Andy and I agree on the ultimate issues in this discussion. Peace ! I want to point
out that the UN Convention for the Prevention and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide
is rather broad, because it specifically says trying to destroy a group as a group in
whole OR IN PART. I just happened to read it last night in reviewing Attorney William
L. Patterson's Petition to the UN General Assembly charging the U.S. with genocide
against the Negro People.
I don't want to push this technical legal point because , as I say, I think Andy is
right on in the current anti-war debate. There may be genocidal crimes being committed
by some Serbians, but for one thing genocide technically is not the worse and only
crime of fascism in the Second World War. At Nueremburg, I believe, the Nazis were
also charged with crimes against peace FOR THE WAR. The war killed 20 million Soviets
and millions of other people, including Germans. THIS was a holocaust and crime equal
to the specifically genocidal crimes. There was some racism against the Soviets as
Slavs; they were also killed because they had a Communist government, because of their
political beliefs, but that is not the point.
Just killing large masses of people NOT based on race, ethnicity, nationality is a
crime equal with the crime of genocide.
Technically , legally , I have some recall of the expert international lawyer Ann
Fagan Ginger telling me that crimes against peace were categorized as worse than the
crime against humanity. I will research that issue.
The point is that based on this clarification as to what the archetype fascists', the
Nazis', crimes were , both crimes against peace and humanity, the U.S. has been the
biggest criminal against peace for the last 50 years. Plus, the U.S. has many, many
times more force than Serbia. The U.S. may not have (yet) set up domestic fascism as
the Nazis did. But Serbia and Kosovo are not domestic U.S. The U.S. is the greatest
danger of fascism in and crimes against peace, mass murder in this concrete
circumstance.
Charles Brown
>>> Andrew Wayne Austin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 04/16/99 02:49AM >>>
Rob,
One doesn't have to worry so much about diminishing the tragedy of the
matter if one only finds the right words. The term "forced migration" is
the appropriate term to describe what the Yugoslavs are accomplishing in
Kosovo. It is a tragedy -- one that NATO bombing triggered. But it isn't
genocide. What Europeans have attempted with the Native Americans is
genocide. Mass assimilation is genocide. "Ethnic cleansing" is a euphemism
for forced migration. I agree with you that we evacuate words of their
meaning when we overuse and overapply them.
Andy
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