The Genocide Convention

[Charles Brown]

Yes, I posted this Convention to the list before related to the issue of the charge brought by William Patterson against the U.S. in 1951 for genocide against the Negro People. You leap too quickly to the conclusion that NATO or any of its minions may not be guilty pursuant to this Convention. The fact is NATO is bombing a specific national group. Sometimes the law looks at the facts and infers the mental element. A murderer rarely admits his mental state in a murder trial. It is inferred by his conduct. Similarly, here a jury could infer that NATO is killing Serbians as Serbians (because they won't overthrow the president , or they elected the president , whatever); and find NATO guilty of genocide, as charged.

The provision doesn't have to apply to all wars. It DOES apply to some wars. A jury might reasonably find that this war by NATO is one of the type to which  the prohibition of the convention applies.

My use of genocide is legally sharp. The charges under the anti-genocide convention, as well as other provisions of international law, have been brought by two separate sets of international jurists, one in Greece and one in Canada. I am using their definition of "genocide" in this case. As far as I can tell not all of them are Marxists.

Charles Brown


>>> Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> 05/25/99 04:52PM >>>
At 13:52 25/05/99 -0400, you wrote:

Re: British TV jury finds against Nato
>Chris,
>
>Here are genocide and other charges against NATO
>
>
>Charles

I have changed the thread title. 

The Genocide Convention adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9
December 1948 defines the crime as 

"acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national
ethnic, racial or religious group'. 

Signatory nations may ask the UN to take action to prevent and suppress
acts of genocide. 

The convention defines genocide as any one of the following.

1. Killing members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group

2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

In no way is the NATO war against the forces of the former Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia, under Serb nationalist control, genocide under any of these
headings. 

Clearly it does not apply to all wars, under clause 1, just because all
wars include killing of some members of a particular group. But this war is
designed to force the Yugoslav regime to concede autonomy under NATO led
supervision for the people of Kosovo. 

Nor do clauses two or three specifically apply to Serbs as such. 

Charles copied a statement by 20 members of the Greek Council of State
headed by its senior vice-president. 

While there are many charges including the crime of waging an offensive
war, there is only one accusation of genocide. 

It is ill drafted and in no way meets the definitions above. 

When massive air forces of the most powerful 600 million of the world go to
war against a nation of 10 million, and drop graphite bombs to switch off
the electricity, blow the bridges and bomb the fuel dumps, and apologise
for killing civilians, they are manifestly not trying to destroy a national
group as such but to defeat the government of that nation. 

If you employ a logic that prevents you from seeing that, what are you
going to do about the hundreds of millions who do accept the argument from
the establishment media?

However that Serb nationalist and fascist government is indeed committing
genocide on the Albanian nation living in Kosovo on counts one, two and
three of the UN Convention on Genocide.

Clause 1 The are systematically killing members of the national group *as
members of the national group* in an exemplary way and in large numbers to
force all to leave their homeland with despatch.

Clause 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

- there is widespread use of rape to inflict mental harm on the national
group as a whole.

3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

- they are poisoning or contaminating food supplies to force the remaining
Albanian population to leave the province.

There is no point in having a war of propaganda rather than an analytical
debate on these lists which represent perhaps altogether at most a thousand
people. But in the wider world if leftists do not address these questions
they will be unable to affect the balance of power and diminish the
imperialist features of the current war and the projected peace. 

Nor will they have any influence on how justice is interpreted in practice. 

There is of course in marxist terms no eternal abstract law of justice that
floats above societies. Justice is the justice of the victors. I doubt if
in the remaining decades of his life Milosevic would be wise to seek
medical attention in any country which might hear an application against
him for trial on grounds of genocide. 

Charles, your use of the term genocide is confusing. 

Chris Burford

London