[Genocide/1971] Genocide, War Crimes, and the West: Ending the Culture of Impunity

Genocide, War Crimes, and the West:
Ending the Culture of Impunity

Edited by Adam Jones

Courtesy: http://adamjones.freeservers.com/gwcw.html

In Harper's Magazine (February and March 2001), Christopher Hitchens presents a case for the indictment and prosecution of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for alleged involvement in war crimes and human-rights violations in Vietnam, Chile, Greece, and other countries. Hitchens' articles and his book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso, 2001), have sparked considerable discussion and debate. They lead us to ask an important question: how extensive has been the involvement by western countries in genocide, war crimes, and other human-rights violations, whether directly committed by western states themselves or by other governments? (For the purposes of this volume, "the West" is defined as the industrialized liberal-democratic countries of Europe, North America, and Australasia.)

This edited volume will seek to explore these issues through "think-pieces" and a broad range of case studies. Among the core analytical issues to be considered are "the question of responsibility and obligation pertaining to genocide" (Peter Stoett); "the formal institutional responses to genocide and mass atrocity that have developed over the past ten years" (Ernesto Verdeja); the various "citizens' tribunals" created to draw attention to western war crimes (Arthur J. Klinghoffer); the clash between local culture and human-rights universalism (Joseph Murray); and the utility of Raphael Lemkin's original conception of "genocide" in analyzing crimes alleged against Henry Kissinger and others (Steven Jacobs).

Case studies are sampled across a broad geographical and historical range. Chapter contributions here include the legacy of African slavery and the current reparations movement; residential schools and genocide against native North Americans; Germany's abuses against the Herero in South-West Africa (present-day Namibia); Allied area bombing during World War Two; French atrocities in Algeria; U.S. crimes in Indochina, Congo/Zaire, Chile, Bangladesh, Central America, Iraq, Somalia, Liberia, and Yugoslavia; and the role of the West and the U.N. Security Council in the Rwandan holocaust of 1994. The case study section concludes with a provocative argument that "liberal market democracies have a large regime-specific excess mortality," and "the global expansion of liberal regimes has subjected billions of people to these mortality patterns" (Paul Treanor).

For each case study, contributors are asked to address the following issues: the scale and character of the crimes allegedly committed; the nature of western involvement in these crimes; the advisability of mounting legal prosecutions or campaigns for reparations, and their prospects for success; the relevant legal instruments and institutions that could be employed; the individual actors who might be liable to prosecution for the crimes; and other possible means of redress. Though most contributors share a critical perspective on western involvement in genocide and war crimes, the tenor of the analyses and nature of the conclusions will vary, depending on the individual author's assessment of the character of western criminality and the potential for successful or at least meaningful prosecution and redress. Contributors have been asked to ensure that their contributions are between 5,000 and 7,000 words in length. This will permit a rich diversity of treatments and subject-matter, while keeping the book to a manageable length (350-400 pages).

The volume is edited by Adam Jones, a professor of international studies at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City, who will also provide an introduction and conclusion for the volume. Jones is the author of two forthcoming books on media and democratic transition, and has published articles on human rights and other themes in Review of International Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Human Rights Review, Journal of Genocide Research, and other publications. His full c.v. is available on his website.

Genocide, War Crimes, and the West will likely prove to be a landmark collection, addressing directly one of the key challenges and conundrums of "human rights" movements worldwide. It will be highly relevant to students and academics across a wide range of disciplines, including history, political science and international relations, comparative genocide studies, native studies, subaltern and post-colonial studies, and African and Latin American studies. It will also be of interest to activists and laypeople concerned with the "culture of impunity" surrounding the crimes of liberal-democratic countries.

Outline

I. INTRODUCTION

1) Adam Jones

THE WEST AND THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY

Abstract:
The introduction begins by examining several recent instances in which war-crimes by western countries have once again made global headlines: the confession by former U.S. Senator John Kerrey that he supervised a commando mission in Vietnam that killed as many as 21 civilians; renewed allegations of French war crimes during the Algerian War; and the publication of Christopher Hitchens' provocative book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso, 2001), calling for the former U.S. Secretary of State to be prosecuted for crimes committed in Indochina and elsewhere. The introduction then turns to an examination of the West's role in genocide and war crimes, and the "culture of impunity" that has developed to suppress investigations and prosecutions of the same. Efforts to prosecute western countries for war crimes or to seek redress for genocide are discussed. Examples include the Leipzig and Nuremberg tribunals against Germany, the Russell Tribunal on U.S. crimes in Vietnam, the World Court case brought by Nicaragua against the U.S. in the 1980s, Ramsey Clark's "Criminal Complaints" against the U.S. and other western countries for the war against Iraq in 1990-91 and U.N.-imposed sanctions; and the reparations movements launched by survivors or descendants of German genocide in South-West Africa and slavery in the United States. The chapter concludes with an evaluation of the possibilities for prosecution and other forms of redress for western involvement in genocide and war crimes.

Biographical Note:
Adam Jones is professor of international studies at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of British Columbia. His articles have appeared in Review of International Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Journal of Genocide Research, Journal of Southern African Studies, Harvard International Review of Press/Politics, Journalism Studies, and other publications. His first books will be published in late 2001 and early 2002: Beyond the Barricades: Nicaragua and the Struggle for the Sandinista Press, 1979-1998 (Athens: Ohio University Press) and The Press in Transition: A Comparative Study of Nicaragua, South Africa, Jordan, and Russia (Hamburg: Deutsche Orient-Institut). He is a member of the Association of Genocide Studies and executive director of Gendercide Watch, a Web-based educational initiative that confronts gender-selective atrocities against men and women worldwide.

E-mail: adam.jones@cide.edu

II. ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES

2) Peter Stoett

OF RESPONSIBILITY AND OBLIGATION:
GENOCIDE AND EXTERNAL ACTORS

Abstract:
This chapter will provide an historical overview of the question of responsibility and obligation pertaining to genocide. The chapter will link the two themes with material from international legal theory and normative theories of international relations, with a particular emphasis on western complicity and obligations. It will be an abstract treatment of the topic, but will utilize multiple dramatic examples to illustrate principal points, and will serve as a broad survey of relevant literature. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of the current situation, and make recommendations for the pursuit of a universal approach to genocidal policies.

