60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

Report from the panel debate on
‘What is Genocide?’
John Y. Jones
This panel debate followed and responded to the keynote speech by
Alejandro Bendana. Joyce Apsel from New York University, guest lecturer
at the Holocaust Centre in Oslo, started by arguing that memories
are selective. It is decisive who we are, who we represent, and
what interest we represent. We should therefore refl ect upon where
our outrage is coming from. She also claimed that we needed to move
beyond the narrow genocide debate. There isn’t one single greatest
atrocity; but rather, many diff erent types of atrocity. The question is
how we can address both past and also present atrocity. The issues of
colonialism, nationalism and ethnic confl ict will continue to be ongoing;
one cannot isolate them, but need to ‘co-mingle’ them. Concerning
prevention of genocide, and intervention, the question will
be how we can leave with concrete proposals, for example for lobbying
or sanctions, to alleviate the crimes which have gone on throughout
history, and whose spill-over eff ects continue to our time.
For Jimmy Juma, Congolese journalist working at the Mindolo Centre
in Kitwe, Zambia, genocide is a process. This is evident in the
case of the Congo where women were buried alive in South Kivu and
others killed by the RCD (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie).
In the case of Burundi, too, genocide is a process, a cycle of
violence where victims become violators and vice versa. ‘Genocide’
depends on who is committing the crime. And interventions must
rest on the do-no-harm principle.
Bernt Hagtvet, Professor at the University of Oslo, refl ected on the
fact that our positions are conditioned by our political values. Concepts
are prostitutes, lending themselves to all kinds of abuse; an example
is democracy. There is also a conceptual infl ation: genocide is a
trump card, and everyone seeks to be included. That’s understandable
but it’s not defensible.
In our work to prevent genocide, we have fi rst of all to strive to be
honest. In the case of Mugabe, Hagtvet asked why African leaders
seemed to be unable to tell the truth and confront him.
Hassan B. Jallow, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR) pointed to the fact that genocide is not