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            History Shows US Genocide Decree No Guarantee of Action

   by Margaret Besheer

   U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's designation Thursday that the
   Islamic State (IS) is responsible for genocide against some minorities
   in Iraq and Syria represents a highly symbolic and rare move.

   "It is the first time this administration has declared a genocide,"
   Cameron Hudson, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention
   of Genocide at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, told VOA.

   "The Bush administration is the last time -- in Darfur more than a
   decade ago -- that we declared a genocide. And before that it was the
   Clinton administration in Rwanda," he said.

   He said such declarations are "historic events" that become legacies of
   those presidencies.

   Deterrent

   While the designation does not legally require the U.S. to take any
   particular action, it carries a certain moral force, says Gregory
   Stanton, a Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at
   George Mason University.

   He says that in past instances such as Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and
   Darfur -- where terms such as "crimes against humanity" or "ethnic
   cleansing" were used -- no forceful action was taken to stop the
   crimes.

   "In the case of Bosnia, it was quite dramatic," Stanton said. "As soon
   as we called it genocide after the Srebrenica massacre in July of 1995,
   we began bombing the Serb forces, the Bosnian Serb forces, and it
   brought the war to an end."

   However, seven years after the International Criminal Court indicted
   the president of Sudan for war crimes, crimes against humanity and
   genocide in the Darfur region of that country, atrocities continue.

   Accountability

   Kerry said the U.S. and international community must recognize what IS
   is doing to its victims, and the perpetrators must be held accountable.

   "Naming these crimes is important, but what is essential is to stop
   them," Kerry said.

   "I think it is significant because, up until today, we have treated
   ISIS solely as a terrorist group and have been conducting a war against
   them with little regard to the crimes that were being committed on the
   ground," said Hudson of the Holocaust Museum, using an acronym for
   Islamic State.

   "This opens up a new policy approach for the administration to really
   try to gather evidence and pursue a potential prosecution for the
   crimes committed," he added.
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   uarantee-of-action/3242525.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/history-shows-us-genocide-decree-no-guarantee-of-action/3242525.html