For reason(s) yet to be communicated to me, my recent comments have not been posted on this list serve rather, they have been kept in the dialogue's net site. However, I am not discouraged and I will continue to challenge falsehood whenever I find one.
To cynical psychopaths, murder is not horrible if it is not committed in large quantity or in millions whereas normal people will be horrified at a murder of only one person. Biko Agozino asserted, "..... Nigeria killed 3.1 million Igbo people during the 30 months of the Nigeria-Biafra conflict …." As far as we know, there has not been any body counts of how many Igbo were killed during the 30 months of Nigeria-Biafra war (6 July 1967-15 January 1970). From where did Biko Agozino get his figure of 3.1 million Igbo killed in the Nigeria-Biafra war which is now reduced by Biko to conflict? Not even Chinua Achebe was definite on the number of dead Biafrans in the war when he wrote, "At the end of the thirty-month war Biafra was a vast smouldering rubble. The head count at the end of the war was PERHAPS THREE MILLION DEAD, which was approximately 20 percent of the population. This high proportion was mostly children." (p.227, There Was a Country, by Chinua Achebe). I have emboldened in capital letters Achebe's guess of *perhaps three million dead biafrans to emphasize and draw attention to the fact that the figure was uncertain and not verifiable. In a special number 6 note on page 312, Achebe wrote, "Various estimates place the number killed at over two million people." Thereby, Achebe himself admitted to inflating the figure of Biafrans killed during the war by one million. Unlike Biko Agozino who, perhaps, was an infant during the war, Achebe worked closely with the Biafran war leaders and if he could not get actual Biafran war casualties, how then could Biko Agozino get them? Remarkably, Achebe did not restrict his 3 million deaths to the Igbo alone since he was conscious of the fact that Biafra contained even the Ijaw, Ibibio and other minorities forcibly incorporated into Biafra by Ojukwu and that they also died in the war. Therefore, he offered an estimate of perhaps 3 million dead Biafrans and not just the Igbo. It is noteworthy that Achebe said that high proportion of his estimated dead Biafrans were mostly children. That implied that the children were not killed by the federal forces and that they died of starvation because Ojukwu, under whose authority the children lived, could not feed them and he refused to accept food supplies through internationally supervised land routes from Nigeria to Biafra. Therefore, Ojukwu should be held responsible for allowing the children to die of starvation. However, in Biko Agozino's 419 history, Biafra was a homogeneous Igbo country and as such 3.1 million Igbo were killed during the Nigerian-Biafran war. I am yet to discern why Biko Agozino is inventing history and manufacturing figures of Igbo victims of Nigeria-Biafra war and what he wants to achieve with his efforts.
The rationalization of genocide as justifiable because there was a coup by Igbo officers has been denied by A Yoruba leader of the coup, Ademoyega, in his book, Why We Struck. There, he revealed that the coup was motivated by the need to stop the mass violence that plagued the Western Region. Their plan was to seize power, release Awolowo from prison, and impose him as the Prime Minister. Most of the coup leaders came from the old Western Region where Awolowo was the Premier and where his policy of free education was popular.
The Igbo officers who were involved in leading the coup were also mainly from the old Western Region but the coup involved officers from all over the country. Moreover, the coup was foiled by Igbo officers who arrested the coup plotters - Biko Agozino in year 2019.
