The Trichotomy of Genocide in Africa: A retrospective study on applying genocide rhetoric

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The Trichotomy of Genocide in

Africa

A retrospective study on applying genocide rhetoric

Yoram Kannangara

Student number: 10469370

MA Thesis in History: Holocaust and Genocide Studies Graduate School of Humanities

4 December 2017

Supervisor: Thijs Bouwknegt

Second reader: Johannes Houwink ten Cate Word count: 26, 469

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Abstract – This thesis in history sets out to answer how the term genocide, which is proposed as a non-African term, has come to be defined and consequently applied trichotomously over the course of the past century, even prior to the term’s creation. This is done in the following contexts: under international law looking at genocide as a crime, referred to as the crime of genocide; in academic research looking at genocide as a concept, referred to as mass categorical violence; and in politics looking at genocide as a political device, referred to as the genocide device. After this, three case studies are employed to test this trichotomy of genocide in three clearly distinct settings. The case of the Herero and Nama-German War in German South-West Africa (1904-1908) accounts for the colonial setting. The case of the Burundi Killings (1972) accounts for the post-colonial or Cold War setting. The case of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan (2003-2011) accounts for the post-Cold War or post-modern setting. All cases clearly exhibit elements of the crime of genocide, mass categorical violence, and the genocide device in spite of their disparate temporal and geopolitical contexts.

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1. Introduction

Africa’s beauty is unquestionable. It is a continent deeply enriched by its national, ethnic, religious and cultural diversity. Yet it is commonly assumed that Africa’s history is mired in violence. Quantifying incidences of conflict in African states’ history of independence, Scott Straus, a political scientist and genocide scholar approximates 30 countries, equivalent to about 56% of African states, have experienced armed conflict in the post-colonial setting.1_{It is important to}

acknowledge that violence has certainly been central to Africa’s historical narrative, although contrary to popular belief Africa’s record of conflicts, comparatively assessed by length and frequency, does not outweigh that of its peer continents.2

Genocide is one of the many manifestations of violence commonly associated with the African historical narrative.3_{Also, the inflation of genocide definitions has added}

to the prevalent application of the term. This begs the question what the grounds are for such associations and application? The loose use of the term genocide for describing mass violence in Africa is caused by confusion as to its meaning, which leads to confusion as to how it may be applied. This is not to say that there is a single denotation of genocide one must ascribe to, per se. One can, however, filter and contextualize the multitude of genocide definitions. A more nuanced approach is required towards defining and applying the term, according to the context in which it is being discussed in either law, academia, or politics. The term genocide further invokes a highly emotive connotation of extremely cruel or wicked acts of violence. This thesis will explore the essence of the term genocide, in relation to African cases, stripping away the emotion to examine what it truly means and in which context. To that end the thesis will examine the extent and manner in which genocide rhetoric has

1 Scott Straus, “Wars do end! Changing patterns of political violence in sub-Saharan Africa,” African Affairs 111 (2012): 183.

2 This claim is based on data from 1960-2008. (Straus, “Wars do end!,” 186.)

3 Genocide etymologically stems from ‘genos’, the ancient Greek term for clan or race, and ‘cide’, the Latin term for killing. (Raphael Lemkin, “Genocide,” The American Scholar 15, no. 2 (1946): 228.)

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been employed in relation to African cases of mass violence during the 20th_{and early}

21st_centuries.

1.1 History of violence in Africa

Retaining the focus on Africa, a brief chronological historiography of all conflicts within the contemporary history of the continent alleged to have been cases of genocide should serve to illustrate the multitude of examples of cases to which the genocide label has been applied. Distinguishing between historical periods may serve as an analytical framework through which to view this history of violence, starting with the colonial era, which covers the course of the 19th_{century up until the end of}

the Second World War. The beginning of the 19th_{century saw Shaka Zulu’s}

expansion of the Zulu Kingdom in Southern Africa. Shaka would eradicate other chiefdoms, by ordering ‘izwekufa’ of his opponents.4_{The term ‘izwekufa’ is}

etymologically tantamount to the term genocide: “from Zulu izwe (nation, people, polity), and ukufa (death, dying, to die).”5_{During Shaka Zulu’s reign, the first}

European settlers made port in the area.6_{In North Africa, the French colonial}

conquest of Algeria ensued in the 1830s and 1840s on the other side of the continent, a case that has been contended as settler genocide given the colonists’ massacres of the indigenous Algerians.7_{The end of that same century, continuing into the next,}

marked a wave of violence under the Belgian King Leopold II in the former Congo Free State, today the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The violence included ‘techniques’ indicative of genocide, such as inflicting mental or bodily harm and killing targeted at destroying a portion of a group, and was inflicted in order to establish the sought after exploitation of the country.8_{The Herero- and Nama-German}

War took place at the turn of the century, from 1904-1908, in erstwhile German South 4 Michael R. Maloney, “The Zulu kingdom as a genocidal and post-genocidal society, c. 1810 to the present,”

Journal of Genocide Research 5, no.2 (2003): 255.

5 Maloney, “The Zulu kingdom as a genocidal and post-genocidal society,” 255.

6 Ibid., 251.

7 William Gallois, “Genocide in nineteenth-century Algeria,” Journal of Genocide Research 15, no.1 (2013): 70; 84-85.

8 Robert G. Weisbord, “The King, the Cardinal and the Pope: Leopold II’s genocide in the Congo and the Vatican,” Journal of Genocide Research 5, no.1 (2003): 35.

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West Africa, now Namibia. Here, the German settlers sought to obliterate Herero and Nama recusants, under General Lother von Trotha’s ‘vernichtungsbefehl.’9

The second stage in the periodization of Africa’s history of violence is the Post-Colonial or Cold War era, which encompasses a timeframe after the Second World War up until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Following the Algerian War for Independence from 1954-1962, the newly dominant Algerian National Liberation Front (FNL) sought reprisal of perceived Harki dissidents.10_{In 1964, the Sultan of}

