Roma slum in Kosovo- Roma are persecuted, segregated- The Roma Apartheid in Eastern, Central and Western Europe----------
Above Photo from " Lullaby of the Trains: The Gypsy Children In Auschwitz" at Open Salon
also see: Crowe, David A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia. Pub. 2007.
see for instance abstract/ review of Michael Sells book The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia pub. 1998 /2007 updated at University of California Press for more see end of post.
Given the history of Western Civilization in the past century or so it is astonishing and disturbing when Western Nations oppress or discriminate against some ethnic or religious or racial minority and in order to defend their actions refer to erroneous stereotypes of a particular minority as in the case of the Roma (Gypsies) in Western , Eastern and Central Europe & Russia. Such discrimination historically almost inevitably leads to the denial of basic human rights for the specific minority . In the case of Jewish Europeans they have suffered due to discriminatory laws and the curbing of their basic rights . But the oppression of European Jews did not stop there but led to massacres and Pogroms and other injustices going back at least to the First Crusade in 1097. European anti-Semitism finally led to the Shoah or Holocaust during WWII. World leaders and the Vatican and other religious bodies in the West did little or nothing to save the Jews from being slaughtered. In fact some leaders and institutions such as the Vatican & the Catholic Church by not speaking out were in effect complicit in the slaughter of the Jewish people.
Since the end of WWII for the most part anti-Semitism is no longer acceptable by the majority of leaders and the the peoples of the West.
But as we have seen over the last 60 years or so that other minorities or those who are seen as different are mis-characterized and depicted as a "Real and present danger" to Western Civilization or to a particular nation state. So we have the more recent examples of discrimination of a particular group leading to oppression , denial of basic rights and finally "ethnic Cleansing" and "Elimination" by means of expulsion and by internment and /or mass killings and or Genocide as in the Bosnian Genocide of the Muslim population in the 1990s and the Rwanda Genocide, and now France Germany Italy etc. are now denying the Roma their basic rights and ignoring that many of the Roma immigrants are actually "refugees" fleeing from oppressive even Genocidal regimes in Eastern Europe .
During the Serbian/Bosnian /Croatian conflict the Gypsies were treated in a brutal genocidal faction it appears by all of the different factions so those Roma who could fled to other parts of Europe. The conflict in Serbia and other states which constituted the former Yugoslavia was really a Genocide to exterminate and destroy all traces of Muslim s and their four centuries old culture in order to create A Greater Purified Serbia and a Greater Purified Croatia meaning that only Christian Serbian Orthodox would reside in The Newer version of Greater Serbia and in the case of Croatia only Catholic Croatians would be permitted to reside in Greater Croatia. This meant that all non-Christians would have to be eliminated along with all those who did not fit the criteria for citizenship in either Purified state.
And so it is not much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if European nations or some other nation might turn on a minority and begin by passing discriminatory laws and then move to a stage of complete and absolute discrimination and segregation followed by organized attacks on a minority's communities which would then lead to "Ethnic Cleansing" by expulsion or internment or to mass murder of the members of that minority. So one wonders how far will France or other European countries go in their unjustified discrimination and demonization of the Roma.
Already there have been attacks on individual Roma and systematic abuse and torture of Roma by police forces in Western and Eastern Europe and there have been attacks by mobs on Roma communities to which the police and authorities refuse to act . Instead the authorities blame the Roma saying they are being attacked because of their anti-social behavior. So the victim is to blame as anti-Semites have argued that Jews are because of who they are the cause of their own suffering at the hands of others.
Finally there are those who are willing to speak up and criticize France and other Nations for their treatment of the Roma and the forced expulsions of Roma back to countries where they will be discriminated against even further being dumped into ghettos or internment camps or refugee camps and possibly beaten and tortured by the police or military in those countries. Some countries to which the Roma are returned are just unable to provide for the basics for the Roma due to a failing economy or a corrupt and indifferent government. Some countries will accept Roma if the government is given money to provide for the Roma though the money given for this purpose might all be used for other things or divied up amongst corrupt officials .