To begin with, was Major Adewale Ademoyega the leader of the coup of January 15, 1966? The answer is no if one has read Captain Ben Gbulie's book, NIGERIA'S FIVE MAJORS, an inside account of how the coup was organized and executed. The coup plotters divided the country into Northern and Southern zones. The Northern zone was assigned to Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu and he was to be assisted by Major Tim Onwuatuegwu. Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna was to coordinate all activities in the Southern zone and he was to be assisted by Majors Adewale Ademoyega, Humphrey Chukwuka and Don Okafor. Major John Obienu was to deploy his armoured vehicles in support of the officers and men operating in the Southern zone. Ademoyega's role was confined to placing troops to guard key buildings in and around Lagos. Captain Ben Gbulie was together with Majors Nzeogwu and Onwuatuegwu in Kaduna and he took active part in planning and executing the coup. He fought on the side of Biafra during the war as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Biko Agozino claimed that ''most of the coup leaders came from the old Western Region … and concluded that *the Igbo officers who were involved in leading the coup were mainly from the old Western Region .." What does Biko Agozino mean by old Western Region in this context? Employing Biko Agozino's ethnic and political language, it is a fact of history that the Hausa and Igbo controlled federal government declared a six-month State of Emergency in the Western Region on May 29, 1962 and thereby overthrew the Action Group controlled government of the Region. The Igbo Governor General of the federation signed all the 13 Acts of Emergency into law. The Emergency was used as a cover by the federal government to create Midwest Region out of the Western Region without a simultaneous creation of regions for the minorities in the Northern and Eastern Regions. The Yoruba leader of opposition at the federal Parliament was charged and jailed for alleged plan to overthrow the Hausa and Igbo controlled federal government. The new region created out of Western Region in 1963 by the Hausa and Igbo controlled federal coalition government is what Biko Agozino is now mischievously and wrongly referring to as the old Western Region because it contained Igbo speaking people of Asaba and Agbor in the present day Delta State. Forty-five officers ranging in ranks from Majors to sub-Lieutenants took part in the 15 January 1966 coup but I will only concentrate on the ethnic origins of the main executors of the coup here. Beginning with Major Patrick Chukwuma Nzeogwu, his father, James Okafor Nzeogwu, was an indigene of Obodogwu village, Okpanam in the Old Asaba division while his mother, Elizabeth Mgbeke Okafor was an indigene of Ugbolu village near Okpanam. Although Major Nzeogwu was born, grew up and schooled in Kaduna, he was according to our tradition in Nigeria an Asaba son and person. Nzeogwu killed the Premier of the North, Ahmadu Bello, two of his wives and a security guard. Asaba being the paternal origin of Major Nzeogwu, qualified him to be regarded as hailing from Old Western Region in accordance with Biko Agozino's geography of Nigeria.
Major Chris Anuforo who was known to have killed Featus Oktieboh and Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Chinyelu Unegbe, in Lagos, was an Igbo indigene of the Eastern Region stock.
Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna, who killed Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Lieutenant Arbogo Largema and Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, in Lagos, was a native of Onitsha.
Major Adewale Ademoyega who detailed troops to guard P&T headquarters in Lagos was a Yoruba man.
Major Humphrey Chukwuka was an Igbo and indigene of Nnobi, in the Eastern Region. He killed Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Pam and Colonel Kuru Mohammed in Lagos.
Major Don Okafor was a native of Umuokpu-Awka in the Eastern Region. He killed two guards attached to the House of Brigadier Maimalari but Maimalari seized the opportunity to escape. He was later caught and killed by Ifeajuna.
Major Tim Onwuatuegwu was an indigene of Nnewi in Eastern Region. He killed Colonel R. A. Sodeinde, wounded his wife seriously, killed Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun and his eight-month pregnant wife, all in Kaduna .
Major John Obienu was a native of Oba in Eastern Region, He betrayed the coup plotters to Ironsi.
Major Chude Sokei was an Igbo from Eastern Region, he was assigned to kill the Premier of the East, Michael Okpara, in Enugu, and the Premier of the Midwest Region, Denis Osadebey, in Benin. He suddenly turned to a pacifist who did not want blood-shed even when he knew his colleagues in the North, Lagos and West were already shedding blood of non-Igbo Nigerians.
Captain Emmanuel Nwora Nwobosi was a native of Obosi in Eastern Region. He killed the Premier of the West, Samuel Ladoke Akintola in Ibadan but spared the life of Remi Fani-Kayode who led him to Akintola's hideout in Ibadan. With the above narratives, it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that Major Adewale Ademoyega did not lead the 15 January 1966 coup, contrary to the assertion of Biko Agozino, although he was part of it. Furthermore, Biko Agozino lied when he asserted that most of the coup leaders and Igbo officers who were involved in the coup were mainly from Midwest Region, which he mischievously renamed Old Western Region. Out of the forty-five officers that took part in the coup, four were from Midwest Region (old Western Region) and only one, Major Nzeogwu played a leading role. The rest three were 2nd Lieutenants, C. Azubuogo, R. Egbikor and H. E. Eghagha, whose roles in the coup were very subordinate. If being a Midwest Igbo disqualified Nzeogwu and others to claim being ethnic Igbo, what then qualified Joe 'Hannibal' Achuzia an Asaba Igbo to fight on behalf of Biafra? Wasn't not Igbo ethnic affinity that made Colonel Conrad Nwawo and others to give Biafran Army free passage to invade Midwest on their way to Lagos?