Zanzibar was ousted in the Zanzibar Revolution, which effectively sought to shatter Arab dominance. Zanzibari public debate has been divided since: “CCM [Chama Cha Mapinduzi – the revolutionary party] describes the 1964 revolution as ‘glorious’, a time of great achievements, whereas the new nationalists call the event in derogatory terms: ‘rape’ (ubakaji), ‘invasion’ (uvamizi), ‘genocide’ (mauaji), ‘Holocaust’ and ‘Black January’, among others.”11_{In Equatorial Guinea, President Nguema’s regime}

from 1968 until 1979 was considered so excessively violent, the country also came to be known as Africa’s equivalent to Auschwitz.12_{Nguema would go on to become the}

first former president ever convicted of genocide by a national court since its

inception as a crime under international law.13_{A decade after Burundi’s independence}

came the Tutsi-enforced mass killings of Hutu students and elite in 1972. In a retributive action aimed at eliminating the odds of further rebellion, the Burundian army was tasked with “a campaign to eliminate any potential Hutu political

leadership.”14_{From 1976-1978, after the Ethiopian Revolution, Mengistu Haile}

Mariam’s regime aimed to eradicate any suspected resistance movements in the Ethiopian Red Terror. He was ultimately convicted in 2006 by a national court “for genocide, crimes against humanity and willful bodily injury.”15_{In the early stages of}

the Somali Civil War, specifically the period of 1988-1991, Siad Barre’s Somali Democratic Republic systemized violence against members of the Isaaq clan. The 9 Jan Bart Gewald, “Colonization, genocide and resurgence: the Herero of Namibia 1890-1933,” in History,

cultural traditions and innovations in Southern Africa (Köln: Köppe, 2000), 206-207.

10 Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York: NYRB Classics, 2006), 537.

11 Riikka Suhonen, “Mapinduzi Daima – Revolution Forever: Using the 1964 Revolution in nationalistic Political Discourses in Zanzibar” (Master Thesis, University of Helsinki, 2009), 111.

12 Cynthia Caden, “Equatorial Guinea: The Auschwitz of Africa,” EG Justice, January 13, 2010, 4.

13 Andrea Bartoli, Tetsushi Ogata, and Gregory Stanton, “Emerging paradigms in genocide prevention,”

Politorbis 47 (2010): 4-5.

14 Timothy Stapleton, A History of Genocide in Africa (ABC-CLIO, 2017), 70.

15 Firew Kebede Tiba, “The Mengistu Genocide trial in Ethiopia,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 5, no.2 (2007): 514.

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prime example hereof was the perceived genocidal operation in Northwest Somalia, Isaaq territory, which public debate has sometimes labelled the “Hargeisa

Holocaust.”16

The third stage in the periodization of Africa’s history of violence is the Post- Cold War or post-modern era, which encompasses a timeframe after the fall of the Soviet Union up until the present. In Burundi, 1993, Hutus conversely opted to kill approximately “25,000 Tutsi around the country” following the assassination of the country’s premiere Hutu president.17_{A UN Commission of Inquiry report later}

reaffirmed that this wave of violence included “acts of genocide.”18_{Rwanda drew}

worldwide attention in 1994, due to the massive persecution and genocide of the Tutsis by Hutu extremists. This was catalyzed by the death of President Juvénal Habyarimana’s, “the trigger for the genocide,” an assassination that incidentally took down his Burundian presidential contemporary as well.19_{A UN Mapping Report}

established that from 1996 to 1997, an incursion of Rwandan APR military forces into Zaire targeted Hutu refugees alleged responsible for the 1994 Rwanda genocide, who were subject to “serious human rights violations” that were “possibly crimes of genocide.”20_{From 1998-2003 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, various}

factions in the second Congo Civil War explicitly dehumanized Pygmies, a perceived ethnic group, and sought to murder or, cannibalistically, eat them. Incidents of this were confirmed by a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) report.21_{This led to an}

indirect appeal by Mbuti Pygmy representative Sinafasi Makelo to the UNSC to recognize cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.22_From

2003 onwards, the conflict in Darfur, characteristic of the turmoil in Sudan, included the persecution and systematic violence by Arab militia groups, also known as

16 Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, “‘We Swallowed the State as the State Swallowed Us’: The Genesis, Genealogies, and Geographies of Genocides in Somalia,” African Security 9, no.3 (2016): 239.

17 Stapleton, A History of Genocide in Africa, 76.

18 International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi, Final Report, 62.

19 Scott Straus, “The Order of Genocide: The Dynamics of Genocide in Rwanda,” Genocide Studies and

Prevention 2, no.3 (2007): 260.

20 UNHR Office of the High Commissioner , “Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003,” 284.

21 United Nations Security Council, “Letter dated 25 June 2003 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council,” (www-text: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/, accessed 7 August 2017).

22 BBC News, “DR Congo pygmies appeal to UN,” 23 May 2003 (www-text: http://news.bbc.co.uk/, accessed on 11 September 2017).

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Janjaweed, of local non-Arab African rebels and farmers.23_{Ultimately President Omar}

al-Bashir would become the first ever sitting president, in the world, to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for various crimes including genocide.24

As evidenced by the aforementioned cases of mass violence, the last century has been particularly trying for the continent, from its period of colonialism, through post-colonialism and following the Cold War. Although some instances are more contested than others, all of the above have at some point in time been given the label of genocide, either by politicians, academics, or courts. However, one might ask what justifies the ubiquitous application of a singular label to a seemingly disparate set of cases. What do these cases have in common? Why, if at all, can they be considered examples of genocide? Perhaps the roots of genocide in Africa are best understood by examining the roots of genocide itself.

1.2 The road to the Genocide Convention

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer, was disturbed by perceived injustices in Emperor Nero’s attempted annihilation of Christians from 64 to 68. Also, due to the Turkish victimization of the Greeks and Armenians from 1915 until 1923, and Iraqi

maltreatment of Assyrian Christians, he felt there was no crime or concept that clearly conveyed the nature of such acts of violence.25_{He was further troubled by the gradual}

move towards the persecution of Jews, and other minorities, in Nazi Germany, and warned of the intent to destroy European Jewry after 1941.26_{As a European jurist he}

was a product of Western critical legal tradition and a product of his time, where the humanity and moralities of foreign conquest and occupation had been topics of debate since the 16th_{century Spanish subjugation of the Americas.}27_{Until the late 1930’s,}

denationalization had been the word of choice in public discourse, in the English 23 This is certainly a simplification of the identity narrative in Darfur, the complexity of which is extensively argued by Alex de Waal and will be referred to in more detail in the chapter on Sudan. (Alex de Waal, “Who are the Darfurians? Arab and African identities, violence and external engagement,” African Affairs 104, no.415 (2005).)

24 International Criminal Court, “Darfur, Sudan”

25 Dirk A. Moses, "Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide," in The Oxford Handbook of

Genocide Studies (Oxford University Press, 2010), 23-24, 30-31.

Although Lemkin is known to have studied the Herero- and Nama-German War as well, he never actually referred to it as genocide. (Dominik J. Schaller, “Raphael Lemkin’s view of European colonial rule in Africa: between condemnation and admiration,” Journal of Genocide Research 7, no. 4 (2005): 534.)

