Let’s begin by trying to understanding what “genocide” is in its purest form - the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, widely accepted definition even by the International Criminal Court. However, there are fringe elements (like Bruce Fein and Prof. Boyle) who argue that it doesn’t go far enough to address other circumstances and will never be satisfied until their version of the definition is established as the guiding principles for us to follow. Such arguments are only encouraging wild speculative innuendos to garnish such unsubstantiated “genocide” for the sake of making hay for the politically and morally bankrupt.
In the absence of other accepted credible forms, for all intentions and purposes today we are guided by the widely sanctioned protocol for establishing “genocide” is the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Article (2) of the Convention defines genocide as,
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article (3) defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention,
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
However, in 1996 Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, presented an interesting briefing paper called "The 8 Stages of Genocide" into the development of classic genocide in Stages and Characteristics. His approach has validity since “genocide” cannot be spontaneous in any place without simmering hate or dislike for a specific community, race, ethnicity or nationality.
1. Classification - People are divided into "us and them"
2. Symbolization -"When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups..."
3. Dehumanization - "One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases."
4. Organization - "Genocide is always organized... Special army units or militias are often trained and armed..."
5. Polarization -"Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda..."
6. Preparation - "Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity..."
7. Extermination - "It is "extermination" to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human."
8. Denial - "The perpetrators... deny that they committed any crimes ” (only in the face of overwhelming evidence)."
It must be understood that meeting the definition alone is not sufficient proof of genocide, unless otherwise each one of these stages of genocide is supported with serious evidence to establish a pattern of intention to commit genocide. It also requires the accusers to prove that sections within a community conspired to engage in genocide with malice. In the absence of all these, screaming “genocide” is hollow as a bottomless vessel.The challenge for those agents of Tamil diaspora who allege “genocide” is to bring forth the evidence to support if they meet any of the UN Convention’s Articles and/or satisfy the “8 Stages of Genocide” for it to uphold in a court of justice.
The ‘crying game’ of Tamil diaspora is nothing shorter than a ‘crying infamy’ loaded with virtuoso stunts and hypocrisy. It is reminiscing to a rickety old ship moving off the moorings to sail and calling like all minded others to join the journey to the never-land. Their signature issue as I wrote in my Blog “On Trial: Tamil Diaspora And Their Inconvenient Truth” that “It is amusing to watch this diaspora parading customary placards and shouting slogans against the only people capable of ending the Tamil agony under the LTTE – the Sri Lanka government. How ironic that their own funds caused the mayhem and misery to the Tamils?”
Those who champion ‘genocide’ show a notable lack of symmetry in the way they present their case on Sri Lanka. It is much easy to sling mud to tarnish conveniently ignoring the history of conflicts since 1948 when Raphael Lemkin introduced a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention treaty. Since then Robert Gellately and Ben Kierman wrote in their book “The Specter of Genocide” that the West “employ double standards to justify the exception of major western countries from the list.” They conclude that “even more difficult is the fact that the kind of killings for which major Western countries have been responsible for colonial wars or in its counterrevolutionary and counternational liberation struggles, are excluded from the genocidal framework.”
Agents of Tamil diaspora should take serious note of what Gellately and Kierman write, “in the 20th century discussion of war crimes, responsibility and punishment has to address the sort of double thinking that assumes such criminality is absent on the part of the West.” And they continue to charge that “the credibility of the newly established International Criminal Court must depend on it demonstrating that it takes as serious evidence of crime against humanity by powerful figures in the /western world as it does by those who represent discredited and often collapsed or collapsing regimes of the third world.” There is no doubt the authors were clearly referring to George Bush Jr. and Tony Blair during the war on Iraq and in Afghanistan.
So let’s parade all the culprits of “genocide” in the history of mankind without picking a choosing which one that bring biggest media hype. I am not holding back when I state that to pursue an allegation of “genocide” on Sinhala leaders is in itself is genocidal by singling out an ethnic community for the purpose of showmanship even though the allegations do not meet the baseline standard of genocide. It is a classic witch-hunt by Western agents of Tamils diaspora based on falsified data to claim political yardage in the face of defeat.
The civilized world must have the strength to elevate their wisdom to separate what is genuine genocide without becoming victims of a fraud and task the accusers of Lanka to demonstrate legitimacy of their claims or else banish.
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