Hindus and Jews shocked at France's continuing Roma expulsion despite promise otherwise 2010-11-09
Hindus and Jews have expressed shock over the reported expelling of Roma (Gypsies) from a church in France, who had been in the country for about a decade.
Reports also indicate that Roma camps in Creteil and Lyon in France were also emptied during the last few days.
Eminent Hindu statesman Rajan Zed and Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California in USA; in a joint statement in Nevada today, said that it was disturbing that France was still reportedly expelling Roma despite the promise on October 15 to change its laws on the free movement of European Union citizens in view of a European Commission ultimatum following a crackdown on Roma during the months before.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, and Rabbi Freirich, further said that it was even more upsetting to learn that the expulsion order of Roma who had taken refuge in the church just south of Paris was signed by the priest. They pointed out that Jesus Christ clearly told the world to help the helpless, defenseless and downtrodden and love them and he showed the way also. They quoted from The Bible: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36)".
Rajan Zed and Jonathan Freirich argued that France had become an "embarrassment for Europe" due to its xenophobia and racism as was apparent from continuing Roma maltreatment. It was sad to see the "great nation of France", who claims to be the "mother of human rights", falling so low. This Roma maltreatment was not acceptable and further expulsions should be immediately halted.
Singling out of helpless Roma was appalling and immoral, was "officially stamped racism", and was a major offence, they stressed.uropean Commission, which was guardian of the treaties, would lose its legitimacy if it did not show guts and take strong action against France over stubbornly continuing racism coated Roma abuse, Zed and Freirich argued...
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Anyway what will the French government do if the Roma refuse to be expelled. Will the government arrest and intern them or allow mobs of other french citizens to take action against the Roma as in Hitler's notorious staged phony-populist uprising against the German Jews known as "Kristallnacht" on Nov. 9, 1938.
So what if the Roma start resisting expulsion and segregation and discrimination will those in authority move towards violent clashes and "ethnic cleansing" and Genocide??? Western Civilization no matter how some idealize and romanticize it as superior to other current civilizations our nations have time and again lashed out at one defenseless minority or another and committed the most horrible unimaginable atrocities.
Anyway are the lessons supposedly learned after the Shoah / Holocaust and the extermination of Jews, Roma etc all forgotten as Europeans gin up their hatred of the Roma. Is this just the beginning of another era of racial hatred and intolerance which will eventually include all immigrants or all so called Non-Westerners. In America we have seen a rise in hatred of anyone who doesn't fit into the category of being a traditional European Christian white immigrant or descended therefrom.
Once again as in the 1920s & 1930s France and other European Nations are moving to the racist Nativist Right.
What many forget or were never told is that Hitler and the Nazis did not invent anti-Semitism or other forms of bigotry and racism. Their contribution as such was to give such hatred a veneer of legality and scientific theories which were based upon pseudo-science and prejudice. The other thing Hitler added was a fanaticism combined with efficiency and thereby the creation of an Industry whose sole purpose was the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, slaves, Poles, Serbs etc.- Total exterminated 12 Million approx. 6 million Jews and six million non-Jews.
Anti-Semitism had been preached and promulgated throughout most of the history of Christianity.
Even the writers of the New Testament couldn't help but insert there own anti-Semitic views ie blaming the Jewish people for Jesus execution and not the Romans. These anti-Semitic views were carried forward by the Early Church fathers and became part of the establishment of the Church . Once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire the Church set out to kill or convert all non-Christians including Pagans and Jews throughout the Empire .