26 Moses, "Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide," 31-31.

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language, for the destruction of a nation and the characteristics thereof.28_{The Dutch,}

however, already employed the term volkerenmoord, which translates to murder of a people.29_{As a matter of fact, the term is still used interchangeably today, as evidenced}

by recent debates in the Dutch House of Representatives.30_{This term exists in the}

German language as well as völkermord. However, these terms did not encompass the broad nature of destruction Lemkin wished to define: political, social, cultural, economic, biological, physical, religious, and moral destruction.31_{The essence of this}

line of thought is that Lemkin sought to define group destruction.32_{As a side note, the}

global term Lemkin sought to define did technically already exist, as evidenced by the aforesaid ‘izwekufa’ in the Zulu language a century beforehand. Furthermore, the term denationalization was “mostly used for conveying or for defining an act of deprivation of citizenship.”33_{This means that it was neither a suitable conceptual term}

because it could not explain the scope and nature of certain acts of violence, nor was it a crime under international law.

In 1933, Lemkin formulated two new concepts: acts of barbarity and acts of vandalism, which he hoped, before the League of Nations, to incorporate into criminal law as crimes. Acts of barbarity were described as being attacks on individuals for their membership of a group with the intent to cause damage to, or the extermination of, that group.34_{Such acts were to be considered detrimental to both human rights and}

the existence of social order.35_{Extermination is not, however, to be considered}

synonymous with genocide. 36_{Acts of vandalism were defined as occurring in a}

28Lemkin, “Genocide,” 227.

29 Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, “Een belangrijk document betreffende den heiligen orlog van den Islam (1914) en eene officieele correctie,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië 73, no.2

(1917): 284.

30 Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal, CAVV/EVA-advies over gebruik door politici van de term genocide, no. 79 (34 550 V, 23 June 2017).

31 Moses, "Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide," 34-35.

32Raphael Lemkin, “Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offences Against the Law of Nations,” (www-text: http://www.preventgenocide.org/, accessed on 10 June 2017).

33Raphael Lemkin, Axis rule in occupied Europe: laws of occupation, analysis of government, proposals for

redress (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, 1944), 80.;

Lemkin, “Genocide,” 227.

34 Lemkin, “Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offences Against the Law of Nations.”

35Ibid.

36 Extermination constitutes a crime against humanity under international law as elaborated upon in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to be discussed later. “‘Extermination’ includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.” (International Criminal Court, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, A/CONF.183/9 (1998), Article 7, paragraph 2b.)

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similar context but specifically committed with the purpose of destroying cultural heritage (science, literature, etc.) and works of art.37_{Lemkin’s attempt to introduce}

these concepts proved futile, as his proposition was dismissed at a conference in Madrid.38_{Undeterred, he would go on, during the course of the Nazis’ ‘Final}

Solution’, to publish a study in 1944 titled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, which finally provided a conceptual framework and possible name for the “crime without a name.”39_{Developing upon his previous propositions, of barbarity and vandalism,}

Lemkin would come to be known as the man who coined the term genocide as we know it today. He expressed it as follows:

By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group… [genocide] is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing)… It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.40

Within a few years, the term genocide, which up until the point Lemkin made it up had remained in conceptual limbo, would be officially recognized in the 1946 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96 (I).41_{It was considered a crime and a}

culpable contradiction to the UN values, thus in need of a workable definition.42_As

such, genocide would become one of the most atrocious crimes punishable within the legal framework of international law.43_{This was also the stepping-stone towards its}

37Lemkin, “Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offences Against the Law of Nations.”

38 Moses, "Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide," 31.

39 Ibid., 32.

40Raphael Lemkin, Axis rule in occupied Europe: laws of occupation, analysis of government, proposals for

redress, 79.

41 United Nations, General Assembly Resolution 96 (I): The Crime of Genocide (1946), 188-189.

42 Ibid.

43 This came too late for the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-1946, in which the Nazi leadership were tried under international rule of law for crime against peace or humanity, war crimes, and war of aggression.

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inclusion and elaboration in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention). De facto and de jure, the Genocide Convention became effective upon ratification per 1951,44_{and is}

now ratified by 148 states.45_{It was, however, subject to definitional revision in the}

process. This produced the expansive modern-day definition of genocide under international law, which can be explained summarily as partially or completely destroying national, ethnic, racial or religious groups, or at least aspiring to do so. It is exemplified by acts of killing or seriously harming group members both physically or mentally, calculatedly wreaking physically destructive conditions of life on the group, and inflicting birth-prevention measures or forced transfer of children to another group.46

The term genocide, next to its application as a crime in legal proceedings, also became a topic of discussion in academic research, specifically the social sciences and humanities such as sociology, criminology, anthropology, political science, and history, where it is used as a research concept. Moreover, it became a topic of discussion in politics and the public domain. The term genocide created a fresh analytical perspective on complex cases of so-called mass violence that had

previously proven difficult to define or explain, of which the killing of Jews during the Holocaust is a prime example. Yet, one must keep in mind the term was also specifically coined in the context of the Holocaust, primarily a European

phenomenon. It was thus built using norms, values, and concepts inherent to the principles of Westphalian sovereignty and Western social identity. These principles, including the notion of the nation-state are what have defined the West as an initially geopolitical entity, an abstract identity that has come to signify a broader shared set of political ideologies since the Second World War. In the colonial context, the West can be defined as the European colonial powers. In the post-colonial context, following the Second World War, the West can be defined as Western European and

Anglophone countries. In the post-Cold War context, the West can be defined as encompassing European and Anglophone countries, under primary influence of the hegemonic states.

44 United Nations, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1951).

45 United Nations, “Genocide – United Nations Treaty Collection,” (www-text: https://treaties.un.org/, accessed on 12 June 2017).

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Although the United Nations officially came into being in 1945, following the Second World War, its name was coined as early as 1942 by the leaders of the West. USA President Roosevelt invented the term whilst British Prime Minister Churchill aided him in drafting their “Declaration by United Nations.”47_{The declaration was}

signed by 26 Allied states, of which South Africa was the only African one.48_The

General Assembly, a principle organ of the UN, became the platform upon which its member-states, granted equal representation, could pursue and debate general policy resolutions. Upon the introduction of the Genocide Convention in 1948, the UN had 58 members-states, of which only four were African: Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa.49_{These were the sole fully autonomous states on the continent at that}

time. Only the former three opted to sign the treaty.50_{In fact, Ethiopia was the first}

country to ratify the treaty, of all member-states, on 1 July 1949.51_{As a matter of fact,}

the Ethiopian Penal Code would incorporate genocide in 1957 as well, effective a year later, broadening the definition to protect the rights of political groups as well.52

Presumably, South Africa opted out because of its recently chosen segregationist government pushing Apartheid. The remaining African colonial states were denied the empowerment afforded by the UN and the Genocide Convention, and thus kept in a position of weakness as there was little room for African input. At the time of the treaty’s effectuation in 1951, few European colonial powers had considered

relinquishment of colonial territories although that decade would bring dramatic policy changes herein.53_{It appears likely they wished to sustain their position of}

Western supremacy over their colonial subjects as long as possible.

