>>> Chris Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> 05/26/99 06:16PM >>>
At 09:27 26/05/99 -0400, Charles wrote:
>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.
<
I missed that post but I appreciate how you may have assembled the evidence. Was it not revealed recently how black people in one US town were secretly infected with syphilis to study its long term effects?
Charles: Patterson (along with Paul Robeson and many other signatories) brought the charges and recorded hundreds of cases of racist police murder and other forms of killing or injuring Negroes as Negroes.
>
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.
>
Chris: I do not find this a strong argument that NATO is bombing a specific national group. It is bombing a country run by a political coalition which it wants to defeat. I do not think a pure syllogism can therefore prove that they are bombing a national group.
Charles: Again, a jury or court would not necessarily find that because the U.S. is "bombing a country run by a political coalition which it wants to defeat" is a defense to the charge here, if it finds that the conduct fits the anti-genocide language. And there is a colorable legal argument that NATO's conduct violates the anti-genocide law. Of course, the other side will argue otherwise, but that is always the case in a law case.
The law works on "pure syllogisms". You know that Hegel uses jurisprudence as an example along with mathematics as formal logics or understanding. Law procedes by taking the written law, in this case the anti-genocide convention, and making a formal logical link as above. The one I give might not win out in this case. But you must offer a similar reasoning chain to prevail for your side of the legal argument. So, protesting the "pure syllogistic" aspect of my argument is a weakness in what you are saying.
>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.
>
Chris Well, you say it might, but other's might say it might not.
I suppose the test would be how much money one side would put up to back its proposition.
Charles: Well, yea, law is politics and politics is money, especially in a case like this. What I am putting forth is a non-frivolous legal argument. All legal arguments are challenged by the other side in court. So, the "you say/they say" is presumed here.
>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.
<
Chris No problem that not all of them are Marxists. Clearly the Genocide Convention was not drafted by marxists, but was a bourgeois liberal compromise drawn up in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Charles: No Marxists were very much a part of drafting the anti-genocide convention. The Soviet lawyers were Marxists.
Chris (Forgetting what the victors had done in ethnically tidying about half a dozen countries.) That does not however make it meaningless nor the movement irrelevant in the context of the horrors in Europe this century.
On the evidence you tabled, the Greek jurists made no attempt to align their one charge of genocide with any clause of the Genocide Convention.
With the news that the International Court at the Hague may indict Milosevic with war crimes, what matters is what they think they can get away with, rather than what is right.
Are you in a position to post the Canadian statement to see if it makes a more focussed case that the Greek statement did, for a violation of at least one of the clauses of the Genocide Convention
Charles:You are correct to call for a bill of particulars, but I have already given you some of them. You are dismissing my argument above too quickly. It is legally sophisticated; and suggests some connection between the law and currently widely reported facts regarding the conduct of NATO
It should be no big surprise to charge the NATO countries with genocide, in part exactly because of what you mention above about part of their genocidal history. The NATO countries are the biggest genocidalists of all times. On the other hand, ironcially, they did formulate these laws in a moment of temporary sanity; and we should use these statutes and sharpen them up.
The Canadian statement may be on a website. I will look for it.
CB
Detroit
Chris Burford
London