The UK and US attitude on Genocide denial reminiscent of 1994 indifference
Linda Melvern
It is astonishing to realise that two powerful UN states -- the UK and US – remain at odds with the word genocide -- and continue themselves to contribute to the denial campaign the Security Council seeks to outlaw .
Eight years ago , as the 20th commemoration of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi was underway many fine words were spoken in the UN Security Council about ‘ lessons learned ’ although no one ever articulated exactly what those lessons were . That year the Council did however pass a unanimous resolution to try to compel governments to outlaw the denial of the genocide that was increasingly widespread . In Security Council Resolution 2150 , dated April 16 , 2014 , it was determined as follows : ‘ The Council condemned without reservation any denial of this Genocide , and urged Member States to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Genocide to help to prevent future genocides ”.
Yet while voting for this resolution in the Council , member states continue today to not only allow the presence of alleged genocidaires on their soil but are seemingly happy to tolerate a campaign of denial of this genocide that is spread in newspapers , is repeated in magazines , articles , in books , and in social media . While member states eagerly voted for Resolution 2150 condemning denial , this pernicious denial campaign continues today unchallenged by governments , and is waged with some success by the genocide perpetrators , their acolytes , and supporters . With their contempt for factual evidence , these people have tried to alter the facts , diminish the death toll , claim the killing was in self-defense , and blame the victims for their fate . The deniers talk of ‘ mutual violence ’ and try to explain the huge number of dead as the result of ‘ inter-ethnic war ’. The deniers of this genocide claim that the killing of Tutsi was a response to the fear and chaos of war and that there was no central planning for any of the massacres . The génocidaires continue to maintain that the mass murder of Tutsi people resulted from a ‘ spontaneous uprising ’ by an angry population . They argue there was no genocide of the Tutsi because lacking any planning or preparation , the intent to destroy a human group , as required by the 1948 Genocide Convention was lacking . Without the required intent to destroy , the Genocide Convention did not apply .
The question of intent is integral to the crime . In the Genocide Convention , the wording reads , ‘ the intent to destroy , in whole or in part , a national , ethnical , racial or religious group ’. With no intent , the deniers argue , with no conspiracy or plan , the Genocide Convention was not applicable . The deniers conveniently forget that the Genocide Convention enshrines the realisation that state-sanctioned racist policies against specific groups inevitably leads to mass slaughter , and that the victims of genocide are chosen purely because they are members of the target group .
With the 28th commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi under way , it is worth recalling that it is not only the deniers and their supporters who have a problem with the definition of the word genocide in relation to Rwanda . It is astonishing to realise that two powerful UN states — the UK and US – remain at odds with the word genocide — and continue themselves to contribute to the denial campaign the Council seeks to outlaw .
Their attitude is reminiscent of that on display in April 1994 , when as the bodies piled up in Rwanda , these two permanent members of the UN Security
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