Biographical Note:
Peter Stoett, Ph.D., teaches international relations at Concordia Univeristy in Montreal. He specializes in global environmental politics and human rights issues. His recent book include Human and Global Security: An Exploration of Terms (University of Toronto Press, 2000); Global Politics: Origins, Currents, Directions (ITP Nelson, 2nd edition, 2001); and International Relations Theory and Ecological Thought: Toward a Synthesis (Routledge, 1999).

E-mail: pstoett@vax2.concordia.ca

3) Ernesto Verdeja

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES TO GENOCIDE AND MASS ATROCITY

Abstract:
This chapter examines the formal institutional responses to genocide and mass atrocity that have developed over the past ten years. In particular, it compares the use of both domestic and international tribunals with truth commissions, juxtaposing the positive elements of domestic tribunals and the ICTR, ICTY and the proposed UN tribunals for Cambodia and Sierra Leone with the popularity of truth commissions engendered by the cases of Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and of course South Africa. There exists some conceptual confusion as to which type (or combination) of institutional response satisfactorily complements broader civil and social regeneration, reconciliation and demands for justice in the aftermath of large scale atrocity. The chapter will identify several factors in order to better comprehend what types of responses go with what types of crimes and context.

The chapter begins with a discussion of the different forms of justice, retributive and restorative, that each approach is predicated on (tribunals and truth and reconciliation commissions, respectively). Both approaches engage with four normative concerns: a) the need to hold perpetrators accountable; b) the desire to create a robust, incontrovertible, public and widely disseminated truthful record of the past; c) the important therapeutic and restorative effects of giving a public voice to the suffering of victims and survivors, both for them and for society as a whole; d) and finally, broader long term goals of reconciliation, social repair and the implementation of the rule of law. Seven normative justifications for tribunals and four for truth and reconciliation commissions are offered, along with an evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses, measured against the four normative concerns listed above. After discussing the strengths and drawbacks of each approach, the chapter attempts to contextualize when they can and cannot be usefully implemented. This second part will draw heavily from actual case studies. The factors to be considered for comparative/contextual analysis are: 1) degree of institutionalization and legitimacy of the previous regime; 2) type(s) of repression and violence employed by the previous regime; 3) extent of the perpetrator population; 4) the mode of political transition; 5) the power of elites; 6) material, financial, and personnel resources; 7) the salience of specific domestic cultural, political, and religious discourses; and 8) the possibility of future social unrest.

Biographical Note:
Ernesto Verdeja is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Graduate Faculty of the New School University in New York City. His dissertation examines the normative underpinnings of truth commissions and tribunals and their contributions to larger processes of reconciliation in post-atrocity societies. He is also submissions coordinator of Constellations Journal.

E-mail: ven8202@mindspring.com

4) Arthur J. Klinghoffer

INTERNATIONAL CITIZENS' TRIBUNALS ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract:
Prosecuting human rights abuses perpetrated by major states is extremely difficult under the current international legal order. The Big Five enjoy the protection afforded by Security Council veto power, and it is not surprising that the first two countries investigated under UN jurisdiction have been the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Neither was a significant world power, nor are Cambodia and Sierra Leone for which tribunals are now being established. International citizens' tribunals, often labeled "commissions of inquiry" or "people's tribunals," have attempted to remedy this deficiency. They are composed of prominent intellectuals, are extrajudicial, and are aimed at using public relations to effect policy changes while crimes are still being committed. Proponents view them as an exercise in democracy from below, as an application of secondary responsibility in areas where the international community has failed in its primary responsibility. This study will examine the Russell Tribunal (1967) on the U.S. role in Vietnam, plus many later cases such as those on Afghanistan, Nicaragua, the Gulf War, Tibet and Chechnya. Suggestions will be presented for overcoming weaknesses in the tribunal system, and improving their efficacy.

Biographical Note:
Dr. Arthur Klinghoffer is professor of politics at Rutgers University - Camden. He is author of numerous books, including Oiling the Wheels of Apartheid: Exposing South Africa's Secret Oil Trade (Lynne Rienner, 1989) and International Dimensions of Genocide in Rwanda (New York University Press, 1998). This chapter is adapted from his book, International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights, to be published at the end of 2001 or early in 2002 by Macmillan/St. Martin's (Palgrave).

E-mail: klinghof@crab.rutgers.edu

5) Joseph Murray

EVIL IN THE GUISE OF GOOD?
CULTURAL COERCION TO PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract:
An irony of history is that many of what are now considered history's worst large-scale atrocities -- religious wars and colonialism -- were justified and committed by persons of good will in the service of an ideal like promoting the salvation or civilization of themselves or their victims. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the salience of conflicts between political ideologies like Marxism and capitalism has lessened while that of conflicts between cultures or civilizations like the West and Islamic societies or China has increased. Under the influence of both "progressive" forces and traditional geopolitical interests, Western states have been increasingly willing in the years since 1989 to use military force to pursue aims like increasing respect for human rights. Even if forcible interventions to prevent genocide or mass killings of a resentful people by its government can be justified, is the West in danger of repeating its historical mistakes in a new guise? Despite the advocacy, by Rawls and other liberal theorists, of the use of force and economic sanctions against peoples that gravely violate liberal conceptions of human rights, I argue that there are good liberal reasons for tolerating cultural practices that violate human rights when a people is all-things-considered opposed to coercion to stop such practices of its members. The implication is that Western imposition of a new norm of forcible humanitarian intervention as exemplified by NATO's war in Kosovo, and arguably the continued U.S./U.K. bombing of Iraq, cannot be consistently justified according to liberal principles. Insofar as Western wars that have involved war crimes, or the "necessity" of committing the war crimes themselves, rely on justifications of this sort they will not be politically or morally justified even in Western liberal theory.

Biographical Note:
Joseph Murray holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from McMaster University, is a Systems Design Engineer, and has worked in politics. His publications include articles in Philosophy in Review, Constitutional Review, and Russell. His consulting firm provides services to Aboriginal groups, public and private sector clients on issues regarding national identity and culture, information technology, and the environment.