1.3 Studying genocide in Africa

As Timothy Stapleton, a professor of history, posits: “the mid-20th_{-century emergence}

of the concept of genocide and its international legal definition had little to do with 47United Nations, “History of the United Nations,” (www-text: http://www.un.org/, accessed on 12 June 2017).

48 United Nations, “The Declaration by United Nations,” (www-text: http://www.unmultimedia.org/, accessed on 12 June 2017).

49 United Nations, “Growth in United Nations Membership, 1945-present,” (www-text: http://www.un.org/, accessed on 12 June 2017).

50 United Nations, “Genocide – United Nations Treaty Collection,” (www-text: https://treaties.un.org/, accessed on 12 June 2017).

51 Ibid.

52 Ethiopia, Penal Code of the Empire of Ethiopia of 1957 (1957): Article 281.

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Africa, which at the time, was a colonized continent with almost no autonomous representation in the global community.”54_{In the 1950s, as independence followed for}

many African former-colonial states, seeking to position themselves in the

international community, they were forced to adjust to pre-existing international legal norms, however new these may have been. States refusing to collaborate could be subject to intervention anyway if crimes as formulated under international law were to occur on their soil. Tim Kelsall, a professor of political economics, questions the imposition of international criminal justice, acknowledging it as a possible form of new cultural imperialism as it does not reflect norms and values that may be at the heart of a subjected society. He accordingly asks, “What are the prospects for the rule of law earning legitimacy if international interventions are imposed on local cultural beliefs and practices?”55_{Why would African states choose to participate in a system}

that remained essentially juxtaposed to their own intrinsic societal values? One might also ask why they didn’t apply that rule of law to hold their former colonists

accountable for their crimes. Retroactive application of law is difficult, especially decades after the fact,56_{and it most probably would not have helped improve}

interstate relations. Naturally, assimilating to preset standards was in the best interest of said states as they would otherwise have remained in a position of relative

weakness within the international socio-political and economic arena, which can be characterized as dependency.57_{This is evidenced in the context of recent}

decolonization, by an African studies professor Ira Zartman, as the following:

The attainment of political sovereignty masks the reality of continued dependence on world economic structures, and… the metropolitan countries block African development by co-opting African leaders into an international social structure that serves the world capitalist economy.58

This suggests a lack of choice in assimilating to the pretexts of the international political arena. As such, approximately 50 African states, the non-initial signatories of 54 Stapleton, A History of Genocide in Africa, 1.

55 Tim Kelsall, Culture under cross-examination: international justice and the special court for Sierra Leone (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 8.

56 More on this later, see legal imprescriptibility.

57 Ira William Zartman, “Europe and Africa: Decolonization or Dependency?,” Foreign Affairs 54, no.2 (1976): 325.

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the Genocide Convention, would have to collaborate with the novel international legal concept of genocide, despite not having had a say whatsoever in its genesis.59_This

was the first discrepancy in applying genocide rhetoric to Africa. In spite of this, two Rwandans represent two of the more significant milestones in the history of genocide under international law. On 1 May 1998, Jean Kambanda was the first person to ever admit to responsibility for genocide before an international tribunal.60_{Jean Paul}

Akayesu, on 2 September that same year, was the first person to ever be convicted of genocide by an international tribunal.61

In the domain of the general public that composes the international community the last decades, especially post-Rwanda in 1994, there has been a movement for prevention of, intervention in, and education about, genocide.62_{This is especially the}

case in Western states where a wave of moralism and humanitarianism instigated anti-genocide campaigning in relation to Africa, but “such discourse has often prolonged wars in post-colonial Africa.”63_{Anti-genocide rhetoric draws in attention from the}

outside world, which might rally sympathy and action for victims. However, it can also lengthen conflict because the international community takes sides on an issue it has little comprehension of, or because high level perpetrators such as state leaders have become targets for indictment, an example being Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. Stapleton also illustrates how anti-genocide rhetoric can prolong conflict, referring to support from the international community for Biafra separatism in the case of Nigeria, which seemingly lengthened the Nigerian Civil War.64

The clear international influence of genocide rhetoric has seemingly affected some African states’ notion of its conceptual and legalistic validity. In that sense, a fresh look at genocide as a concept or as a crime, from a contemporary perspective, has become all the more relevant as well, following the recent threat of withdrawal of three African states from the International Criminal Court (ICC), namely South Africa, Burundi and Gambia. This is interesting because the ICC is, amongst other 59 Stapleton, A History of Genocide in Africa, 2.

60 United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, “ICTR Milestones,” (www-text: http://unictr.unmict.org/, accessed on 10 October 2017).

61 Ibid.

62Colin Thomas-Jensen and Julia Spiegel, “Activism and Darfur: Slowly Driving Policy Change,” Fordham

International Law Journal 31 (2008): 844-845; 849-852.

Meghan McGlinn Manfra and Jeremy D. Stoddard, “Powerful and Authentic Digital Media and Strategies for Teaching about Genocide and the Holocaust,” Social Studies 99, no.6 (2008): 262-263.

63 Stapleton, A History of Genocide in Africa, 8.

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things, the institution mandated to try worldwide accusations of genocide. Hence it is somewhat symbolic of the imposition of the previously mentioned new cultural imperialism. However, it must also be noted this is the seemingly logical expedient main argument made most by the African criminal defendants indicted by the ICC, including Omar al-Bashir. Ultimately, only Burundi has committed to seeing this withdrawal through, although that makes the contextual relevance of a case study of the Burundi killings of 1972 well suited to this research.65

Another issue with the application of genocidal rhetoric is that of Western partiality to genocidal violence, as the Western powers that be, including the USA, tend to categorize violence as “constructive,” “nefarious,” “benign,” or “mythical” according to the political agenda they wish to pursue.66_{This way Western state actors}

intentionally limit themselves to a singular self-servicing perspective of a conflict by ignoring its potential complexity, or the needs of those caught up in it, in order to benefit policy-making and guide state action.67_{This has possible consequences at}

political and economic levels for the progress of conflicts in non-Western states, including African ones, with regard to the role Western actors decide to assume in intervention, aid, trade or restraint. It also has legal consequences, as it dictates the extent to which Western states will lobby for, or against, accusations of genocide within the context of international criminal law.