Biko Agozino asserted that Igbo officers foiled the coup and arrested the coup plotters which is untrue. The coup plotters were infiltrated by the reactionary Diala Igbo led by Johnson Thompson Aguiyi Ironsi. Ben Gbulie narrated how Major Don Okafor and Captain Ogbo Oji had taken measure to prevent any step that might embody killing Ironsi. That was why when Major Humphrey Chukwuka arrived at the home of General Ironsi to kill him, Ironsi was already at Ikeja Battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Hilary Njoku to mobilize them to steal the coup of the Majors. Major John Obienu, who was supposed to support the Majors with armoured vehicles, joined Ironsi there to steal the steal the successful coup of the Majors. (p. 125-126, Nigeria's Five Majors by Ben Gbulie). The rifle men at Ikeja Battalion were mostly from the Middle-belt and Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon was used to convince the rifle men of the Battalion to help steal the successful coup of the Majors for Ironsi. If the coup was foiled by Igbo officers, as Biko Agozino want us to believe, the civilian regime should have continued and a military government led by an Igbo would not have emerged. Ironsi knew that the Prime Minister, Balewa, had been killed and since he claimed to have foiled the coup, the appropriate constitutional step for him to take must have been to provide security for the Parliament to meet and appoint a new Prime Minister among themselves. A police chief cannot become the owner of a property which he claims he has prevented a thief from stealing. An Igbo soldier claimed to have foiled a coup against an Hausa led federal government and, as a result, an Igbo soldier became the leader of the federal government. That was not foiling a coup but seizing a successful coup by force. Major Nzeogwu and his revolutionary comrades apparently never planned an Igbo coup, it was the way the Diala Igbo stole their revolution that turned it into an Igbo coup.
The 15 January 1966 aborted revolution and seizure of government by ethnic supremacists led to a counter reactionary coup from which the civil war emanated. Many innocent lives were lost on both sides. Since the civil war ended, almost 49 years ago, the political developments in Nigeria have advanced beyond what happened before and during the war. Before his death, Ojukwu contested presidential elections in Nigeria twice (in 2007 and 2011 under the platform of his political party APGA), a country he had sought to fragment into pieces by force. People of ethnic Igbo have held various important positions in the country, except that of the President. For those of us who do not care about the ethnic origin of the President but his/her competence and ability to perform to the satisfaction of all citizens, we do not think it is marginalization that an Igbo person has not been a president after the war, taken into account that we have around 300 ethnic groups and many have never even been Vice President as the Igbo. Biko Agozino wrote, "No other ethnic group matches the Igbo in their support for a united Nigeria given the way the Igbo migrate to other parts of the country..." Are all migrations in the world supports for a united world? Migration internally or externally by any individual is for personal interest. Achebe, on page 75 of his book, There Is a Country, narrates the cause of Igbo migration to other parts of Nigeria thus, "The population density in Igbo land created a *land hunger* - a pressure on their low-fertility, laterite-laden soil for cultivation, housing, and other purposes, factors that led ultimately to migration to other parts of the nation..." In fact, the Igbo have always been welcomed with open hands in every part of Nigeria they choose to live, but problems have always arisen whenever Diala Igbo wanted to ride roughshod over the people of their host communities with the intent to make OHU, slaves, out of them. To call a resistance against being enslaved hatred of the enslaver is, to me, somehow inconsiderate and insensitive.