E-mail: jpmurray@sympatico.ca

6) Steven Leonard Jacobs

INDICTING HENRY KISSINGER: THE RESPONSE OF RAPHAEL LEMKIN

Abstract:
The late Dr. Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), Polish jurist, Jewish refugee from the carnage of Nazism, professor of law at both Duke and Yale Universities, was the author of our word "genocide," and the motivating force behind the successful passage of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). Among his post-World War II responsibilities was that of legal advisor to Justice Robert Jackson at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945, drawing upon his major work (1944) Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). The legacy of his papers involves more than 20,000 pages of documents, articles, reviews, correspondence, and unpublished manuscripts. As the International Editor of these papers, I will focus in this chapter on Lemkin's writings regarding the bringing to justice of those responsible for the crime of genocide, their prosecution and punishment, and what nations can do to prevent future repetition.

Biographical Note:
Steven Leonard Jacobs is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, where he holds the Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies. His primary research foci are in Biblical studies, translation and interpretation, including the Dead Sea Scrolls; as well as Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He is author, editor, and translator of several books and more than fifty articles and reviews, and associate editor of the (1999) Encyclopedia of Genocide. He serves on the boards of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem; the Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies, Australia; the Center on the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Philadelphia; the International Campaign to End Genocide, Washington, DC; and the Aegis Trust for the Prevention of Genocide, England. He is also Secretary-Treasurer of the Association of Genocide Scholars.

E-mail: sjacobs@bama.ua.edu

7) David H. Fisher

THE PLACE AND AUDIENCE OF ACCUSATION

Abstract:
State-specific positive law, as well as international law based on the "international community," addresses defendants from specific historical, cultural, and political contexts. The law that condemns individuals or collectivities emerges from a tradition or, in the case of international law, traditions. Modern ethics, by contrast, claims to speak from no specific cultural location. Violations of the moral law, from either a deontological or teleological perspective, are said to be universal wrongs. This raises two fundamental questions: from what place do those who accuse "Western" countries of crimes -- war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide -- speak, and to whom are they speaking? For many of the essayists in this volume, the place from which the accusations speak is the place of victims -- often nameless, voiceless, and powerless. There is a sense of vast wrongs done, and a belief that until such wrongs have been fully recognized, and efforts made toward confession, repentance, and compensatory restitution, those guilty of such wrongs are in no position to accuse others.

In the first section of this essay I note two problems concerning the place from which accusation is made: a conflict between the ethical universalism that sustains concepts such as crimes against humanity, and the rejection of ethical universalism in the name of local culture, and the conflict between universal demands for perfect, impartial procedural justice and "local" desires for justice in outcome for victims. Unless these conflicts can be resolved, accusations -- however eloquent or well supported by evidence -- will inevitably seem flawed to "Western" ears.

In the second section, I turn to the audience of accusation, and argue that the term "West" and "Western" used throughout the volume is imprecise. Looking at the rhetoric of accusation of some contemporary Balkan apologists for recent events in Bosnia and Kosovo, a "tu quoque" pattern of avoidance and excuse emerges in which atrocities committed in the Balkans are minimized by a comparison with "worse" or larger atrocities committed by "The West." On closer inspection this rhetoric reveals a complex conflict over the meaning of terms such as "West" and "European." Some Balkan cultures pride themselves as bridges between "East" and "West" -- and their rhetoric of victimization and accusation speaks from the ambiguity of that space between cultures. It is important to understand that ambiguity without surrendering to the excuse of "cultural exceptionalism" as a cover for crimes against humanity.

Biographical Note:
David H. Fisher, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the History of Ideas Program at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, where he has served recently as Faculty Speaker. His recent publications include an essay on "Theory" in Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (Oxford University Press, 1998); on "Loyalty, Tolerance, and Recognition: Aspects of Morality in a Multicultural Society," Journal of Value Inquiry, 31 (1997); on "Public Art, Public Space: Arguments and Images," Soundings, LXXIX: 1-2 (Spring/Summer 1996); on "Nietzsche's Dionysian Masks," Recherches Historiques, 21: 3 (Fall 1995), and on "Crisis in Moral Communities," Journal of Value Inquiry, 24: 17-30 (Spring 1990). In 1999 and 2000, he was an invited lecturer at summer schools in Skopje, Macedonia sponsored by the Open Society Institute. He is active in The Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and Society; the American Society for Value Inquiry; and the International Association for Philosophy and Literature.

E-mail: dhfsbf19@ntsource.com

III. CASE STUDIES

8) Frank Njubi

COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST:
WHAT THE WEST OWES AFRICA AND AFRICANS IN THE DIASPORA

Abstract:
This chapter is a "think piece" on the growing reparations movement for Africans on the continent and the diaspora. The movement, which is the cause célèbre of the 21st century in the African world, claims the West owes reparations to Africans for four centuries of slavery followed by a century of legal discrimination in the diaspora and colonial exploitation on the continent. The chapter places the movement in the context of earlier Pan-African causes like abolitionism, anticolonialism, civil rights and the anti-apartheid movement. It then examines the international precedents of reparations payments made to groups like Jews, Native Americans and Native New Zealanders, and outlines six key debates in the movement. These are: (1) the legal basis of the claim in international law; (2) the extent of the crime; (3) who are claimants? (4) who are the defendants? (5) what are the damages? and; (6) in what courts are the claims to be made? The chapter concludes with an examination of the possible impact of the reparations movement, whether or not it succeeds in getting Western countries to recognize the debt owed to people of African descent.

Biographical Note:
Francis N. Njubi is an assistant professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University, where he teaches courses in African and African-American politics. His academic background includes Master's degrees in communication and international peace studies. His dissertation, Race for Sanctions: The Movement Against Apartheid, 1946-1994, is currently under review by a major university press. He has published scholarly articles and book reviews in journals such as African Philosophy and Africa Commentary, and has a forthcoming chapter in Michael Oliker, ed., Popular Culture as Educational Ideology (Peter Lang Publishing). He is also a member of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, where he is working with a multinational group on an anthology entitled Beyond Territoriality: A Geography of Africa From Below.