In spite of the questionable application of genocide rhetoric to the continent of Africa, scholars of African history and politics, such as Stapleton and Straus, have a compelling rationale for the study of genocide in Africa despite its inherent diversity. Stapleton makes note of Africa’s somewhat shared history, starting in the 19th_century,

of European colonialism that exerted a significant shift in social and economic culture and practice, sharply ending in the mid-20th_{century through the conversion to}

independence.68_{Also, Africa’s historical context remains rather discrepantly}

65 The ICC’s jurisdiction does not predate its working establishment in 2002. Yet, as stated above, it is the institution mandated with trying worldwide accusations of genocide. This makes it interesting that a country (Burundi) that has purportedly experienced more than one case of genocide choses to reject such an institution. Possibly because they reject the imposition of a certain rhetoric juxtaposed to the norms of their own society; a rejection of (Kellsall’s) new cultural imperialism? So then, new cultural decolonization?

66 Martin Shaw, “The Politics of Genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research 13, no. 3 (2011): 353.

67 As such, there are cases of purported genocide in the West that are rarely dealt with. For instance the American colonization of California and their consequent “war of genocide” on the local Yuki Indians, from 1854 to the beginning of the 20th_{century, caused a near borderline extinction. (Benjamin Madley, “Patterns of Frontier}

Genocide 1803-1910: the aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia,” Journal of

Genocide Research 6, no.2 (2004): 176-181.) 68 Stapleton, A History of Genocide in Africa, 9.

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incomparable to the rest of the world.69_{Straus, in a study of post-Cold War}

Sub-Saharan Africa, lists contemporary commonality of African states through their shift from single-party colonial states to independent multi-party democratic ones.70_He

also lists African states as having generally low-income economies fueled primarily by commodity-exports and international aid.71_{In spite of innate socio-cultural}

differences between African states, it appears obvious they have shared a similar historical process over the course of the past century. These processes have seemingly set the stage for conflicts in various examples across the continent, mentioned at the beginning of this introduction. Hence, the past century will approximately frame the period of discussion for this thesis.

1.4 Aims and objectives

This thesis aims to test the applicability of the genocide label, also questioning the Western origins of the term, to Africa in general and three cases in particular that have been labelled genocide in the past. This will be done by looking at three manners in which genocide can be applied: as a crime, as a concept, and as a political device. Although this is a history thesis, the approach will not limit itself to said discipline but incorporate elements from other scientific disciplines grounded in the social sciences and humanities as well. These include philosophy, criminology, anthropology, sociology, political science and international relations, but also law. Interweaving various disciplines should only serve to broaden the research base and strengthen the analysis, in answering the following primary research question:

How and to what extent has genocide rhetoric been applied to cases of mass violence in Africa over the course of the 20th_{and early 21}st_centuries?

The objective of this thesis is to garner a more succinct understanding of genocide as a crime as it may be applied to cases in Africa, according to its

internationally recognized definition put forth by the UN. Also, the aim is to gain a 69 Ibid.

70 Scott Straus, Making and Unmaking Nations: War, leadership and genocide in modern Africa (London: Cornell University Press, 2015), 89.

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more comprehensive understanding of genocide as a concept, applied academically, by taking it apart and putting it back together. This entails scrutinizing a multitude of theoretical approaches, to be discussed in the theoretical chapter, and assessing their usefulness in the context of this thesis. The purpose is not necessarily to formulate a new concept, but rather dissect what is available in the field and incorporate suitable options for the analyses of the case studies. Additionally, the goal is to further fathom the role of genocide as a political device by identifying the term’s use for the purpose of political strategy in the international political arena. This will be done by

scrutinizing the actors who employ the term. What follows from all this, is the possibility of refining one’s understanding of genocide as a crime, a concept, and a political device in Africa through the identification of commonalities or clear-cut distinctions between several case studies, elaborated upon below.72_{However, in order}

to define and apply the term genocide from these three perspectives to cases in Africa, one must investigate and assess the roots of the term itself and question its universal applicability. Hence, the following two sub-research questions, framed from a theoretical perspective, will support the primary research question:

1. How can the term genocide be defined and applied legally, conceptually, and politically?

2. What is the comparative pertinence of the trichotomy of genocide in the

cases of Namibia, Burundi and Darfur?

A collective of the three varying definitions and uses of the term genocide as a crime, a concept, and a political device, may be referred to as the trichotomy of genocide. Despite the multiplicity of purported genocides in the continent of Africa, as mentioned at the very start of this introduction, this thesis will limit itself to three particular case studies, selected according to the timeframe in which they took place, at approximately the beginning, middle, and end of the past century. This puts some space between the cases and allows for them to be examined in the context of the international political setting and time period in which they took place. These periods are before the Genocide Convention during colonialism, shortly after the Genocide 72 One must bear in mind that the term genocide may be inappropriate as a label for some of the later case studies.

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Convention during the colonialism/Cold War era, and in a modern setting post-Cold War. Although the timeframes are clearly delineated, the specific case studies to be examined within each timeframe were selected at random. Each case will examine the applicability of genocide as a crime, a concept, or a political device. The first of these case studies will examine the pertinence of genocide to a colonial African setting, examining the case of the Herero- and Nama-German War in Namibia, formerly German South West Africa (1904-1908). The second case study will inspect the pertinence of genocide to a post-colonial African setting, examining the case of the Burundi killings of 1972. The third case study will look at the pertinence of genocide to a post-Cold War African setting, examining the case of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan (2003-2011).

The second chapter of this thesis, assuming the introduction to be the first, will install the theoretical framework providing the foundation for the analysis. This will be done by browsing through the roots of the term genocide and then a comparative history of genocide as a crime, as a concept, and as a political device. The chapter will illustrate the theories behind the application of the term genocide (the genocide rhetoric) in international law, social sciences, and politics, so that the groundwork is in place for the case studies. The third to fifth chapters will operationalize the theory to address the case studies, respectively. This will be done by looking at how

genocide is applicable to each particular case through three lenses: legally,

academically and politically. The legal lens examines genocide as a crime, and within the framework of international law the thesis will propose applying genocide as the

crime of genocide. The academic lens scrutinizes genocide as an analytical concept,

and within the framework of academia the thesis will propose applying genocide as

mass categorical violence. The political lens analyzes genocide as a political strategy

concept in the form of a political device, and within the framework of politics the thesis will advance applying genocide as the genocide device. Each chapter will introduce the audience to a brief history of violence in the country being studied, followed by three parts addressing the perspectives from each respective lens, and ending with an analytical discussion of the research findings. The final chapter will readdress the core elements of the theory in relation to the principal conclusions of the respective cases, ending with a compact reflection regarding the research process and findings of this thesis.