When Martin Luther rebelled against the Church of Rome creating the Protestant Movement he too preached hate against the Jewish people and called their houses of worship "Synagogues of Satan". So anti-Semitism and hatred of all non-Christians was continued up til modern times. ( Hitler, Henry Ford, Father Coughlin , Bishop Fulton Sheen, American Bund, the KKK et al)
Anti-Semism was embedded in Christianity from the start and continued by the Roman Catholic Church up at least til the end of World War II. The Catholic Pope and the Vatican did nothing for instance to stop the extermination of the European Jews which was not surprising he himself had promulgated anti-Semitism even before he had become the Pope. It is only in recent years that the Vatican has condemned and made a rather feeble apology for its history of centuries of anti-Semitism and persecution of the Jewish people. The current Pope appears to believe that the Roman Catholic Church is itself being persecuted by those who accuse it of wrong doing ie anti-Semitism, cooperation with various brutal anti-demoicratic authoritarian regimes etc. the ongong sex scandals in which the Church acted as enablers for Pedophile Priests.
Since the Shoah (or Holocaust) it has become less acceptable or fashionable to express anti-Semitic views . Don't get me wrong anti-Semitism has never been Justifiable even though those in authority thought it was or more cynically used it for some political gain.
Prejudice and bigotry against the Roma is also unjustifiable and should be socially and politically unacceptable but unfortunately the mass of humankind will hold onto their fears and prejudices despite the reality. We see this played out for instance on Fox News channel everyday of the week. As Americans attack immigrants in their country especially those who are Hispanic or Arab or Muslim so the Europeans have attacked Roma immigrants and refugees as undermining and destroying the traditional values and institutions of Europe . And of course the irrational Hatred of "The Other" in this case the Roma is still a psychological and sociological need for a society and this seems to have been the case since Homo-Sapiens first gathered together in a group and then decided who was to be included and who was to be excluded- the "In Crowd" & the "Outsiders"/ the Other.
Enough is Enough-France's Racist Nazi-like Policies Targeting the Roma
2010 09 14.Roma deportations a disgrace.
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Part 2: The Persecution of The Roma ignored by much of the Main Stream Media
Is it that the Media is not aware of the issue or that the public in general has little or no sympathy for the Roma/Gypsies. For one thing people are told these Roma are illegal immigrants when in fact many of them are legal or are refugees escaping persecution in Eastern European nations such as Hungary or the former Yugoslavia nations.
For instance after the break up of Yugoslavia the Roma were persecuted beaten, abused , murdered with impunity by the Serbs and Coats by the orthodox Christians and Catholics and by Muslims.
France's Roma Expulsion Creates Tension in Europe-PBS
Sept. 28, 2010
EU's Reding proposes legal action against France over Roma deportations
Western Civilization may have defeated Adolph Hitler and the Nazi racialist regime but some of the the racialist theories, prejudices are still alive and being used to attack the Roma or other ethnic groups ie Muslim , African & Asian immigrants in Europe or elsewhere. Racism, bigotry, prejudice is one of the eternal truths which is the bane of all of humanity. We are forever in need of "the Other" a group which we can favorably contrast ourselves or our society with. IE at least we are better than the Gypsies, Jews, blacks, native Americans or Asians etc.
And according Social scientists it is readily apparent that societies especially in times of turmoil or radical changes ie collapse of the Soviet Union, or economic crisis recession, depression, hyper-inflation, rising unemployment look for an outcaste group to blame for Societies turmoil and changes. Hitler very effectively used the already present anti-semitism in German society to help propel him and his Nazis party to become Germany's ruling party which promised to bring about a new millenialism of the Third Reich. Reading about the Roma and other minorities in Europe it at times appears that the Europeans and Westerners in general didn't learn from its past experience with the Nazis and Fascist Regimes.
The lesson they learned was in fact a narrow one that is that anti-Semitism was wrong but the broader lesson learned should have been that racism , bigotry, prejudices are wrong.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Hundreds of thousands of Roma refugees have left the former Soviet Union and its Eastern and Central European client or satelite states due to unemployment, racism, segregation and persecution only to find European countries as being far from welcoming. The United Nations organizations have offered billions of dollars to members of the EU yet these nations have declined the offer and instead have been deporting Roma back to their native countries such as Kosovo, Romania, Hungary etc. where they get little or no help to be reintegrated into these societies.
