Day 4
Today we studied human rights and concepts of genocide with
Dr. Edward Kissi. After the Holocaust,
the UN attempted to define human rights.
The list is fairly nebulous (right to marry, right to be happy and not
in fear, right to….). However, this
document gets to be a bit of a problem because it is nebulous. It also gets conflicted with the overlay of
culture. Human rights are to protect
the individual and nations that formed after 1945 implemented a list of human
rights into their constitution. With
controversy, the only way that these can be sorted through is by the court
system. It works with ethical conduct
issued through education and empathy.
Genocide: How do we
determine that a genocide has happened?
Attack of a specific people, numbers do not matter; intent differs. Lempkin came up with a definition in 1933 and
presented in 1944. His definition was
too broad for the UN Genocide conference (1948). They narrowed it down to people against race,
ethnic, religions, nation/citizenship.
The difficult part of this is documenting intent which must be done on a
case by case basis. The aspect of
Genocide cannot be retroactively determined (hence Native Americans and African
Americans are not a part of this).
Rwanda: As an African
culture, it contained three ethnic people – the Hutu (soil), Tutsi (cattle) and
Twa (hunters). In Africa the ethnicity
is usually determined by job or location.
In Rwanda the Tutsi were in charge, though they were only 14% of the population. When Europeans came in they determined that
an organized African society must not be natural – the Tutsi were from outside
of the community. They created a false
history that the Tutsi must be linked to Ethiopia or to Egypt. This was even taught through the school
system. Eventually, Tutsi was considered
to be foreign. With a tip in power from
when the colonial period ended in the 1960s the Hutu took over. They eventually perpetuated the idea that the
Tutsi should “go home” to North Africa and began to take land and
property. In the 1970s the government
was overthrown by militant Hutu who believed that the genocide was going too slowly. By the 1990s tensions continued to exist. The Tutsi had moved out of Rwanda to neighboring
lands, but even there they were seen as foreigners. The Tutsi had a desire to return to where
they came from. They started their own
militant group that attacked the borders.
The Hutu grew angry (particularly the peasant class that was under
attack) and in retribution attacked the Tutsi who remained in the land. This was also spurred by radio and newspaper,
plus a long simmering cultural dislike.
It got worse when the Rwandan president, under the guidance of the UN
and US, was returning to Rwanda and his plane was shut down. The retribution was intense and by the end
800,000 Tutsi (up to 1.2 million with supporters of the people) were
killed. This was an aspect of group
think that proved deadly. Because of the
massive amount of people who were involved in this there is no trial. Those who are serving time are mostly word of
mouth criminals – survivors who pointed out what they had done.
Cambodia was another scene of genocide. The Khmer Rouge came into power in April of
1975. With this, they brought in communist
ideas and the notion that the peasant farmer was the ultimate existence. They attacked minority populations and
rounded up city dwellers, Chinese, and Vietnamese (again, a long running hatred),
as well as Buddhist monks, and marched them into the fields. Issues of anti-capitalism also ran rampant
(the US bombed the borders of Cambodia out of fear of communism). People were forced to work with no food, no
tools, to cultivate the land. They also
attacked to get more land awarded to other countries after the World War. Over 2 million (of a country of 7 million)
died. It has taken 30 years (or more)
for these individuals to come to justice.
The final session of the class was that with Sophia Leng
Stagg. She was a survivor of the Khmer
Rouge forced march. She and her family
one of the very few who survived in tact – most everyone lost a loved one. She described starvation, disease, beatings,
hatred, isolation, loneliness. Re-education
camps told children to hate their parents, that they were worthless, and that
they should prove themselves. It was a
very tragic situation.
It is interesting to see that modern genocide still
exists. However, the law courts seem to dicker
over genocide and human rights violations.
This indicates that we need a much clearer and cleaner definition of
what is going on. However, I have often
believed that if humanity simply stopped killing itself that the world’s
problems would diminish somewhat. Then
comes the harder part – respecting one another.
The challenges are still there.
And we have almost made it to the last day.
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