60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

112 development dialogue december 2008 – revisiting the heart of darkness
Accordingly, the biological attack on the Delaware Indians mentioned
above was legitimised by the state through Sir Amherst’s order, while in
this sense the murder of the Herero and Nama was offi cially committed
in Germany’s name. The signifi cance of intermediary powers has also
been confi rmed in recent research into National Socialism. Detailed
analysis of the decision-making processes in German-occupied Eastern
Europe has questioned the notion of a chain of command from above
down, emphasising instead the importance of local initiative (see Herbert
2000, Gerlach 1999).
The question of the state’s role in the execution of genocide is, however,
of considerable signifi cance with respect to the forms of mass
murder: genocidal massacres do not require a large degree of organisation,
whereas the quasi-industrial extermination in camps is predicated
on a modern, centralised and bureaucratised state. As argued
above, both massacres and camps are found in National Socialism,
whereas in the colonial context massacres or other strategies with
rela tively low organisational requirements clearly dominated.
The most common form of killing was the genocidal massacre.
Whether in the Pequot War in New England or in the fi ght against
the Round Valley Indians, or at the Sand Creek Massacre, examples
of the butchering of men, women and children by bands of settlers
and local militia can be readily found. Acts of reprisals by settlers for
actual or alleged attacks by Aborigines also belong in this category,
such as were reported by The Queenslander in 1867:
There is not much more in the present system by which blacks are
shot down most ruthlessly for weeks and months after a case of
murder or theft has been reported, and when many innocent are
either killed in order that the guilty party may be included in the
number or so hunted about that the spirit of revenge is aroused in
them. (Cited in Palmer 2000: 43)
Over time, army and police units were established for this purpose.
The ‘Third Colorado Cavalry,’ responsible for the massacre of the
Cheyennes at Sand Creek was assembled especially for the fi ght
against the Indians (Chalk and Jonassohn 1990: 199-201). 44 The ‘Native
Police of Queensland’ were also state units, in this case employing
Aborigines from other parts of the country under white offi cers.
As ‘mobile death squads aimed at eradicating Aborigines’ they at-
44 The background was a confl ict between Indians and settlers, who managed to involve
the state in their struggle. The regiment deployed consisted of volunteers who were
temporarily engaged. The force they used was thus legitimised by the state.