Posts
Genocide: The Outcome of Inaction
The
term genocide is not something that is thrown out easily when it comes to
defining the mass killings of people. For something to be considered genocide,
a specific groups needs to be targeted and attacked on a massive scale, this is
exactly what has happened numerous times through history. Specifically, these
genocides occur either during wartime or right after, this is evident in the
specific genocides of which I have looked. The Armenian Genocide which is the
subject of Forgotten Fire takes place
in Turkey during World War One. Similarly, the Holocaust occurs during World
War Two and is the basis of Ordinary Men.
Slightly different, When Broken Glass Floats
occurs in war torn Cambodia during the fallout as a result of the Vietnam War. The
documentary Worse Than War takes a
look a genocides as a whole, and the reasons for them to keep occurring in the
world. The existence of genocides during the 20th century such what
occurred in Forgotten Fire, Ordinary Men, When Broken Glass Floats and Worse
Than War were allowed to remain uncheck because of limited local resistance
and almost nonexistent intervention from the international community.
The
Armenian Genocide which took place during World War One became one of the early
examples which a specific group of people became target and killed in mass. The
Ottoman Empire was able participate in the Great War and also commit mass
murder at the same time, “Between 1915 and 1918, according to many historians,
half a million Armenians were deported to Mesopotamia, while more than a
million were murdered outright or died of disease and starvation during forced
marches across desert regions”.[1] These
events are captured in the novel Forgotten
Fire by Adam Bagdasarian. The story recounts the fictional experiences of
Vahan Kenderian, an Armenian living in Bitlis, Turkey who deals with the
struggles of genocide first hand.[2] Through
this story, the failure to act by the international community who was busy
waging the First World War comes to light. Not only on an international level
the failure for Armenians ability to stop the genocide accept for minor
resistance and aid with the Russians.
The
only big resistance put up by Armenians against the Turkish murders came in the
form of Armenian units in the Russian Army and the uprising in the city of Van.
“The Russian army’s counteroffensive included a division of Christian Armenians,
who reportedly massacred the inhabitant of several Turkish villages”.[3]
Armenians served in the Russian army during the World War One trying to win
independence, as a result Turkey turned on Armenians who lived within its
borders. Some of the fiercest of the fighting took place around Turkish city of
Van where Armenians fought back, “From the providence of Van came hundreds over
Armenian women and children whose husbands and fathers had been killed and
whose villages had been destroyed, not by the Russian army, but by the Turkish
army, our own army”.[4] In
this instance Armenians could do almost nothing in the wake of the Turkish
slaughter. In the novel, Vahan has to deal with witnessing the murder of almost
his whole family before his eyes. There simply was nothing that could be done,
his village was a part of the Ottoman Empire, and there was no force that could
stand in the way of the Turkish army from going after their own people.
Moving
from what happened in the local scale, the international reaction to the
Armenian Genocide failed to provide any major help to end the murder. The
Armenian Genocide occurred at the same time the world was embattled on multiple
fronts in the conflict known the World War One. Despite the international
community being distracted by war, the mass murder that was occurring in Turkey
was not unknown to them, even being run on American news papers such as the New
York Times.[5]
Despite knowing exactly what was going on, the international community did
little to actually step in and stop the violence. It was only the end of the
war and regime change which ended the violence, “The Turkish Parliament is
dissolved. A newly formed government has decided to create a general
court-martial for all functionaries responsible for the massacre of Armenians”.[6]
Vahan was able to escape the violence by making it to Constantinople where
Armenians were not persecuted. There was no help for his fellow Armenians, the
only reason the killing stopped was the government change that occurred after
the Ottoman Empire collapsed following its withdrawal from the war.
Similar
circumstances are associated with the mass killings collectively known as the
Holocaust during World War Two. These were the result of the implementation of
the Final Solution by Nazi Germany which’s goal was to eradicate all persons
sought unfit, “By the end of the war nearly six million Jews had perished from
gas, brutalization, malnutrition, exposure and disease in what later became
known as the Holocaust”.[7]
The killings took place during war time, in conquered countries that Germany
had defeated years earlier. The implementation of the mass killings is captured
in Christopher Browning’s novel Ordinary
Men. The book follows a group of German reserve police from Hamburg from
their first acts of violence to post war investigations of war crimes for what
occurred in Poland. Overall the Holocaust is another instance which the target
population fought back too late and where intervention from other nations did
not occur as a result of wartime distractions.