E-mail: frank865@home.com

9) Ward Churchill

KILL THE INDIAN, SPARE THE MAN:
RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF GENOCIDE

Abstract:
Genocide, according to Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who coined the term in 1944, is any policy undertaken with the intent to bring about the dissolution and disappearance of an identified/targeted human group, as such. Although he certainly recognized it as a means of accomplishing such an objective, Lemkin explicitly discounted mass murder as a synonym for genocide. Indeed, remarking that genocide by killing seemed historically exceptional, he observed that whenever the existence of one human group was terminated by another as a matter of conscious design, genocide is at issue. This remains true, he concluded, even if no member of the targeted group has been killed.

It follows that Article II(e) of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide legally defines the forced transfer of the children of a targeted racial, ethnical, national or religious group, with intent to destroy the group in whole or in part, as a genocidal act.

Beginning in roughly 1880, and continuing until roughly 1980, both the United States and Canada administered a system of residential ("boarding") schools to which it was intended that all American Indian children in North America between the ages of 5 and 15 would be sent. The system was compulsory, and varying degrees of force and other forms of official coercion were employed to bring about the desired transfer of children from the target group so that they might be raised to see the world through the eyes of those targeting them. The express objective of the process, according to Army Captain Richard H. Pratt, former warden of the U.S. military prison at Ft. Marion, Florida, and the country's original Superintendant of Indian Schools, was to "kill the Indian, spare the man" in every pupil. The broader goal, stated by U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs Francis Leupp in 1909, was that there be no Indians "culturally recognizable as such" remaining within the borders of the United States by some point around 1935 (later revised to 1950).

In Canada, a virtually identical set of policy pronouncements was articulated by Pratt's and Leupp's counterparts. In both countries, programs were fully implemented for purposes of attaining such goals and objectives.

At school, the children -- about 50% of each succeeding generation for five generations, both north and south of the border -- were systematically "deculturated" through a brutal process involving protracted isolation from family and community, prohibition of their languages and spiritual practices, denial of tradition and sociohistorical knowledge, and separation from all aspects of their material culture(s).

The environment was highly regimented -- "militarized" is an oft-used descriptor -- usually more like a prison than a school. "Discipline" was maintained by liberal employment of severe corporal punishment -- floggings, balls and chains, solitary confinement on bread and water rations -- with numerous instances of outright torture on record. Sexual predation was also commonplace, endemic at many facilities.

Thus broken down, the children were "reculturated" with saturation doses of Christian doctrine -- from very early on, both governments licenced/funded churches to run the facilities as "missionary" institutions -- averaging two hours per day. In the end, the great majority of those subjected to the residential school regime were incapable of reintegrating into their own societies upon completing their "studies." Simultaneously, they were for the most part refused admission by the society in whose image they had been psychologically and intellectually recast. Deeply traumatized by their experience, belonging to neither their own world nor that of their oppressors, the victims of the residential schools rapidly began to compose the stereotypically prominent sector of the Native North American population -- approximately half the total -- found along the continent's Skid Rows: lost, alcoholic, and suicidal.

Although the residential schools were closed twenty years ago, the carnage they wrought self-evidently continues. Indeed, there is mounting evidence that certain of the worst effects are intergenerationally transmissible, and that the toll is mounting rather than subsiding. The destruction of Native North American societies is thus proceeding apace, albeit at a slower rate than was envisioned by those who created the schools in the first place.

There is also evidence that both the U.S. and Canadian governments were aware that their "Indian education" policies were in violation of the Genocide Convention. The matter was, in fact, openly discussed in the Canadian parliament in 1952. The response of Canada was to delete Article II(e) from the statute by which it defined the crime for purposes of domestic enforcement. For its part, the U.S. Senate simply refused to accept the Convention for forty years, agreeing to do so in 1988 only after attaching a "sovereignty provision" by which it claimed the unilateral right to exempt the U.S. from compliance at its own discretion. Both countries processed a further two generations of students through the schools after the Genocide Convention took effect in international law.

My essay will explore these and related matters in detail, drawing out the appropriate legal, moral and ethical considerations.

Biographical Note:
Ward Churchill is Professor of American Indian Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado/Boulder. He is the author, among other books, of Struggle for the Land: Indigenous Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Expropriation in Contemporary North America (Common Courage Press, 1994) and A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present (City Lights Books, 1998).

E-mail: Ward.Churchill@Colorado.EDU

10) Jan-Bart Gewald

IMPERIAL GERMANY AND THE HERERO OF SOUTHERN AFRICA:
GENOCIDE AND THE QUEST FOR RECOMPENSE

Abstract:
Between 1904 and 1908 Imperial German forces pursued a policy of genocide vis-à-vis the Herero and Nama populations of German South West Africa, present-day Namibia. Approximately four fifths of the Herero were beaten, hanged, starved or shot to death in military operations, concentration camps, and work camps. Sections of the German military believed that they were fighting a race war, which in the words of their commanding officer in Namibia, General Lothar von Trotha, would lead to the destruction of African tribes with "streams of blood and streams of money. Only following this cleansing can something new emerge." That which emerged was the shattered remnants of a people, robbed of their land, material wealth, and men.

In 1918, as World War One was winding down, British Colonial Officers operating in Namibia compiled a "Blue Book" detailing the atrocities committed. Of late, a number of revisionist historians have sought to deny that a genocide ever occurred. Since the compilation of the "Blue Book" Herero leaders have sought to claim redress from successive German governments. In the 1950s Herero petitioned the United Nations for the return of their land and self-determination, in the late 1990s Herero chiefs approached the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and currently Herero leaders have approached the NAACP for support in a legal challenge through the American judicial system. The contribution to be written will outline the genocide committed, and detail the various steps that have been undertaken by the Herero since then, in their efforts to obtain compensation, redress, and, perhaps most importantly, a formal apology.