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This study will relay and contextualize genocide through its definition as a crime and its conceptualization within the social sciences, as well as its usage as a political device, most likely leading to more questions than answers. This may well be inevitable, as one cannot truly explain genocide in all its deeply rooted complexity as a singularly defined term and perhaps instead of trying to assert exact labeling, one should merely be trying to ask the right questions, or at least questions that have not been asked before.73_{To that end, this thesis will employ a purely qualitative approach.}

It will mainly draw its arguments and data from secondary sources in the legal, social scientific, and historical literature available, to be discussed in the coming chapter. Primary sources will play a smaller role in formulating the argument and stem mostly from United Nations (UN) legislative documents as well as some early material by Lemkin. The nature of this thesis is mainly abstract and theoretical, aiming to providing a succinct historiographical conceptualization of genocide as a crime, concept, and political device in relation to genocides in Africa.

The framing of the theory and consequently linking it to perceived historical cases of genocide, proves the most challenging element of this thesis. Striking, is a notable divergence of approaches to genocide but also that said approaches are often grounded in the Western perspective. One can easily conclude prematurely that genocide, as a concept, is still not fully understood as of yet in neither academic nor political or public circles, even in the fields of genocide studies and African studies. Hopefully a more comprehensive understanding thereof will be brought forth by this thesis and thus help to sift through the arguments that comprise the continued debate on genocides in Africa and their causes. It must be noted that the case study content of this piece does not assume to reflect the nature of genocide in all cases of genocide in Africa. As its primary aim, it represents the hope of providing a new window through which to perceive a well-known yet overly contested topic of discussion.

73 This is particularly relevant to the use of the term conceptually and politically. As a crime under international, the definition of genocide may be singular. Yet the lack of simplicity such a singular definition affords can be seen in the difficulty encountered in applying the term as crime and achieving consequent convictions.

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2. Trichotomy of Genocide

A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego.74

2.1 Introduction

This chapter will begin by examining the genesis of the term genocide. This will evidence the argument of the questionable compatibility with African principles, without claiming the principles of the latter to be unanimous. Then, the theoretical discussion will be put forth that forms the primary basis for this thesis, regarding the term genocide as applied in international law, social sciences, and politics in order to show what genocide is, but also what it is not. This will be done through three successive steps. The first step herein, is taken from the standpoint of international law, looking at genocide as a crime. To this end, a conceptualization of what

constitutes a crime will be followed up by an examination of genocide in international law and the use of its definition as a legal instrument, after which issues of debate and the applicability of the term to cases in Africa will be discussed. The second step is taken from the perspective of academic research, the social sciences particularly, regarding genocide as a concept. This will start off with a breakdown of conceptual ontology, after which a comparative listing will be made of various approaches to, and definitions of, genocide and acts or crimes that it is sometimes synonymized with. Here, various recurrent criteria from different conceptions of genocide are identified for analytical purposes, complemented by alternative concepts. The perusal of the disparate concepts will lead to the identification of the most pertinent concept of genocide in relation to the case studies. The third step focuses through the lens of politics. This will look at genocide as a political device, asking how and why the term genocide is used in politics, what can be achieved through this and how genocide can be applied, in this context, for understanding African cases. The chapter will end by highlighting the critical elements: partial incompatibility of Western genocide rhetoric

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and the trichotomy of genocide in international law, academic research, and politics, based on the various perspectives put forth in this chapter.

2.2 Genocide: a universal term?

Lemkin’s zealous strife to delineate a meticulous framework for countering

incidences of perceived social injustices and atrocity worldwide, eventually coincided with the epitome hereof: the Holocaust, lasting from 1941 until 1945. The mass killing of Europe’s Jewry hence came to serve as a clear-cut case example around which Lemkin could further structure the final stages of his assertions, culminating in the 1948 Genocide Convention. The first mention of genocide in a legal setting, was therefore already made at the 1946 subsequent Nuremberg Trials where the Nazi leadership were prosecuted, some of whom for acts later deemed to have had a genocidal nature.75_{That is how the extent of the term’s applicability was first tested in}

a European setting, by referencing it in relation to the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Although they were responsible for the Holocaust, the Nazi leadership were indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against peace, and conspiracy to wage aggressive war.76_{According to William Schabas, an international and criminal}

human rights law professor, “It was Nuremberg’s failure to recognize the international criminality of atrocities committed in peace time that prompted the first initiatives at codifying the crime of genocide.”77_{This obviously had an influence on UN policy}

makers at the time, who also wished to make the denotation of the crime sufficiently expansive to allow for future application, whilst wishing to accommodate their national prerogatives as well.78

The Genocide Convention drafting process occurred in three phases.79_The

first, more conceptual, draft was headed by the Norwegian Secretary-General Trygve 75 Matthew Lippman, “The drafting of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” Boston University International Law Journal 3, no.1 (1985): 4.

76 Abraham Hoschander, “Judgment at Nuremberg: justice and morality,” National Jewish Law Review 5 (1990): 164.

77 William A. Schabas, “Origins of the Genocide Convention: From Nuremberg to Paris,” Case Western Reserve

Journal of International Law 40 (2007): 36.

78 Matthew Lippman, “A road map to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime Genocide,” Journal of Genocide Research 4, no.2 (2002): 179.

