08.06.2013 Views

Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION<br />

346<br />

Such violations included genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Prosper’s<br />

position was by presidential appointment, with senate confirmation.<br />

An attorney born in Denver, Colorado, Prosper is the son <strong>of</strong> two medical doctors who<br />

were refugees from Haiti. Ambassador Prosper was raised in New York State and educated<br />

at Boston College and Pepperdine University Law School. A career lawyer in public service<br />

in both the state <strong>of</strong> California and federally, Prosper attracted attention between 1996<br />

and 1998 as a war crimes prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda<br />

(ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. There, he successfully prosecuted the former mayor <strong>of</strong> the<br />

town <strong>of</strong> Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu (b. 1953), resulting in the first ever conviction in any<br />

courtroom specifically for the crime <strong>of</strong> genocide. An important part <strong>of</strong> the judgment saw<br />

the further development <strong>of</strong> genocide case law, as the three trial judges—Laity Kama<br />

(1939–2001) from Senegal, presiding; Navanethem Pillay (b. 1941) from South Africa;<br />

and Lennart Aspergren (b. 1931) from Sweden—ruled that rape could henceforth be<br />

considered within a general legal definition <strong>of</strong> genocide and crimes against humanity.<br />

During the summer <strong>of</strong> 2004, again in his capacity as Ambassador for War Crimes Issues,<br />

Prosper joined U.S. Secretary <strong>of</strong> State Colin Powell in the analysis <strong>of</strong> the data collected<br />

by the U.S. State Department’s Atrocities Documentation Project (ADP). The latter sent<br />

twenty-four investigators from around the world to the refugee camps in Chad for the<br />

express purpose <strong>of</strong> interviewing black African refugees about what they had witnessed and<br />

experienced in Darfur, Sudan, prior to, during, and following attacks by Government <strong>of</strong><br />

Sudan (GOS) troops and their Arab militia (Janjaweed) partners. Upon analysis <strong>of</strong> the<br />

data collected by the ADP and lengthy discussions about the legal ramifications <strong>of</strong> the<br />

findings, Prosper and Powell concluded that the GOS and Janjaweed had perpetrated<br />

genocide and possibly were still doing so. The ADP resulted in four notable firsts in international<br />

relations: (1) it was the first <strong>of</strong>ficial investigation by a sovereign nation <strong>of</strong> an<br />

ongoing case <strong>of</strong> mass violence for the express purpose <strong>of</strong> ascertaining whether or not the<br />

violence amounted to genocide; (2) Secretary <strong>of</strong> State Colin Powell’s declaration was the<br />

first time that one government formally accused another government <strong>of</strong> an ongoing genocide;<br />

(3) Secretary Powell invoked for the first time ever (by any government) Chapter VII<br />

<strong>of</strong> the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment <strong>of</strong> the Crime <strong>of</strong> <strong>Genocide</strong> to<br />

take action “appropriate for the prevention and suppression <strong>of</strong> acts <strong>of</strong> genocide,” and (4)<br />

as a direct result <strong>of</strong> the United States’ declaration <strong>of</strong> genocide, the United Nations conducted<br />

its own investigation and then forwarded its findings and those <strong>of</strong> the ADP to the<br />

International Criminal Court at The Hague.<br />

In October 2005, Prosper resigned his position in order to run for the Republican nomination<br />

for attorney general <strong>of</strong> California in the 2006 primaries. He withdrew his candidacy<br />

in February 2006 and did not proceed with his campaign.<br />

Protocols <strong>of</strong> the Elders <strong>of</strong> Zion. The Protocols <strong>of</strong> the Elders <strong>of</strong> Zion is a classic nineteenthcentury<br />

Russian forgery, based on an unrelated earlier French satire (published in<br />

Belgium) written around the time <strong>of</strong> the Dreyfus Trials in France in the 1890s, purported<br />

to be the secret meeting minutes <strong>of</strong> a group <strong>of</strong> rabbis conspiring to take over the world.<br />

Translated into French, German, English, Russian, Italian, and Arabic, as well as other<br />

languages, and now made available over the Internet by various hate-groups, it continues<br />

to be a mainstay <strong>of</strong> antisemitic individuals and organizations (despite its being declared a<br />

forgery already in 1921 in England, in 1934 in South Africa, and in 1934 and 1935 in<br />

Switzerland).

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!