Meanwhile as large numbers of Roma refugees attempt to find other countries more willing to take them in they are rebuffed by such countries as Canada , the USA etc. Part of the reason for this is because of the racist unforgiving views of the Canadian and American public towards the Roma based upon erroneous stereotypes of the Roma. Though we claim to be more enlightened in our treatment of minorities or of those of a different culture , ethnicity or religion in the end we still have our own prejudices and racist views which we may dress up in legal, philosophical or political jargon to cover what is essentially a hate-filled bigotry towards those groups who are designated as Pariahs as different, as foreign, as "The Other" as being uncivilized as more like animals than humans or simply as Subhumans.
We must remember that the likes of Hitler and the Nazis did not invent racism and bigotry and segregation these existed for centuries in Western Civilization. When Westerners were not spewing hatred of the Jews and the Gypsies they were spewing hatred and insisting on the elimination of foreign elements or entering foreign lands in Africa , the Americas etc. and wiping out whole populations because they were seen as "savages" as uncivilized as evil "idol worshipers " or as "minions of the Devil "or just characterized as Subhumans who needed to be exterminated or reduced in numbers so that they could be controlled and made useful as slaves, serfs, servants and forced or coerced into abandoning their religious beliefs and made to accept Christianity and all for the betterment not of themselves but for the Western Empires and nations. etc.
It is disturbing to read about the persecution of the Roma in Eastern and Western Europe which has been more or less a consistent problem for the last four centuries or so and to discover nothing much has changed for the Roma themselves as they are even today treated as if they were a subhuman race. The ancient bigotry, prejudice , and old standby stereotypes are still used as excuses for the segregation and persecution of the Roma.
It is especially disturbing and shocking that even after the Second World War and the Nazi attempt to wipe out the Roma most Europeans in Eastern ,Central and Western Europe have learned nothing from the experience of the Nazis racialist policies in which Jews, Gypsies and Slavs were targeted for extermination. Over the past 65 years little has been done in European countries to improve the living standards, housing, employment, education of the Roma . Much of this is due to the racist views of the European governments and the European public towards the Roma which is still seen as acceptable and is unjustly used by authorities to explain away issues of poverty and unemployment or other problems plaguing Western Societies. No longer can Europeans blame Jews or other groups for whatever ails a society so the Roma are used as "scapegoats" for the anger and dissatisfaction of the general public. Of course other groups have been targeted such as the Muslim immigrants in Europe to explain away certain economic or social problems. But the prejudices and fears about the Roma seem to be common to almost all European nations.
The Roma are erroneously blamed for a majority the crimes committed in these countries wich include petty theft and fraud to murder. Often figures are thrown around such as that the Roma are responsible for 45% or more of criminal activity when in fact they are only responsible for at most 10% of crime in any particular Europen nation. Meanwhile Roma are often faced with an unemployment rate of 40% to 80 to 100% while the rest of society has an unemployment rate from 8% to 20%.
How are the Roma to improve their lot if they are discriminated against in employment, education and housing. Often they are not permitted to live within the borders of a particular city, town or village and so are forced to live in shanty towns just outside these areas. In this makeshift shanty towns or slums made up of small trailers , shacks or tents or lean-tos or even burrows in the ground. These communities are more often than not lacking in basic utility services ie water, electricity, sewage systems so they are basically left to their own devices and left to eke out a miserly existence of subsistence .
What has been created is a form of European Apartheid to keep the Roma in their place and to segregate them from the rest of society and yet blame them that is blaming the victims of racism for their lack of improvement.