Biko Agozino is claiming that Nigeria committed genocide against the Igbo during the 30-month civil war that he dubbed 'conflict.' The leading actor of the war from Biafra side never saw any genocide committed against the Igbo. Addressing his Consultative Assembly at the end of September 1968, Biafran leader,Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu said, "Our real victories lies in our ability to prevent the extermination of our people by a heartless enemy. In so far as these aims are concerned, we have not failed." (p.353, Biafra: Ojukwu's Selected Speeches, Volume 1). When Ojukwu was asked by Barnaby Philips in a BBC interview of 13 January 2000 if he felt any responsibility for the war, he retorted, "Responsibility for what went on - how could I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and saved the people from genocide? No I don't feel responsible at all. I did my best." I don't know from where Biko Agozino has obtained his evidence of genocide against the Igbo but I am inclined to believe that, like Hitler who repudiated the Versailles treaty of 1919 and therefore, planned the 2nd World War, Biko Agozino is repudiating the no victor no vanquish end of the Nigeria-Biafra war and intends to start a new war among Nigerians.
S. Kadiri
Från: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Skickat: den 1 januari 2019 22:13
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Unfair Asian Critiques of Adichie
Skickat: den 1 januari 2019 22:13
Till: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Unfair Asian Critiques of Adichie
The discussion going on in this forum about genocide against the Igbo in Biafra has never been held by the leftwing nor by the rightwing of the Cockroach despite calls from the likes of Soyinka, Ekwe-Ekwe, Achebe, Nzimiro, Madunagu, and scores of foreign writers. There is no other society in which 3.1 million people would be killed in 30 months of state-sponsored mass violence without thorough historical debates by intellectuals to take positionds beyond academic exercises around definitions and the clarification of concepts. When murderous African intellectuals mention Biafra and the genocide against the Igbo, it is often to deny that it took place, or to suggest that the Igbo asked for it, or to warn that such a discussion is against national interests. No one has boldly claimed that genocide is a good thing that should be visited on his or her own national group.
In the summer of 2013, five political parties from Nigeria held a town hall meeting in London. A presidential aspirant from one of the parties asked the audience to identify the major problems facing Nigeria and the possible solutions. One problem identified was that Nigeria killed 3.1 million Igbo people during the 30 months of the Nigeria-Biafra conflict but that the state and the politicians have not expressed any apology or offered any atonement to the survivors. Was any of the political parties present ready to commit to offer such a national apology and offer reparative justice to the survivors if elected into office?
Incredibly, a governor who was representing his party at the town hall while aspiring to run for the presidency answered that the killing of the Igbo was in retaliation for the killing of the leaders of other regions by military officers of Igbo descent during the January 1966 coup. He went on to say that other military coups by military officers have killed or overthrown leaders from other regions and yet no genocide has been visited against their ethnic groups as retaliation. He concluded that the Igbo had been punished enough for their foolishness but he did not offer any apology or promise any atonement to be offered to the survivors should he be elected president.
The main problem with this ideological support for genocidism is that it is widespread among literate elites in Nigeria. So long as the elites try to justify the unjustifiable killing of 3.1 million innocent Nigerians because of their ethnicity, for so long would the conscience of Nigerians be brutalized to the extent that mass violence would be seen as normal. Genocide is a crime against humanity because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The violent seeds sowed against the Igbo are being reaped in mass killings across the country. When the rain falls, it will not fall on one man's housetop.
The rationalization of genocide as justifiable because there was a coup led by Igbo officers has been denied by a Yoruba leader of the coup, Ademoyega, in his book, Why We Struck. There, he revealed that the coup was motivated by the need to stop the mass violence that plagued the Western Region. Their plan was to seize power, release Awolowo from prison, and impose him as the Prime Minister. Most of the coup leaders came from the old Western Region where Awolowo was the Premier and where his policy of free education was popular.
The Igbo officers who were involved in leading the coup were also mainly from the old Western Region but the coup involved officers from all over the country. Moreover, the coup was foiled by Igbo officers who arrested the coup plotters. Finally, the mass killing of the Igbo started in Jos in 1945 and continued in Kano in 1957 long before the coup of 1966 due to what British officials fabricated as the fear of Igbo domination just because the Igbo led the struggle for the restoration of independence. No other ethnic group matches the Igbo in their support for a united Nigeria given the way the Igbo migrate to other parts of the country and given the fact that the Igbo have voted for Northerners, Westerners and South-Southerners for president in large numbers even against Igbo candidates but no other region in Nigeria has reciprocated by voting for an Igbo presidential candidate in large numbers.