Biographical Note:
Jan-Bart Gewald teaches at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Cologne, Germany. He has studied African History and African Political studies at Rhodes University, South Africa, and holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He has published two books on Herero history: Herero Heroes: A Socio-Political History of the Herero of Namibia 1890B1923 (Oxford, 1999) and We Thought We Would Be Free: Socio-Cultural Aspects of Herero History in Namibia (Cologne, 2000), has co-edited a volume on Herero society with Michael Bollig People, Cattle and Land: The Herero Speaking People of Southern Africa (Cologne, 2001), and is currently working on an annotated re-edition of British government Blue Books dealing with the Herero genocide in Namibia. His articles have appeared in the Journal of African History and African Affairs.

E-mail: jbgewald@yahoo.co.nz

11) Eric Langenbacher

THE ALLIES IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR:
THE ANGLO-AMERICAN BOMBARDMENT OF GERMAN CITIES

Abstract:
This chapter will begin by chronicling the aerial bombardment campaign against civilian targets in German cities by the British and American Air Forces during World War Two. Tensions between the Allies over targets and strategy, the technical and logistical evolution of the campaign, as well as the extent of damage, effects on the German war-making effort and the number of victims will be discussed. Next, the chapter will turn to an analysis of the various actors involved, focusing on which individuals or organizations could be held responsible. The possible legal instruments available will also be mentioned.

The bulk of the chapter will address the question of why these acts are commonly not considered war crimes, and why little has been done to publicize the deeds or prosecute the perpetrators. The most salient factors here have to do with the inability and unwillingness of the victims to press their claims. That the German army had used such techniques first, and that Germans felt a diffuse sense of responsibility for the war and its viciousness, made many Germans believe they had come to reap what they sowed. Related, of course, is that the perpetrators in this case were the victors. Just as crucial, however, were the behavior and policies of the British and Americans in the postwar period. These included a benevolent occupation regime, the rapid rehabilitation and reintegration of the Federal Republic into Western security and economic structures and the support from programs such as the Marshall Plan. Much of this had to do with the onset of the Cold War (Germans were also thankful for the Western security umbrella and consequently less willing to air grievances). Nevertheless, a sense of contrition on the part of the Allies was apparent, demonstrated also in the almost complete lack of glorification of the deed and its perpetrators in the U.S. and U.K. As a result, although formal prosecution of possible war criminals failed to materialize, this complicated case shows that many other subtle measures and policies, including a tacit recognition of the injustice committed and various forms of institutional and financial support, may be ways of partially dealing with some injustices.

Biographical Note:
Eric Langenbacher is in the final stages of Ph.D. studies at Georgetown University's Center for German and European Studies/Department of Government. His dissertation is entitled: "Contested Hegemony? The Impact of the Past on Contemporary German Political Culture," and explores competing interpretations of the past in Germany, including the memory of popular suffering exemplified by the Allies' bombing campaign in World War II.

E-mail: langenbe@hotmail.com

12) Raphaëlle Branche

THE FRENCH ARMY AND TORTURE DURING THE ALGERIAN WAR

Abstract:
From 1954 to 1962, the French army was gradually entrusted with fighting adversaries who were not only soldiers in the maquis but also terrorists and/or political militants. Torture soon emerged at the very heart of that peculiar war that theoretically consisted in "order-maintaining operations" and was to become more and more often defined as "a counter-revolutionary war." As clearly shown by a precise study of violent gestures, the 10th D.P paratroopers' action in Algiers in 1957 stands out as an acme in its both massive and rationalised use. That stage, termed in those days as the "battle of Algiers," discloses a total war waged in utter ignorance of the most elementary rules of human rights. The "battle of Algiers" also gave birth to a specialised intelligence service, the DOP (Protection Operational Detachments), that was to become and remain until 1962 one of the characteristic features of the Algerian war. Their autonomous way of operating and methods led to the worst acts of violence and rights abuses. But DOP were the cumbersome though useful collaborators with the official intelligence services as well. The latter had equally overall recourse to torture: as of 1957 this method had been widespread throughout Algeria and recognised as necessary. It took an ever increasing toll and overstepped its intelligence role. In the confrontation between "Algérie française" advocates and independence supporters, torture stood as a terror weapon. It imposed the language of absolute force on the population and, when added to battles and other violent or non-violent forms of action, gave the "événements d'Algérie" the weird appearance of a new war of conquest. The Algerians underwent that particular inter-personal violence and this also left its marks on the French army. The way the orders were transmitted, the responsibilities at every level of the hierarchy and the legal, social, political, or moral consequences of the practice of torture by French soldiers, even though it was forbidden by all texts, are so many central elements necessary to the understanding of the army during and after the Algerian war. In spite of the March 22nd 1962 amnesty, post war French society still bears its marks, as the recent eruption of controversy over renewed testimony of torture and disappearances in Algeria indicates.

Biographical Note:
Raphaëlle Branche recently completed her doctoral dissertation in history, L'armée et la torture pendant la guerre d'Algérie, at l'Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris.

E-mail: raphaell@club-internet.fr

13) S. Brian Willson

BOB KERREY'S ATROCITY, THE CRIME OF VIETNAM,
AND THE HISTORIC PATTERN OF U.S. IMPERIALISM

Abstract:
The United States' covert and overt invasion of Southeast Asia from 1954 to 1975 was rooted in fraudulent pretexts, multiple violations of international and U.S. laws, and contravention of human conscience. The manner in which the U.S. carried out the war was a crime of historic proportions. Members of the U.S. military (this author included) were guinea pigs. Unfortunately, this national behavior was (and is) not an aberration. U.S. civilization is built on a Eurocentric racism and arrogant ethnocentrism that has known few limits. Constructed on stolen land and labor at gunpoint, then on stolen resources as "Manifest Destiny" became a global hegemonic project in the twentieth century, U.S. "civilization" has left millions of bodies strewn around the globe. The U.S., nonetheless, articulates a rhetorical fantasy rationalizing the American Way Of Life (AWOL) as specially deserving, despite that during its history it has militarily intervened more than 400 times, and covertly in at least 6,000 operations, in over 100 nations. The ecological and human costs are ignored or denied with dangerous arrogance. There are no legal forces that have the capacity to assure that the U.S. complies with international law. Only the people, once fed up with this reckless policy destined to destroy most life on the earth, can change the plutocratic nature of U.S. society and foreign policy.