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Amnesty Says Deported Roma Face Persecution in Kosovo Selah Hennessy | London VOA News, Sept. 28, 2010
Amnesty International has criticized European countries for deporting ethnic Roma to Kosovo where they face discrimination and violence. In a new report, the international watchdog says many Roma, who are also known as Gypsies, arrive in Kosovo with nothing but the clothes on their back.
Amnesty International Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia David Diaz-Jogeix says Roma returning to Kosovo often do not have access to basic services.
"Many of the people who are being returned do not have a clear access to their identity and accommodation papers and that further discriminates them in making sure that they have proper access to health and hospitals or access to social housing or access to state employment," he said.
Many Roma left Kosovo when the country was racked by conflict in the 1990s. In 2008 Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia.
Diaz-Jogeix says since then many European countries have pressured Kosovo to take Roma back. He says about 7,000 people have been deported to Kosovo by European countries, including Germany and Switzerland, despite the fact that they are likely to face persecution there.
Diaz-Jogeix says Roma face persecution across Europe, but in Kosovo the problem is particularly troubling.
"In the context of Kosovo, there is a further discrimination aggravated by the fact that they are perceived as being allies of one part of the conflict, the Serbs, and that further reinforces the discrimination by the Kosovo Albanians," he said.
Around 90 percent of Kosovo's population is ethnic-Albanian.
A spokesman for Britain's right-wing United Kingdom Independence Party, Dawain Towler, says European countries cannot be expected to open their borders to Roma from Kosovo.
"The responsibility lies with the Kosovo government to ensure that people are treated properly and effectively at home. And it is not the responsibility of the U.K. or any other government indeed to take up the burden that has been ignored by their own government," said Towler.
Amnesty International says 97 percent of Roma in Kosovo are unemployed. It says Kosovo's government does not have the resources or political will to deal with their plight
End Notes:
see;
"The Bridge Betrayed" by Michael Sells [12] at Americans For Bosnia Jan. 04, 2008
The Bridge Betrayed by Michael Sells short reviews:
"[President] Clinton's favorite Balkans book [is] A Bridge Betrayed, by Haverford College religion professor Michael Sells, which argues that the various ethnic groups actually had gotten along well for centuries. Sells, of Serbian descent, writes that strife in the Balkans can be blamed, not on historic enmity but on more recent anti-Muslim Serbian nationalist rantings. Clinton apparently liked this book so much that he sent it around to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Defense Secretary William Cohen, national security adviser Sandy Berger and Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry Hugh Shelton as required reading."—Al Kamen, Washington Post Magazine
"Michael Sells demystifies the horror of 'ethnic cleansing' in Bosnia by documenting its roots in the nineteenth-century revival of Serb nationalist culture. . . . The Bridge Betrayed is unique. . . . Anyone seeking to understand and prevent a recurrence of this firestorm in the Balkans will find this brilliant study indispensable."—Roy Gutman, Newsday Washington
"[A] finely written, well-argued book. . . . Sells' book makes a major contribution to recent literature on Bosnia, exploring the war's religious dimension and above all the role of Christian religious mythology in preparing the ground for genocide."—Paul Hockenos, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"Sells's well-written, impassioned, and informed book represents a deepening of the ongoing discourse about the collapse of Yugoslavia."—Kirkus Reviews
"Sells brings a deep historical perspective to bear on recent events, and he powerfully indicts not only those Balkan leaders who manipulate popular fears and fanaticism to further their expansionist aims, but also those Western politicians and diplomats who helped obscure the truth about the campaign by Serb and Croat religious nationalists to destroy the uniquely rich culture of Bosnia."—William Finnegan, staff reporter for The New Yorker and author of A Complicated War
and for more on Bosnian Genocide see:
Bosnia-Herzegovia 1992-1995: Serb "Etnicko Ciscenje" of Bosnian Muslims at Bosnia Genocide Resources- Prevent Genocide International
"Etnicko Ciscenje" is the Serbian, Croat and Bosniak term meaning "Ethnic Cleansing". The term "Ethnic Cleansing" entered the English language through the news media in the summer of 1992. (See "Ethnic Cleansing and International Law" by Drazen Petrovic )
Bibliography of Books in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian on Genocide and related topics This bibliography includes items published immediately before and during the destruction of Yugoslavia (late 1980s and early 1990s) when newly publicized atrocities from the World War II period played a considerable role in polarizing and escalating violence among ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia.