The legal definition of genocide by the UN has its uses as a deterrent to dictators, fascists and terrorists. Charges of crimes against humanity can be brought against leaders of genocidal regimes. However, even when such leaders are successfully prosecuted and punished, such legal interventions are merely symbolic because there is no punishment that could fit the crimes of genocide. It is not possible to jail or execute everybody who is implicated in acts of genocide. The vast majority of the perpetrators will always be forgiven such crimes against humanity. That was why Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu preferred the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to punitive justice.
The Justice Oputa Commission in Nigeria tried to approximate the TRC but President Olusegun Obnasanjo underfunded the commission and refused to publish the recommendations. An official version is available online. In it, there is evidence of the demand for reparations to be offered to the survivors of the Igbo genocide. The same Oputa Panel on Human Rights Violations in Nigeria contained documentation of mass violence against other communities in Nigeria and those other communities have been offered billions of naira worth of compensation while amnesties have been offered to militant groups in different parts of the country. Although no evil should be compared with other evils to see which one is the biggest evil, there is no reason why the Nigerian state would offer reparations to communities that have suffered mass violence at the hands of state officials but refuse to do so to the Igbo who suffered the foundational genocide in postcolonial Africa.
In other words, one resolution that would bring everyone together on this issue is to demand that the Nigerian government allocate funding for the study of the genocide against the Igbo and for atonement to be offered to the survivors in the interest of all Nigerians. Such reparative justice may not satisfy everyone but it is more likely to help to heal some of the wounds while serving as a teaching moment for the rest of the country to emphasize that all African lives matter all the time. No one would lose any personal privileges when Nigeria finally admits that what was done to the Igbo was evil and takes steps to end the marginalization of the Igbo since the end of the war.
If Yakubu Gowon had committed a fraction of what was spent to wage the genocidal war towards the rehabilitation of the survivors after the initial stage of the genocide, there may have been no civil war. A percentage of what the corrupt politicians steal every year from the public purse could meet the budget for a symbolic admission of wrong-doing and cover atonement for the Igbo who do not obsess about revenge or anger but have relied on their own efforts to rebuild their communities in record time. It is the ones who committed the genocide against the Igbo who still preach Igbophobia and issue expulsion threats against the Igbo, deport them from other parts of the country, or ask why they themselves are now being targeted for mass killings by their allies with whom they committed genocide against the Igbo?
Intellectuals do not have to wait for the genocidal state to take action before initiating a body of work on conceptual clarifications, theory building and scholar-activism so that we can convincingly say, never again would millions of fellow Africans by killed or targeted for elimination by state-sponsored forces while the murderous intellectuals riding on the leftwing or the rightwing of the Cockroach maintain what Soyinka condemned as the 'awful silence.'
Biko
On Tuesday, 1 January 2019, 9:19, "Kissi, Edward" <ekissi@usf.edu> wrote:
HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRIENDS!!!
Glad to be back. But while away, I followed the interesting conversation on various issues here including the ongoing discussion on Biafra and genocide. I recall that this issue has come up in this Forum before. I remember my contribution to it and Kenneth Harrow's as well. I have resisted the urge to offer a thought until I read Gloria's scenarios, and her instructive counsel that we fully understand the concept of genocide (and I would add its genealogy) before we conflate it with war crimes and other crimes against humanity.
I tend to agree with Gloria because "conceptual conflation"--- the appropriation of the word "genocide" as a descriptor of all forms of mass killing, without any careful distinctions, because of the word's emotive force and the moral and legal claims it grants victims----continues to undermine the study and understanding of genocide.
Gloria's scenarios warrant reflection. They imply, accurately in my view, that not all mass murders rise to the conceptual threshold of a genocide. Not least is that war crimes and genocide are not the same, conceptually, although they have the same outcome. They lead to death and cause suffering and trauma to the direct victims and their descendants. Medical doctors do not conflate two or more different diseases that cause suffering and call all of them by one name that grabs public attention. And the study of genocide should not be reduced to an intellectual exercise in mortality statistics. It is not a body count concept. Thus, Gloria's scenarios and advice are consistent with the many issues Martin Shaw discusses in his book What is Genocide?