Biographical Note:
S. Brian Willson, a trained lawyer, is a former U.S. Air Force captain who served as a combat security officer in Vietnam's Mekong Delta in 1969. An activist, he studies the history of U.S. "Manifest Destiny" and the manner in which U.S. policy violates international law, committing multiple crimes with virtual impunity. He has visited a number of countries examining the effects of U.S. policies. He has also been a legislative aide, a prisoners' rights and military veterans' advocate, and a dairy farmer. His essays are posted on his website. He published a short autobiography, On Third World Legs (Charles Kerr, 1992), which describes his ordeal of having been run over by a U.S. munitions train accelerating over three times the legal speed limit during a peaceful protest in California in 1987. He miraculously survived and now walks on two prostheses. He also possesses a master's degree in penology/corrections and two honorary Ph.Ds.

E-mail: bw@brianwillson.com

14) DOCUMENT 1

Jean-Paul Sartre, Inaugural Statement to the Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal, 1966.

15) Thomas Turner

GENOCIDE AND WAR CRIMES IN CONGO/ZAIRE

Abstract:
Congo/Zaire is one of the richest African states in terms of its mineral resources, which include copper, cobalt, diamonds, petroleum, and gold. That wealth, along with the country's strategic position in Central Africa, has led to a series of interventions by outsiders, both extra-continental and African.While various Congolese individuals and groups carried out some of these events, the United States, Belgium and other western countries bear major responsibility. In this chapter we shall examine some of the most important of these man-made catastrophes, including: the secession of mineral rich Katanga province and associated violence; the overthrow and murder of the first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba; the "rebellions" of 1963-65 carried out by followers of Lumumba and their suppression;the seizure of power by General Joseph Mobutu and his subsequent bloody dictatorship;the overthrow of Mobutu in 1996-97 by Laurent Kabila, backed by Rwanda and other neighboring states; and the war which began in 1998, aimed at overthrowing Kabila. As reports by the International Rescue Committee and other groups have suggested, the last-mentioned war may be the bloodiest of all, accounting for more than two million deaths.

Biographical Note:
Thomas Turner has taught in Congo (ex-Zaire), Kenya, and Tunisia. He is currently professor of political science at the National University of Rwanda. He is the author of Ethnogenèse et nationalisme en Afrique centrale: aux racines de Patrice Lumumba (Harmattan, 2000) and co-author of Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985).

E-mail: tomedwin@mail.rw

16) Suhail Islam and Syed Hassan

THE WRETCHED OF THE NATIONS:
THE WEST'S ROLE IN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
IN THE BANGLADESH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

Abstract:
Prior to the French Revolution of 1789, the term "the people" was merely an expression heard on the lips of absolute monarchs. But after the great upheaval, "the people" rendered such a cry that Western civilization forever acknowledged that "sovereignty" indeed belonged to the people. Despite the French Revolution and after that the American War of independence in 1776, or perhaps because of them, the battles in the West were fought on cultural, political and religious grounds. This is to say, that the core of Western civilization and culture was based on the promotion of human rights and the concept of individual liberty. In this regard, Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the American Civil War declared: "They who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it."

In an ironic twist on Lincoln's words, "Human Rights" has been redefined and is the new criterion by which the West, especially the United states, considers itself to be civilized and other civilizations to be barbaric. This is a role that used to be fulfilled by imperialists in colonial societies. More recently, "democracy" and "freedom" have been used for it. As the West's claims to be a promoter and defender of these "universal values" are increasingly exposed, so the emphasis is shifting to "human rights." And yet throughout the West's history, the opponent and the main target of western countries' propaganda has remained the same: the subaltern populace of the third world pitted against the dominant ruling elite of what Said calls the "postcolonial security state." It takes only the briefest scanning of the history of human rights as a movement to confirm this analysis of its true meaning and role.

Having said this, it is not surprising to note how Western alliances in general and the Anglo-American alliance in particular have almost always protected dictatorship in the rest of the world and participated in human rights violations. The disintegration of Pakistan as a result of the atrocities committed by its armed forces is among the many instances in which the double standard of the West contributed to the tragedy of the masses in a historic proportion. In other words, our study will expose some of the new findings, such as Justice Hamoodur Rahman's report and Christopher Hitchens' perspective on West's role in the massacre of Bengalis, and explore the "great disconnect" that existed among Western governments and their people with regard to human rights violations in Bangladesh in 1971. It is further argued that the lessons of history of Bangladesh and other regions are quite clear: Human Rights and the Universal declaration of Human Rights have become the tools of the West, more specifically of the United states, in furthering its influence and interests, without actual commitment to any value system whatsoever.

Biographical Notes:

Suhail M. Islam
A native of Bangladesh, Suhail Islam has taught Language, Literature, and Culture in Bangladesh, North Africa, and Canada. He is currently Assistant Professor of English at Nazareth College of Rochester in New York. He has special interest in Subaltern Studies, Postcolonial Cultural Studies, and Human Rights Issues. His academic background includes Master's degrees in Linguistics and Literature and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication. He has published scholarly articles in Bengal Studies and Harvest. His dissertation, "Empire, Literacy, and Literary Studies," is currently being reviewed for publication.

Syed K. Hassan
Syed K. Hassan is an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Purdue University in Indiana. Hassan's doctoral dissertation, entitled "William Butler Yeats, Resistance, and Ireland," was a study of Anglo-Irish socio-political conflicts as expressed in Modern British Poetry, with an emphasis on William Butler Yeats. He also completed his Master's in English Literature and Master's in History at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Apart from five books of poetry written in English, published in Bangladesh, India, and the USA, Hassan has published articles and book chapters on both literary and historical topics. A native of Bangladesh, Dr. Hassan is also the U.S. correspondent for The Weekly Holiday of Bangladesh.

