The UN recently put out a nice graphic (pictured to the right) that shows the conviction rate for genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Not surprisingly, it’s fairly difficult to prosecute criminals for genocide as it’s extremely tricky to prove intent. Keep in mind these numbers are for those individuals who have been arrested and prosecuted for genocide and doesn’t include the charges for crimes against humanity or war crimes.
UN court to rule on Serbia
The UN’s highest court is preparing to rule on whether the nation of Serbia was complicit in the 1990 slaughter and displacement of Bosnian Muslims. The trial is complex for several reasons, but perhaps the most daunting of arguments is whether the court has jurisdiction to hand down a ruling.
The key is whether the judges are persuaded that the Bosnian Serbs were under the control of the Serb government – an issue that might have been resolved had the Milosevic trial reached its conclusion. It was stopped when he died, and the massive amount of evidence it heard is now legally worthless.
The Yugoslav tribunal “has not been successful in establishing a proven link between the paramilitaries who did the killing and the government in Belgrade,” said Johannes Houwink ten Cate, a historian at the Netherlands War Documentation Centre and a professor of genocide studies.
By contrast, he said, the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals found a clear chain of command to the Holocaust.
The Bosnia-Serbia dispute is not a criminal case, and the standards of proof are lower than required for a criminal conviction. It is enough that a majority of judges find on a “balance of probabilities” that Serbia was responsible.
However, before the judges even address Serbian responsibility, they must first rule on whether they have jurisdiction – a tricky question on which the same court has contradicted itself in the past.
Serbia argues it was not a UN member when the murders happened, and therefore cannot be judged by the UN court. Yugoslavia’s UN membership was suspended in 1992, and Belgrade was only readmitted as Serbia and Montenegro in 2001. Montenegro split from Serbia last year, and has asked the court to remove its name from the case.
As much of international law has yet to be written, it will be interesting to follow the court’s ruling, as it will likely have huge ramifications for future trials. The most immediate of which is the beleaguered Darfur region of Sudan, where 1.5 million displaced people will hopefully one day have their day in court.
Long Bets and genocide
For quite some time I’ve been fascinated by a website called Long Bets. Essentially, it’s a site devoted to predicting, arguing, and betting on scientific and socially impacting events.
The idea is rather simple and comes with an attractive ending. People place bets on events they expect to see happen (or not), provide a certain amount of reasoning for their predicted outcome, and then open it up for debate. Others are free to add their opinions, and if so inclined, can bet against the stated prediction. Only, the winner doesn’t get to keep the money generated from the bet rather it is donated to a charity.
Of course, the real kicker is that some of the predictions are as far away as one-hundred years (see bet 137). A few of the more interesting ones include:
8: The US men’s soccer team will win the World Cup before the Red Sox win the World Series.
9: By 2020, bioterror or bioerror will lead to one million casualties in a single event.
10: By 2050, we will receive intelligent signals from outside our solar system.
11: At least one human alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150.
22: By 2100 a world government will be in place and in control of: business law, environmental law, and weapons of mass destruction.
76: By the year 2020 solar electricity will be as cheap or cheaper than that produced by fossil fuels.
105: As of March 7th, 2005, Osama bin Laden is dead.
177: By 2010 more than 50 percent of books sold worldwide will be printed on demand at the point of sale in the form of library-quality paperbacks.
196: global warming denialists will be shown to be wrong over the next 20 years.
207: By 2150 faster than light propulsion theory will become realized, but not implemented, either through black holes, worm holes or space time warping.
214: The People’s Republic of China will successfully place a living human on the surface of Mars before any other nation.
252: By year 2036, there will be at least 1 man alive in the U.S. who has fathered 150 children.
284: By 2025, the very first human being will be cloned and this event will be accepted by the most people.
I’m always surprised that I see so little from my own field. That’s why I plan to throw out the following grim prediction in the near future:
By 2045, a genocide equalling or exceeding the Holocaust will occur somewhere in the Middle East.
Honestly, the fires of genocide are already burning throughout this region, and it’s going to be even odds to see where it starts. Feel free to bet against me if you want, but be prepared to lose the debate and your money.
Iranian president charged?
John Bolton, the outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations, will be joining the call to bring charges against Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad for inciting genocide. The idea of charging Ahmadi-Nejad arises on the heels of the Iranian Holocaust conference, which has been drawing huge complaints internationally. A study produced by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists concluded that the President of Iran was promoting a campaign of hate against Israel and the Jewish people.
A series of remarks by Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, including one in which he reportedly questioned whether Zionists were human beings, “constitute direct and public incitement to genocide”, the study alleges. While reminiscent of incitement before the Rwanda genocide, “the critical difference is that while the Hutus in Rwanda were equipped with machetes, Iran, should the international community do nothing to prevent it, will soon acquire nuclear weapons,” it says.
Even as the Iranian Mission to the UN countered that the international court should be looking at the genocide of Palestinian people by the Israeli government, the lack of movement to “prevent” a genocide from occurring in parts of the world where “vulnerable populations [can’t] defend themselves” continues to be an enduring problem.
Darfur Q&A (#1)
Yesterday, I was asked to help field a bunch of questions about Darfur and genocide for Richmond.com. Not surprisingly, the questions ranged from background questions to the much tougher ideological questions.
My responses to the questions I received will be showing up on their site in the next day or two and I plan on answering another batch here at geistweg † genocide. In the meantime, I thought I’d share one of the questions here, with a less philosophical answer than I originally gave.
I’ve heard that a while back, people were saying Darfur would be the next Rwanda. So where’s the next Darfur?
The next Darfur will be in Iraq.
Regardless of whether the US pulls out of Iraq, as a new government takes hold and feuding factions attempt to express their disillusion for (or against) the new regime, violence will boil up until it erupts into an all out conflagration. Whichever faction winds up holding the reigns of power will then pick up the machete (or AK-47) and march against the opposing sectarian, religious, or ethnic groups.
What’s worse is that unlike similar conflicts in Africa, where refugees spill across borders in order to find safety, those who are fleeing the violence in Iraq will be boxed into the country, unable to escape to Iran or Turkey without meeting further violence. This will create a situation where rebellions will appear and disappear, shadowing the movements of a civil war, while the controlling faction(s) refine their execution by either legislation or force.
To further exacerbate the problem, humanitarian groups won’t be allowed to enter the country and sanctions will be all but untenable against a nation with immense oil reserves. The military, if they’re still in the country (as we don’t deploy troops to stop genocides), will find themselves unable to cope with such a conflict, for which they have no training, or will be unable to act on the violence because they have no mandate.
Either way, the next (big) genocide is bound for the Middle East.