79 The first draft was written by the UN Secretariat assisted by Raphael Lemkin, Vespasian Pella, and Henri Donnedieu de Vabres. The second phase occurred under an Ad Hoc Committee authorized by the Economic and Social Council. The third phase occurred under the the Sixth Committee of the General Assembly. (Schabas, William A. “Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” United Nations

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Lie, aided by three legal experts. Vespasian Pella was a Romanian jurist and academic, as well as being one of the prominent advocates for an internationally oriented criminal court.80_{Henri Donnedieu de Vabres was a French criminal law}

professor and judge at the Nuremberg Trials, who argued for a system of universal jurisdiction in international law.81_{The third was Lemkin. Most notably, this definition}

of genocide made a distinction between physical, biological, and cultural genocide,82

and aimed to protect “racial, national, linguistic, religious, or political groups.”83_The

drafters recognized the premature phase that the first draft represented and drafted it as such, “In view both of the fact that the draft Convention is intended to form a basis of discussion and to facilitate such discussion and that genocide is a new subject.”84

The Economic and Social Council’s Ad Hoc Committee that authored the second draft was chaired by a USA and a USSR representative, collaborated upon with representatives from Lebanon, France, China, Poland, and Venezuela.85_This

draft explicitly stated that the Committee had, “Resolved not to take as a basis any of the drafts before it… but to take them into account.”86_{The most interesting element of}

this draft was its inclusion of a preliminary first article, defining genocide as, “a crime under international law whether committed in time of peace or in time of war.”87_This

insertion would ensure a broader scope of applicability for the crime, beyond armed conflict.88_{The second draft was then introduced at the tertiary phase to the Sixth}

Committee, the legal committee, of the UN General Assembly, which finalized its contents but notably chose to omit political groups from the definition of genocide.89

Then the third draft was presented at the plenary General Assembly meeting where the 56 attendees cast a unanimous vote in favor of the Genocide Convention.90

80 Vespasian Pella, “Towards an International Criminal Court,” American Journal of International Law 44 (1950): 37-38.

81 Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, “The System of Universal Jurisdiction: Historical Origins and Contemporary Forms,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 9, no.4 (2011).

82 United Nations Secretary General, Draft convention on the crime of genocide (E/447, 26 June 1947): 17.

83 Ibid., 20.

84 Ibid., 19.

85 Ad Hoc Committee on Genocide, Report of the Committee and Draft Convention drawn up by the Committee (E/794, 5 April-10 May 1948): 3.

86 Ibid, 4.

87 Ibid., 11.

88 Lippman, “, “A road map to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime Genocide,” 180.

89 Ibid., 181.

90 United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” Audiovisual Library of International Law, (www-text: http://legal.un.org/, accessed on 22 August 2017).

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At the time of the Genocide Convention’s introduction, the United Nations only had four African member-states, these being Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, and South Africa. Three of the states chose to sign it, with only South Africa opting out. Also, as previously mentioned, Ethiopia was the first of all member-states to ratify the treaty.91

All other African countries at that time were still subjugated to some form of European colonial rule. Most noteworthy in the process leading up to the Genocide Convention is the seeming absence of African states in the actual formulation of it, as evidenced by the above listing of states and individuals who made up the drafters. There are two distinct steps in adopting a convention, the first is the drafting and the second is the voting. Once an issue gets to vote in the General Assembly a two-thirds majority is required.92_{This begs the question what input a minority four African}

countries counting non-signatory South Africa, an approximately miniscule 7% of the General Assembly, truly had in the last stage of realizing the Genocide Convention. Only minor revisions were made in this stage anyway, so the African perspectives may as well have been neglected altogether. More equal continental representation in the drafting stages would have compensated Africa’s relative disenfranchisement. The irony is that the Genocide Convention was intended to ensure the security of minority groups.93_{Their presence was clearly minimally felt in the authorship of this}

convention.

The Genocide Convention incorporated the terms race, ethnicity, nationality and religion in order to classify potential victim groups, all Western concepts except for religion and all representative of the time the convention came about. The logic being that these groups were deemed to have overlapping characteristics:

“cohesiveness, homogeneity, inevitability of membership, stability and tradition.”94

These terms were never clearly denoted and thus their semantically Western origins, however vague, must be taken as a starting point when contemplating their meaning. The victim group of nationality was recognized according to its nation-state.95_The

nation-state and thus nationality are the products of the Westphalian system, an 91 UN, “Genocide – United Nations Treaty Collection.”

92 United Nations, Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice (1945): Article XVIII.

93 Lippman, “The drafting of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” 3.

94 Lippman, “A road map to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime Genocide,” 181.

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inherently European political system of sovereign governance.96_{The concept of the}

nation-state in Africa was a European import and the colonial states had limited autonomy in accordance with that model. When decolonization took place, the

African countries were left economically weak with geopolitical borders that had been forced upon them by their colonizers. The nation-state had been foisted on Africans and in that sense the category of nationality had been imposed by the colonial powers. Nationality is what they needed and have maintained since however to assimilate to the international political arena following decolonization. In that sense nationality can be considered an appropriate victim category of genocide in the context of Africa. The victim group of religion was illustrated by a shared spiritual conviction albeit atheistic, theistic, or non-theistic.97_{Defining religion so broadly makes the concept}

all-inclusive for varying beliefs, including in Africa. Member-states were divided on employing the racial category as many equated it to the preferred ethnical category, which referred to distinguishable minorities defined by culture for example but both were implemented nonetheless.98_{Subsequently they failed to define culture, in and of}

itself a culturally subjective term.

The UN’s official working languages upon the creation of the Genocide Convention were English and French.99_{Therefore these European languages,}

contributed by states sharing the principles of Westphalian social identity, decisively governed the terminological nuances in the convention as well. Kenan Malik,

philosopher and neurobiologist, highlights that racial thinking is reflective of a society’s view of its relationship with humanity, the meaning of which is constructed historically and socially.100_{He further claims that, in the British context, “In legal and}

political, as in academic, discourse the concept of race is borrowed from everyday perceptions of differences and subsequently acts to legitimate as true the very definition on which it was based in the first place.”101_{In the French context,}

categorizing race or ethnicity was reproachable and formally avoided in its egalitarian 96 Jason Farr, “Point: The Westphalia Legacy and the Modern Nation-State,” International Social Science

Review 80, no.3/4 (2005): 156-158.

97 Lippman, “A road map to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime Genocide,” 182.

98 Ibid.

99 United Nations, Resolution 2i (1946).

100 Kenan Malik, The Meaning of Race: Race, History, and Culture in Western Society (New York University Press, 1996), 5-6.

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post-WWII politics of equality before the law.102_{This indicates, keeping in line with}

Malik, the subjectivity of racial thinking. Language and culture, though not the same, both malleably evolve from one another. One may presume that upon drafting the Genocide Convention by multiple states, using two languages with varying inferences and nuances subjective to the speaker and his culture, some things may have gotten lost in translation. Especially the understanding of paramount concepts such as race and ethnicity.