E-mail: smislam@naz.edu

17) Mario I. Aguilar

CHARLES HORMAN ET ALIA VS. HENRY KISSINGER:
U.S. INTERVENTION IN 1970S CHILE AND THE CASE FOR PROSECUTION

Abstract:
This chapter explores the role of Henry Kissinger and the U.S. Government in the destruction of democracy in Chile and the fostering of the 1973 military coup. It analyses primary sources from the U.S. National Security Archive Documents on Chile and Civil Action 77-1748, Joyce Horman et al. V. Henry Kissinger et al., that clearly implicate Kissinger in fostering human rights violations. Following the argument proposed by Christopher Hitchens in The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso, 2001), the contribution argues that the extensive killing of socialists and communists followed a genocidal policy pushed by Kissinger in the name of democracy where not even U.S. citizens were spared. The conclusion proposes that there is a clear case for international prosecution even when the U.S. has not yet ratified the United Nations Convention on Torture.

Biographical Note:
Mario I. Aguilar, Ph.D., is Chair of Ritual Studies of the American Academy of Religion and lectures at St. Mary's College, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He is the author or co-author of several books, includingThe Rwanda Genocide and the Call to Deepen Christianity in Africa (Eldoret, Kenya: AMECEA Gaba Publications, 1998). Among his recent journal publications is "The Disappeared: Ritual and Memory in Chile," in The Month: Review of Christian Thought and World Affairs, 32: 12 (1999).

E-mail: mia2@st-andrews.ac.uk

18) Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi

IN THE NAME OF THE COLD WAR:
HOW THE WEST ARMED AND FINANCED THE DICTATORSHIP THAT LED SOMALIA TO HELL

Abstract:
When young American soldiers were sent to Somalia in the thousands in 1992, they were entirely unaware of the prior Western involvement in the mess that would become Somalia. But President George Bush who had sent them there to untangle the mess was fully aware of that prior involvement; the old men at the Pentagon and the State Department also knew about that prior involvement. During the cold war era, as Cold War warriors, they had overseen massive amounts of arms and other forms of aid channeled to the Barre regime even while it was massacring its own people, engaging in "ethnic cleansing" long before the term gained currency in the Balkans and in Rwanda, and laying wasting to whole regions through artillery and aerial bombardments. This was a classic case where the young had to pay with their blood for a myopic foreign policy adopted by their elders. The West and proxy third world powers had armed the Barre regime to the hilt in the 1980s in an effort to counter the Soviet menace in neighboring Ethiopia and in Yemen (Aden). Somalia was the West's strategic outpost for watching the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf oil lanes and the oil fields of the Arabo-Persian region, especially after the fall of Afghanistan to the Soviets.

Biographical Note:
A native Somali, Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi was a radio and press journalist in Somalia in the 1980s. He did his Master's and Ph.D. studies in linguistics at the Université de Montréal. He is currently an independent language consultant, translator and researcher. His major publications include Parlons somali (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1996): The Culture and Customs of Somalia (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and "Fiasco in Somalia: The U.S.-U.N. Intervention," Africa Institute of South Africa Occasional Paper No. 61, November 1995.

E-mail: diriyeam@MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA

19) Peter Dale Scott

ATROCITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS:
U.S. DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS ABOUT MASSACRE,
FROM THE PLAINS WARS TO INDONESIA

Abstract:
Atrocities are commonly depicted as irrational outbreaks; but many if not most are also in part responses to seminal atrocities, which are usually state-inspired and thus manageable. Every world power has been established with their help, including America's. The suppression of this ugly fact contributes to its continuation. There have always been two conflicting U.S. responses to such atrocities: one condemning them as inhumane, one defending them as a necessary pacification technique. This was true of the allegedly spontaneous mass murders of Indonesia in 1965, which were actually contrived by the Indonesian Army as part of a U.S.-inspired psywar operation to terrorize the population. Thus the corpses which floated down rivers were rigged to keep them afloat. Such practices of terrorization can be traced back to the U.S. Army campaign against the western plains Indians. They were then refined in the Philippines counterinsurgency operations of 1900-05 and again in 1948-52. U.S. training in psywar has resulted in the dissemination of atrocity techniques in Asia and Latin America, down to the present day. The best antidote to such practices is publicity, which can be achieved through resources such as citizens' tribunals.

Biographical Note:
Peter Dale Scott is a former Canadian diplomat and Professor of English. His books include Drugs, Contras, and the CIA (2000), Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993), and (in collaboration) The Iran-Contra Connection (1987) and Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (1998). The poet-critic Robert Hass has written that Scott's long poem "Coming to Jakarta" is "the most important political poem to appear in the English language in a very long time." For more information, see his website.

E-mail: pdscott@socrates.berkeley.edu

20) Linda Melvern

THE SECURITY COUNCIL AND GENOCIDE

Abstract:
This chapter will focus on the response of the United Nations Security Council to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The fulfilment of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide relies on the U.N., and specifically the Security Council. This chapter will consider in detail the role of the Security Council in the 1994, with a description of how the Council conducts its work in secret and informal session. Twenty years ago the Council's work was more transparent. This chapter will explain how the secrecy in the Council developed and how, in the case of Rwanda, an open debate might well have altered the decisions that were made. This chapter will provide information from an account, obtained by the author, of the secret and informal meetings of the Council while the genocide in Rwanda was taking place.

The Council's method of working, of holding secret debates to decide "U.N. policy," is not how the founders of the U.N. intended the Council to operate. In 1945 it was expected that in the Council each member country would justify its position before world opinion. This chapter will examine the role of the non-permanent members of the Council and explain how vital to their decision-making the reports and analysis provided by U.N. Secretariat staff. The chapter will show how the 1994 genocide in Rwanda exposed deadly weaknesses in the U.N. system.

Biographical Note:
Linda Melvern is an Honorary Fellow of the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. A former journalist with the Sunday Times, London, she was a member of the paper's award winning Insight Team before leaving to write her first book on the smuggling of Western technology by the Soviet bloc and the attempts by the United States to prevent it. She has written four books of non-fiction, including a secret history of the United Nations, The Ultimate Crime, Who Betrayed the UN and Why, published in 1995 and the subject of a TV series on Channel Four TV, UN Blues. Her book on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, A People Betrayed. The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide, was published in September 2000 by Zed Books. She has written widely for the British press, including the London Review of Books, and lectures in international issues. A member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, she has published articles on the 1994 Rwandan genocide in the journals International Affairs and Security Dialogue.