Finally, let me add that the 1948 UN definition of genocide was the result of a political compromise between the United States, France, and Britain on one side, and the Soviet Union, Poland and Iran on the other. For students of genocide studies, the UN Genocide Convention is not the sole authority on what constitutes genocide. Even in recent cases of adjudication of the crime of genocide, criminal tribunals drew upon other social science concepts of genocide. In fact Ethiopia, the first nation to sign the UN Convention, redefined Article 2 of the Genocide Convention in its Penal Code of 1951. The Ethiopian concept of genocide is, therefore, much broader, and includes protection of political groups, than the UN Convention that does not protect or criminalize the destruction of an armed political or secessionist group. The Soviet delegation insisted on the exclusion of protection for political groups in the UN Genocide Convention. But, can a state or non-state group convert real ethnic or religious groups into political enemies to be destroyed? Yes, but as Gloria suggests we need to "identify the variables."
Gloria's scenarios also underscore two critical features of genocide studies. One, genocides are not committed solely by states or national governments as Raphael Lemkin originally thought. Two, non-state entities such as armed rebel or secessionist groups can commit a genocide too. So we need to get a fine grasp of the concept of genocide before we use it.
One way to get that grasp is to look at the three major ways in which genocide is studied and understood.
1. Raphael Lemkin's original definition of genocide in his only book: Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In it, the creator of the word "genocide" suggests that the crime can actually occur without a single individual killed or physically destroyed. He did not emphasize a body count (outcome) but rather process---a "coordinated plan of several actions" undertaken by a state to undermine "the essential foundations of the life" of a target group. Lemkin meant acts that included the destruction of a group's culture and the replacement of it with the colonizers' language and ways of life. This is Lemkin's original concept of genocide that the US, France and Britain feared and opposed and, thus, advocated for a legalistic concept of genocide based on specific and provable intent in a court of law. See the work of Leo Kuper for a grasp of how the international law of genocide evolved.
2. The idea of genocide in the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 and its narrow and strict focus on "the intent to destroy a group in whole or in part."
3. The many definitions of genocide proposed by scholars of genocide studies (including my own in "Obligation to Prevent," African Security Review, 2016). Although social science definitions of genocide such as Shaw's, Charny's, Chalk's and Jonassohn's, Stanton's, Stotten's, Kissi's, etc, do not have the force of law, they reveal the limits of the existing law of genocide as the site for the retrieval of adequate knowledge about genocide and the genocidal process.
I tend to agree with Gloria because "conceptual conflation"--- the appropriation of the word "genocide" as a descriptor of all forms of mass killing, without any careful distinctions, because of the word's emotive force and the moral and legal claims it grants victims----continues to undermine the study and understanding of genocide.
Gloria's scenarios warrant reflection. They imply, accurately in my view, that not all mass murders rise to the conceptual threshold of a genocide. Not least is that war crimes and genocide are not the same, conceptually, although they have the same outcome. They lead to death and cause suffering and trauma to the direct victims and their descendants. Medical doctors do not conflate two or more different diseases that cause suffering and call all of them by one name that grabs public attention. And the study of genocide should not be reduced to an intellectual exercise in mortality statistics. It is not a body count concept. Thus, Gloria's scenarios and advice are consistent with the many issues Martin Shaw discusses in his book What is Genocide?
Finally, let me add that the 1948 UN definition of genocide was the result of a political compromise between the United States, France, and Britain on one side, and the Soviet Union, Poland and Iran on the other. For students of genocide studies, the UN Genocide Convention is not the sole authority on what constitutes genocide. Even in recent cases of adjudication of the crime of genocide, criminal tribunals drew upon other social science concepts of genocide. In fact Ethiopia, the first nation to sign the UN Convention, redefined Article 2 of the Genocide Convention in its Penal Code of 1951. The Ethiopian concept of genocide is, therefore, much broader, and includes protection of political groups, than the UN Convention that does not protect or criminalize the destruction of an armed political or secessionist group. The Soviet delegation insisted on the exclusion of protection for political groups in the UN Genocide Convention. But, can a state or non-state group convert real ethnic or religious groups into political enemies to be destroyed? Yes, but as Gloria suggests we need to "identify the variables."
