 The US government's record in directly perpetrating or being
complicit in the crime of genocide in many regions of the world – even
at the present time, as much as in the recent past - was deeply
unsettling, and needed to be recognised and confronted, argued Desmond
Fernandes, a former senior lecturer in Human Geography and the Geography
of Genocide at De Montfort University in the UK. Speaking at a
conference held in a UK House of Commons room earlier this month, and
discussing genocide cases past and present across the world, Fernandes
drew attention to the on-going genocide of Eezham Tamils and the PPT
judgement. Noting with concern that struggle against genocide itself is
criminalised nowadays, he emphasized on the need of action in solidarity
by targeted peoples.
“Acknowledging genocide itself is a
fundamental means of struggling against genocide,” Fernandes cited a
PPT verdict of 1984, and added citing Gregory Stanton on Armenian
genocide that “ Denial […] is actually a continuation of the genocide.”
Fernandes noted on the huge, sophisticated, genocide-denialism industries and structures that are in operation today.
He
cited Rick Rozoff in listing out the US involvement in genocides across
the world, directly or in collusion with a client regime and on the
government-media-obedient academia triad presenting it as legitimate
actions in pursuit of praiseworthy policies.
Fernandes cited
Abdullah Ocalan on the frustration of Kurds over the US geopolitics:
“For 60 years the USA's politics have been dependent on the cultural
genocide policy against Kurds. To gain the support of Turkey and Israel
in the region, the Middle East and Caucasus, the USA has supported the
policy of cultural genocide that has been implemented against the
Kurds.”
Talking on Turkey, he said, “the colonialist mind-set for cultural genocide still continues” in Turkey.
Bodies
such as the United Nations and the European Union are also responsible
for facilitating genocide. The United States and her 'allies' have made a
mockery of the UN 'Responsibility to Protect' initiative, Fernandes
observed.
On the International Criminal Court (ICC), he observed
that genocide here is not only being halted by the US and its ‘allies’,
but the ICC is also not acting as it should to hold those responsible to
account. Asking why, he cited Edward Herman saying in 2013 that the ICC
has a record as an annex of white imperial power.
Talking on 'Developmental' genocides taking place across the world, he cited India and Balochistan as examples.
The
following was his citation on the PPT – Bremen verdict on Sri Lanka:
“The Tribunal finds that genocide against the Eelam Tamil group is a
continuing process … The Tribunal believes that the UK, the USA and
India are guilty of complicity in genocide. Further, the Tribunal judges
that the UK and the USA are clearly accomplices in the genocidal
process … The United Nations ... had a decisive role in the failure to
prevent as well as in the enactment of the genocidal process against the
Eelam Tamils … The European Union [also] … contributed to the
implementation of the genocidal process”.
Fernandes noted that national and supra-national bodies have questionably drawn up ‘terrorism lists’ and proscription regimes.
Political
movements, diasporic communities and individuals resisting repression
and genocide have been criminalised through these 'lists' and regimes.
In such criminalised contexts are many public struggles against genocide
and oppression taking place, he further said, emphasising the need to
reflect upon these matters and act upon these concerns and engage in
solidarity with targeted 'Others', wherever they may be.
Desmond
Fernandes is a member of the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and a former
Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and 'The Geography of Genocide' at De
Montfort University, UK. He is the author of The Kurdish and Armenian Genocides: from Censorship and Denial to Recognition? (Apec, 2007; Peri, 2013), co-author of The Targeting of 'Minority Others' in Pakistan
(BPCA, 2013) and has written numerous articles on genocide and the
targeting of the 'Other'. His works have been translated into a number
of languages including English, French, German, Dutch, Greek, Turkish
and Kurdish.
His paper was presented at the 'Holocaust
Commemoration and Genocide Awareness' meeting, the House of Commons,
Committee Room 16, Westminster, 4th February 2014. Organised by the
Universal Peace Federation (UPF) and hosted by Mr Virendra Sharma, MP.
* * *
Commenting
on his paper, Tamil activists for alternative politics in the island
said that it should be an eye-opener to the installed Tamil politicians
in the island and to the articulators in the diaspora, who continue with
the decades-old historical blunder of Eezham Tamils in harping on the
deceptions of the West and fail in placing the struggle of Eezham Tamils
in its proper global perspective.
Citing ‘cultural pluralism’
and ‘reconciliation’ approach advocated by the US Asst Secretary of
State, Nisha Desai Biswal, during her visit to Jaffna, and the following
lamentation of NPC chief minister C. V. Wigneswaran over the ‘tragic
abandoning’ of pluralism in the island, as well as his reference to
Amartya Sen’s culture, freedom and development, the activists for
alternative politics in the island said that there is no point in
harping on them.
From the very outset of the ‘sounding nice and
sane’ concepts that were hatched by the institutions in the West, the
Establishments in the USA and the West were the ones that were primarily
responsible for discrediting the concepts and deceiving humanity by
deploying them to justify the paradigm of genocide and imperialism. We
could practically see that from the talk and deeds of those who profess
them in the island, the activists for alternative politics further
commented. source:TN | source: |
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