"Ethnic Cleansing and International Law" Read Drazen Petrovic's 1994 discussion of the origins of the term "Ethnic Cleaning" (etnicko ciscenje) which entered the international vocabulary in 1992 and the relationship between this term to established international crimes such as genocide. Drazen Petrovic Ethnic Cleansing - An Attempt at Methodology European Journal of International Law www.ejil.org Vol. 5 (1994) No. 3
Branimir Anzulovic. Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide. New York and London: New York University Press, 1999. xiv + 233 pp
A valuable dissection of the mythical underpinnings of Serbia ultra-nationalism. These concepts and images have been skillfully manipulated by the Milosevic regime during the last decade to persue wars of genocide and expultion against Serbia's numerous ethnic neighbors. Anzulovic, a native of Croatia, focuses on the role of ideology in guiding genocidal actions: "the primary force leading to genocide is not the pathology of the individual organizing and committing the genocide, but the pathology of the ideas guiding them." (p. 4) He believes that the roots of Serbian genocidal behavior--and he accepts as given that Serbian actions have been genocidal--can be found in the mythology that arose to explain the battle of Kosovo of 1389. Although he distances himself rhetorically from accusations of reductionism ("It would be an error to assume that the memory of the Serbian medieval empire necessarily led to the latest war for a Greater Serbia ..." [p. 2]), in the body of his book Anzulovic does in fact interpret virtually every event in Serbia's history following 1389 through the prism of the Kosovo myths. Most outsiders blame the Serbs for the atrocities, but the Serbs themselves believe that they are the ones that are being just; it’s the rest of the world that is wrong. Anzulovic’s book explains why the Serbs, through a potent recollection of their own history, would bring death and destruction to the rest of the area and international condemnation and economic ruin on themselves.
Gary Jonathan Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals, Princeton University Press, 2000, 402 pp.
Gary Jonathan Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton and a former reporter for the Economist, examines several cases: the trials of Bonapartists in 1815, trials following World War I of German war criminals and of Turks who carried out the genocide of the Armenians, the Nuremberg trials and their equivalents in Tokyo, and contemporary efforts to prosecute individuals guilty of war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Chapter One: Introduction 3 Chapter Two: St. Helena 37 Chapter Three: Leipzig 58 Chapter Four: Constantinople 106 Chapter Five: Nuremberg 147 Chapter Six: The Hague 206 Chapter Seven: Conclusion 276 Chapter Eight: Epilogue 284 http://pup.princeton.edu/chapters/s6925.html
David Carment and Frank Harvey, Using Force to Prevent Ethnic Violence An Evaluation of Theory and Evidence, Praeger Publishers. Westport, Conn. 2000. 192 pp.
This book serves as an important research tool for students, scholars, and policy makers involved with ethnic conflict and international relations. Carment and Harvey examine how regional and international security organizations can prevent destructive ethnic conflict and manage cases in which violence already is at hand. They develop a conceptual framework for advancing basic research on the prevention and management of intrastate ethnic violence; evaluate theoretical knowledge about the nature of ethnic conflict, using case material and quantitative assessments: and apply these assumptions against recent instances of conflict management through an in-depth study of NATO's involvement in Kosovo and Bosnia. Chapters include: Early Warning and Conflict Prevention: Theory and Practice * The Theory and Practice of Coercive Diplomacy; Part I * The Theory and Practice of Coercive Diplomacy, Part II: Controlling Escalation Through Deterrence and Compellence * Predicting Success and Failure States Versus Institutions * NATO and Post-Conflict Resolution in Bosnia and Kosovo * Evaluating Third Party Efforts to End Intrastate Ethnic Conflict * Conclusion: The Evolution of Ethnic Conflict. David Carment is Associate Professor of International Affairs at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Frank Harvey is Associate Professor of Political Science at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.