One might begin to question whether genocide is a universally applicable term, or otherwise to what extent it can be applied to Africa, or to the other non-European continents like Asia and South America for that matter. In spite of this, the ICC’s first arrest warrants solely targeted individuals from African states, these being Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Sudan.103_{As a}

matter of fact, the first genocide conviction by an international tribunal occurred in Rwanda in 1998.104_{Yet the drafting of the Genocide Convention through which the}

term genocide is applied legally, as a crime, limited its input of African states. Furthermore, the concepts employed to define victim groups in the convention are limited in breadth and in some cases culturally insensitive. Race and ethnicity do not encompass the nature of human groupism in Africa unless understood in the context of colonization. However, it is in that context that one must look at the application of the Genocide Convention. It came into force at a moment in history when African states were generally still colonized but on the verge of gaining independence. Decolonization left African states with an institutionalized legacy of Western concepts and institutions like the sovereign state system, which they had to make do with in order to survive. They were too economically weak to function independently and thus had to comply. The term genocide, as well as the concepts and linguistic semantics that formed it within the Genocide Convention may have been insensitive to the cultural context of Africa overall. That does not mean they cannot be applied to cases from which they did not stem. The same logic should hold for other genocide discourse with its roots in the legal definition, including the application of genocide as a concept and the application of genocide as a political device.

102 Erik Bleich, “Social Research and ‘Race’ Policy Framing in Britain and France,” The British Journal of

Politics and International Relations 13, no.1 (2011): 63.

103 Kelsall, Culture under cross-examination: international justice and the special court for Sierra Leone, 2-3.

104 United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, “ICTR Milestones,” (www-text: http://unictr.unmict.org/, accessed on 10 October 2017).

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2.3 International law: genocide as a crime

A definition of a crime

A crime can be understood from the standpoint of criminal law simply as any

infringement upon said law, and as such it is fixed. Alternatively, it can be understood through criminology, which also accounts for the social context of a crime.105_From

the criminological perspective, crime’s function as a condemnatory principle is inherent to social environments as it identifies and expresses types of behavior that are considered (morally) reprehensible. Lamond, a legal philosopher, adds that seeing crimes as public wrongs, not private ones, has been the most significant viewpoint to understanding the nature of a crime.106_{Crime affects public interests and therefore it is}

an act that undermines the public and socially accepted structures in society. Thus, even though a crime may have been committed against individuals, the punishment of the crime becomes the responsibility of the community.107_{This makes crime}

antisocial, as the act signifies an inability to conform to communal or societal standards.108_{Yet, not all societies maintain identical standards and how crime is}

defined varies according to cultural influence, becoming a reflection of norms, values and attitudes inherent to that particular society.109_{In the context of mass violence, the}

incorporation of genocide as a crime into international law signifies the condemnatory attitude the international community shares towards it.110_{In that sense, genocide as a}

crime is politicized, an inevitability considering that international law is inter-state law and therefore innately political.111_{Marion Mushkat, an international public law}

professor, articulates the relationship between politics and international law rather succinctly. He says that “the significance of international legal rules originating from political actions and designs is that they represent the common mean, as it were, of the different political pursuits of each separate state.”112_{On the other hand, at a}

105 Grant Lamond, “What is a Crime?,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 27, no.4 (2007): 610.

106 Lamond, “What is a Crime?,” 614.

107 Ibid., 621.

108 Vernon Fox, “What is a Crime?,” University of Florida Law Review 16 (1963): 147.

109 Fox, “What is a Crime?,” 153.

110 As far as the signatories of the Genocide Convention are concerned.

111 Marion Mushkat, “Politics and International Law,” Revue Hellénique de Droit International 14 (1961): 52.

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national level, some states, such as Ethiopia, have opted to promulgate the crime into national law, allowing for cultural influences so the crime may be defined according to the standards of society. So, despite accounting for the social context of the crime, the crime, in and of itself, remains fixed, albeit at either the national or international level. Crime, being a negative prohibition, is thus clearly defined given the necessity to maintain the preservation of order.113_{Raphael Lemkin saw the need in the 1930s}

and a decade later was finally able to define an act that had never been defined before within the context of international law: the crime of genocide.

Genocide after the Genocide Convention

As a crime, genocide is fixed, explicitly addressed within the frame of international law under the Genocide Convention. It refers to individuals as perpetrators as opposed to states or other collective entities.114_{Whereas the act of murder is attributed to what}

is perceived to be the crime, the act of genocide is attributed to who is perceived to be the perpetrator. If one cannot identify or convict a murderer, this does not mean a murder has not taken place. Whereas, if a perpetrator of genocide cannot be identified and convicted then the label of genocide is invalidated. This is the crux of solely adhering to the fixed legal denotation of a concept. An obvious necessity for criminal proceedings, but one that undermines the moralistic malignancy in and of the act itself. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) definition of genocide has come to be applied more widely than just in international law and forms the basic departure for other conceptual academic analyses and political decisions.115_{The Genocide Convention}

defines genocide explicitly in its second article as the following:

…genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

113 Fox, “What is a Crime?,” 147.;

The preservation of order might be considered a subjective act in and of itself. For instance, some states outlaw homosexuality and extra-marital relations, or the practice thereof. Such an example may be necessary to preserve order in a socio-cultural and religious context in the country where it exists, but it does not have a universal necessity, as such prohibitions are considered detrimental to order in other societies.

114 United Nations, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article IV.

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a) Killing members of the group;

b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.116

The third article of the Genocide Convention supplements this definition of genocide by listing the punishable acts, thus each separate crimes, in relation to genocide:

a) Genocide;

b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; d) Attempt to commit genocide;

e) Complicity in genocide117

Some academics seemingly feel this is essentially a workable definition of genocide and employ it as such.118_{The ideological understanding of target groups as denoted by}

a perpetrator is incorporated into definition of the crime, making this definition rather apposite.119_{Whilst defining a small set of target groups can be limiting, conversely the}

included subjectivity of those terms to perpetrator perception possibly broadens the scope for understanding them.

There are also a few apparent issues with this definition of genocide. It may have benefited from a more holistic approach: expanding the limited victim

categorization and broadening the description of destruction, which seems to focus on the physical.120_{For example, the currently defined groups sometimes serve as proxies}

for political character, suggesting the inclusion of political groups might be a

welcome expansion of target groups.121_{The biggest issue within the framework of the}

116 United Nations, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II.

117 United Nations, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article III.

118Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century, 39.

119 Meghna Manaktala, “Defining Genocide,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 24, no.2 (2012): 181.

120 Manaktala, “Defining Genocide,” 180-181.

121 David Nersessian, “Human Groups and Genocide,” in Genocide and Political Groups (Oxford University Press, 2010), 76.

The Trichotomy of Genocide in Africa: A retrospective study on applying genocide rhetoric