Gloria's scenarios also underscore two critical features of genocide studies. One, genocides are not committed solely by states or national governments as Raphael Lemkin originally thought. Two, non-state entities such as armed rebel or secessionist groups can commit a genocide too. So we need to get a fine grasp of the concept of genocide before we use it.
One way to get that grasp is to look at the three major ways in which genocide is studied and understood.
1. Raphael Lemkin's original definition of genocide in his only book: Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In it, the creator of the word "genocide" suggests that the crime can actually occur without a single individual killed or physically destroyed. He did not emphasize a body count (outcome) but rather process---a "coordinated plan of several actions" undertaken by a state to undermine "the essential foundations of the life" of a target group. Lemkin meant acts that included the destruction of a group's culture and the replacement of it with the colonizers' language and ways of life. This is Lemkin's original concept of genocide that the US, France and Britain feared and opposed and, thus, advocated for a legalistic concept of genocide based on specific and provable intent in a court of law. See the work of Leo Kuper for a grasp of how the international law of genocide evolved.
2. The idea of genocide in the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 and its narrow and strict focus on "the intent to destroy a group in whole or in part."
3. The many definitions of genocide proposed by scholars of genocide studies (including my own in "Obligation to Prevent," African Security Review, 2016). Although social science definitions of genocide such as Shaw's, Charny's, Chalk's and Jonassohn's, Stanton's, Stotten's, Kissi's, etc, do not have the force of law, they reveal the limits of the existing law of genocide as the site for the retrieval of adequate knowledge about genocide and the genocidal process.
Edward Kissi
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kwame zulu shabazz
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2018 11:03 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Unfair Asian Critiques of Adichie
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2018 11:03 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Unfair Asian Critiques of Adichie
Gloria,
That wasnt exactly my point. In my initial post regarding Biafra, I said that it seems to fit the UN definition of genocide. As a legal matter, one would need to produce evidence that Igbos were targeted for elimination. I then replied to Ken and suggested that a commonsense idea of genocide, as distinct from the formal UN definition, seems to have as it criteria the targeting *and actual elimination* of a people (This is speculative on my part. I cant say with any certainty how people understand genocide). As an example, I cited the indigenous people of the southwestern US who were targeted and wiped out.
All Black Lives Matter,
brother shabazz
Pronouns: African
On Dec 31, 2018 6:48 PM, "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:
"i must say it saddens me to see such deepseated dissension still today about whether the case of biafrawas one of genocide when so many people died under tragic conditions."harrow
Does Yemen not fit the above definition? Many died and are dying under tragic conditions.
The "Houtis" constitute a sectarian religious group with Shiite leanings, opposed to
the Sunni government faction and the Saudi camp..
If genocide is defined by a large body count in tragic conditions, Iraq in terms of the two Gulf
wars will make the list, too, especially given the difference in ethnicity of the belligerents - and the huge body count.
Was Biafra a target because of the ethnic identity of the people, therein, or because of its secessionist declaration - or both? Given the huge body count does this matter?
Kwame, Should we disqualify Biafra because there was no major reduction in the Igbo population, will that disqualify African American claims, too?
Scenario One
A small population of 1,000 people loses 800 members in the course of open warfare with people of the same religion and ethnicity. Let us say that this one was a border war, and that the other side may have lost as many. Does this qualify as genocide?
Scenario Two
A population of 1,000 people loses 800 members while fighting people of a different race, ethnicity or religion over a border dispute with no planned intention to exterminate on either side. Does this qualify as genocide?
Scenario Three
A population of 1,000 people loses 800 members while fighting people of a different race, ethnicity or religion over a border dispute with the intention to exterminate. Does this qualify as genocide?
This may seem to be an exercise in semantics by some but I believe we need to identify the variables
associated with the concept before using it. The other option, of course, is to declare all wars as genocide, given the fact that countless numbers of people die in the process.
GE
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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