E-mail: linda@melvern.co.uk

21) Denis J. Halliday

U.S. POLICY AND IRAQ:
FIRST-DEGREE MURDER OR MANSLAUGHTER?

Abstract:
This chapter, based on a speech made in Spain to an international conference in November 1999 on the United Nations regime of economic sanctions on the people of Iraq, briefly addresses the concern that those sanctions constitute genocide -- a crime against humanity. It also touches on the incompatibility of such sanctions with the provisions of the United Nations Charter and similar instruments of international law calling for the establishment of some means of oversight and control in regard to the work of the Security Council.

Biographical Note:
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Denis J. Halliday, a national of Ireland, to the post of United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level, and he served as such until the end of October 1998. During this period, the Security Council Resolution 986 "Oil for Food" Programme, introduced in 1996/97 to assist the people of Iraq under the Economic Sanctions imposed and sustained by the Security Council, was more than doubled in terms of oil revenues allowed. This enabled the introduction of a multi-sectoral approach, albeit modest, to the problems of resolving malnutrition and child mortality. Mr Halliday resigned from the post in Iraq and from the United Nations as a whole effective 31 October 1998 after serving the Organisation since mid 1964 -- some 34 years. He graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, and holds an M.A. in Economics, Geography and Public Administration.

E-mail: djhalliday@email.msn.com

22) DOCUMENT 2

Ramsey Clark, "Criminal Complaint Against the United States of America and Others for Crimes Against the People of Iraq for Causing the Deaths of More Than 1,500,000 People Including 750,000 Children Under Five and Injury to the Entire Population By Genocidal Sanctions."

23) DOCUMENT 3

Ramsey Clark, Letter to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq.

24) David Bruce Macdonald

THE FIRE IN 1999?
THE UNITED STATES, NATO, AND THE BOMBING OF YUGOSLAVIA

Abstract:
This chapter will investigate American and NATO conduct during the 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The list of charges is long: violation of the UN Charter by militarily intervening in a member country without Security Council approval; indiscriminately destroying non-strategic, urban, and civilian targets during high altitude bombing: increasing levels of ethnic cleansing and creating regional destabilisation, including massive refugee problems; blocking the Danube river, dropping weapons containing degraded plutonium, and at the conflict's end, providing insufficient aid to help the recovery of neighbouring Balkan states.

Are these events "war crimes," comparable to U.S. activities during the Gulf War? Not necessarily. A process of negotiation between warring groups was tried first, without success. America did not push Milosevic into ethnic war -- NATO's campaign was reactive, and the response time was slow. Unlike American-Kuwaiti relations, the KLA and Kosovar leadership were not close American allies. 1999 was not about creating an independent Kosovo -- this was opposed by all Balkan states. Unlike the Gulf War, America had little to gain, militarily or economically. Another crucial difference was America's lack of the same freedom of action it "enjoyed" during the Gulf War. Other NATO member states did exercise control over developments. Although the 1999 campaign was much longer than Iraq, far fewer bombs were dropped and far fewer people were killed. These differences do not excuse NATO excesses, however, and America and its allies must bear responsibility for the wrongs they have caused.

NATO member states could be charged with the indiscriminate destruction of property and the killing of civilians, (war crimes according to Ramsay Clark's definition). Officially, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has jurisdiction over every combatant in Yugoslavia, regardless of citizenship. Individual pilots and commanders could theoretically be called to the Hague, but in practice, American personnel accused of crimes would more likely stand trial at home, as they did during the Calley trial over My Lai. Here, they would be tried under the American "uniform code of military justice," based on the Lieber Code of 1863. Nevertheless, because of the humanitarian purpose of 1999, and the presumed "good faith" of those intervening, a war crimes trial would accomplish little.

Biographical Note:
David Bruce MacDonald holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics. He is Assistant Visiting Professor in Social Sciences at the École Supérieur de Commerce de Paris (ESCP-EAP). He has published widely on Serbian and Croatian nationalism and the war in Yugoslavia, with articles appearing in Slovo, Millennium, and Raisons Politiques. His Ph.D. thesis, Balkan Holocausts?, is an analysis of Serbian and Croatian propaganda and historical revisionism during the Yugoslav conflict. It is currently being reviewed for publication in the United Kingdom.

E-mail: d_b_macdonald@hotmail.com

25) Aleksandra Milicevic

A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE POISONED CITY:
THE CITIZENS OF PANCEVO ON HUMANITARIAN BOMBING AND ENVIRONMENTAL CATASTROPHE

Abstract:
This chapter will present a personal testimonies of the civilian population that was on the "receiving end" of NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. It will be based on the in-depth interviews to be conducted with the citizens of Pancevo. Pancevo is a small industrial town in Vojvodina, 10 miles north of Belgrade, that made the news due to the heavy bombing of the factories that surround the town. Unlike many other people in Serbia, the citizens of Pancevo were not scared of the bombs falling off-target that claimed the lives of innocent civilians. They were scared of bombs that were hitting targets such as the refinery, fertilizer factory and petrochemical factory, all of them situated only three miles from the town center which could destroy the whole town, and create an environmental catastrophe comparable to the one in Chernobyl. In this paper, I will let them present not only their unique experiences and survival practices, but also their views on the responsibility of those who decided that their city could be sacrificed. In addition, I will present the data on the levels of pollution before, during, and after the bombing, as well as the alarming facts about deteriorating health of the citizens of Pancevo.

Biographical Note:
Aleksandra Sasha Milicevic is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her dissertation, entitled "Joining Serbia's Wars: Volunteers and Draft-Dodgers" examines why do people go to war, through a comparison between armed volunteers from Serbia who were active in the ethnic war zones and draft dodgers/evaders from Serbia who refused to take part in the wars.

E-mail: sasham@ucla.edu

IV. CONCLUSION

26) Adam Jones

AFGHANISTAN AND THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY

Abstract:
This concluding chapter explores the U.S. "war on terror" following the events of September 11, 2001, and argues that the genocide and war crimes framework can and should be applied to the Allied campaign. It also touches on other examples suggesting that the "culture of impunity" is very much alive.