Tom Gallagher (b. 1954), The Balkans after the Cold War : from tyranny to tragedy, London : Routledge, 2003.
Contents: Challenges and crises after the communist era -- The international dimension of the escalating crisis in Yugoslavia -- The war in Croatia and the countdown to the Bosnian conflict, July 1991-May 1992 ---Genocide and dispossession in Bosnia and the international response -- The Bosnian endgame : survival amidst tragedy and international rancour -- International intervention in the Balkans 1995-7 : limited goals and capabilities -- Authoritarian rule in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Subjects: Yugoslavia--History--1980-1992. Yugoslav War, 1991-1995. Former Yugoslav republics--History...
...Adam Jones (b. 1963), Genocide, war crimes, and the West : ending the culture of impunity / edited by . Portion of Title: Ending the culture of impunity Culture of impunity Published/Created: London ; New York : Zed Books ; 400 pp New York : Distributed exclusively in the U.S. by Palgrave
Genocide is the focus of growing scholarly attention and controversy. Genocide, War Crimes and the West expands the debate by exploring the involvement of the USA and other liberal 'Western' democracies in activities supposedly restricted to totalitarian Europe and certain authoritarian Third World regimes? In the first Part, important analytical issues are considered, including the question of where responsibility for genocide resides, the variety of domestic and international institutional responses, and the moral basis for accusing Western countries of complicity. In the second Part, a large number of original case studies make clear how broadly conceived the subject ought to be; the wide range of state behaviours that can be criticised as constituting genocide, war crimes, or comparable mass violations of human rights; and the remedies that ought to be available. At a moment in history when terrorism has become a near universal focus of public attention, this volume shows why the actions of the West, both in centuries past and the Cold War era, have excited such widespread resentment and hatred around the world. 'In the names of millions of forgotten victims, from Wounded Knee to My Lai, a brilliant tribunal of scholars assail the himalayan hypocrisy of 'Western humanitarianism.' - Mike Davis, author of Late Victorian Holocausts 'This book documents one of the darkest chapters of recent history. It tells the story of what the 'First World', Western democracies, most prominently the United States, have committed mainly against countries and peoples in the South and in the former socialist world. It is the history of aggression, indiscriminate bombing, war crimes, and massacres since the 1970s, the story of Western complicity in genocide in the South and East, and worse, it is about genocide committed by democracies. This path-breaking book of 25 chapters finally fills a huge void; it carefully accounts for serious crimes others have shamefully avoided, omitted or denied.' - Christian P. Scherrer, Professor for Peace Studies at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, Japan; author of Genocide and Crisis
and see;
Case Study:
Bosnia-Herzegovina Gendercide Watch
and:
.Thursday, October 22, 2009
Biljana Plavsic and Carl Bildt at Genocide in bosnia
Imagine my surprise when I read the news that Biljana Plavsic was released from prison today after serving a seven years sentence. The reader will recall that Plavsic was sentenced to eleven years in prison after a conviction in 2003 by the War Tribunal in The Hague. During her infamous speech to the Bosnian Serb Parliament, Plavsic asserted that Bosnian Muslims are a genetic mistake trapped inside a Serb body. Moreover, she was found guilty of genocide and ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims. The Swedish government denied Plavsic’s appeal for parole on two occasions. Her release today caused an outrage among the Bosnian population in Sweden mainly because as it turns out the Sweden’s Secretary of State, Carl Bildt, was directly implicated in this decision to set Plavsic free. He was the one who arranged for her to serve her sentence in Sweden and there is no doubt that he sided with Bosnian Serbs during the war in Bosnia.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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