Reserve
Police Battalion 101 was stationed in Poland through the war; as a result they
are exposed to not only the Jews who were hunted down, but also the local
Polish population. Poland was where most of the actual killing took place;
there were a total of six extermination camps in place in Poland which
conducted gassing started in 1941.[8]
The police battalion basically herded millions of Jews to their deaths. The
Jewish race at the time were not a nation, they were all citizens of separate
countries therefore did not have any military to cling to other than that of
nations which they were previously part of which has been defeated by Nazi
Germany. As a result, there was little to nothing that Jewish civilians could
to in the face of armed German soldiers or police. Jewish resistance only
appeared when it was too late, “over the past six months Jewish resistance had
arisen in Warsaw (April), Treblinka (July), Bialystok (August), and Sobibor
(October), when the Jews in those places saw no further hope of survival”.[9]
Civilians basically had no chance trying to defend themselves against a professional
police and military force; there was nothing Jews could to do by themselves.
The
oppressed Jews of Poland were not the only group involved; Poland itself had to
deal with German occupation. Poland had been defeated by the Germans, and now
with occupation became the center of the Final Solution. Poles played roles on
many levels including helping the Germans, “Virtually no account for the “Jew
hunts” omitted the fact that hideouts and bunkers were for the most part
revealed by Polish “agents,” “informants,” “forest runners,” and angry
peasants”.[10]
Under the watch of German Police, Poles even went as far as helping the Germans
find Jewish civilians to send to camps. This does not indicate the majority of
Polish people as being collaborators but does not make them look innocent
either. The fact is that Polish people were under fire as well, having no
protection from the Germans, there was little they could do and cooperating
with the Germans was a way to survive.
Turning
from the local scale, internationally not much could be done to stop the
killing. When the Final Solution began, World War Two was still in its
pinnacle, the nations that had the military might to step in and stop the
killing were bogged down with defending themselves. Not only this, the killings
were kept very secretive by the German government; it was not known what had
happened until the camps were uncovered as Germany crumbled. The only
international response came in the form for war crime trials such as the famous
Nuremburg Trial. Ordinary policemen from Reserve Battalion 101 went back to
their homes and moved on with their lives after the war despite what they had
done. It was not until the 1960s when the German Central Agency for the state
Administrations of Justice began to investigate the mass murders closely, “It
was in the course of investigating various crime complexes in the district of
Lublin that Ludwigsburg investigators first encountered several witnesses from
Reserve Police Battalion 101”.[11]
In essence, nothing was done to prevent or intervene in the Holocaust by the
international community accept for the ex post facto investigations and
punishments.
The
genocide in Cambodia brought by the Khmer Rouge lasted from 1975-1979.[12] The Communist lead Khmer Rouge party gained
power immediately after the Vietnam War in which Cambodia had been involved. The
new regime effectively murdered one fifth of the country’s population, “Over
the next few years, according to outside estimates, up to two million of
Cambodia’s seven million people may have died in this genocide slaughter”.[13]
The novel When Broken Glass Floats by
Chanrithy Him accounts the author’s own experiences growing up in Cambodia
under the Khmer Rouge before escaping to America. Genocide was allowed to
continue in Cambodia because of weakened government that lost power to radicals
along with an international community that was hesitant to intervene in the
region after the Vietnam War.
