity crimes" that would carry an obligation of international action without the stringent burden of proof required for genocide. The term was coined by Washington law professor David Scheffer, who says it "permits a much more accurate and focused discussion and I always find resonates better with policy-makers and the general public, who, in the end, we must be speaking to in order to advance this issue."