Unlike genocides that occurred during major wars, in
Cambodia, the genocide was the result of radicals gaining power after a civil
war. Chanrithy was able to witness the fall of the Cambodian government
firsthand, “There is news about fighting with the Khmer Rouge, about Prince
Sihanouk, the “god-king” whom many Cambodians elders believed to have the
divine touch, which has somehow lost power and joined the Khmer Rouge”.[14]
It was not until after the civil war had ended when the killing started to
begin. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, emptied out the cities in an
effort to create a perfect society.[15]
Unfortunately, Chanrithy and her family were from Phom Phen and with no one
left to stop the Rouge, were also sent to work camps. However, there was a
limited resistance to the Khmer Rouge across Cambodia, Chanrithy runs into some
of them near the fall of the Rogue, “I’m not going to harm you. I’m a good
soldier, a PARA soldier”.[16]
Despite the Khmer Rouge having almost full control of the country and being
able to commit mass murder unchecked, there was some internal resistance which
aided into toppling the Rouge.
Internationally, the Khmer Rouge as able to commit mass
killings of their own people for years without facing any recourse. It seems
like that after spending almost ten years in the region during the Vietnam War;
America did not have the stomach for any further dealings in Southeast Asia,
even if it meant the murder of millions. The world community sat back and
watched, as people continued to be killed. It was not until the invasion of the
Vietnamese that the Khmer Rouge was toppled effectively stopping the killing.
Chanrithy deals directly with the disappearance of the Rogue as a result of
Vietnam intervention, “I’m relieved, thankful that the Vietnamese soldiers are
here tonight to oppose the Khmer Rouge.”[17]
It had been Vietnam, a neighboring country who brought down the Rouge because
of political motivations; there was no international force which went in to
prevent genocide. The world failed the people of Cambodia with their inability
to act, if Vietnam had not sought to change the countries regime, the killing
would have continued without any end in sight.
The fact is that genocide is something that keeps
occurring regardless of steps taken to try to stop it. The documentary Worse Than War by Daniel Goldhagen
discusses the preconditions and fallout that have occurred as a result of mass
killings. Goldhagen not only discusses the reason genocides continues but he
also speaks about the failure for intervention to occur. According to Goldhagen
there are three choices that are made; First the choices made by leaders to
start killing, second are the choices made by ordinary people to participate,
and third is the choices of people who have the power to step in and do not do
anything.[18]
The argument is that it is not only the people who order or commit the murder
that are at fault, but people who go along with it and those who do nothing to
stop it. Particularly, Goldhagen points to the U.N, an organization who clearly
defines genocide and is supposed to work to prevent such instances from
occurring. Goldhagen points out the inability for the U.N. to act in a strong
enough way to put down genocides before they grow out of hand. He describes it
as a moral standard those countries that are able to act, should to save
innocent lives.
Focusing on a specific instance, Goldhagen points out the
Bosnian War which lasted from 1992-1995.[19]
The war started as a result of Serbs under Slobodan Milosevic trying to
ethnically cleanse Muslims of Bosnia. The Serbs were able to follow up on their
plan being unopposed and committing mass killings in Bosnia with no one to stop
them. The war went on for three years, and the Bosnian military had struggled
to keep up with the Serbs. It was not until 1995 when NATO forces began to bomb
Yugoslavia that peace talks commenced and the conflict ended.[20]
International intervention was able to be successful in putting a end to the
Bosnian War, but look how long it took them to act. Serbia we able to continue
with the killings unchecked for three years, if intervention had come sooner,
there is no doubt that lives would have been saved.
The fact is that genocide is something that has continued
to happen regardless of how evil it is. The international community has failed
to hold the high moral ground and act in cases which they could save lives. The
only reason the Armenian Genocide ended was as a result if the government
losing power after World War One, if that had not happened, the killing would
have continued without anyone stepping in. Similarly with Nazi Germany during
World War Two, the murders went on without the rest of the world knowing. If
Germany had not been defeated militarily and the camps uncovered, they would
have been able to continue with the murders with no one stopping them. In
Cambodia, the killings went on for years without an international reaction; the
only thing that saved face was the result of Vietnam pushing the Khmer Rouge
out of power. The only instance where international countries have united and
acted militarily was in Bosnia, but this still only occurred three years after
the conflict started, something that came too late. It has happened time and
again, when murderous regimes are able to take power and neutralize local
resistance, they only way to stop the killings is with intervention, and until
now, the world has failed to act quickly every time.
No comments:
Post a Comment