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2 SPEAKING
FREELY The mother of all
genocides By Murtaza Mohsin
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
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Genocide is an ugly
word. It describes the vilest instincts that
humanity has retained. Whether it be Genghis
Khan's pyramids of skulls, the genocide waged by
the Young Turks against Armenians in the aftermath
of World War I, the atrocities of Pol
Pot,
the "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia-Herzegovina or
the 100-day killing rampage that was the Rwandan
genocide, it shows the depth of the ability of
humanity to hate.
In the last two cases,
the world stood by and watched as whole
populations were decimated. The North Atlantic
Treaty Organization shamefully did nothing to
curtail the Bosnian genocide in the backroom of
Europe, the Balkans.
There are startling
similarities that the situation in Iraq bears with
those of the conflict in Bosnia and the Rwandan
genocide. As if genocide of its own people were
not enough, Iraq holds the seeds to the greatest
regional conflict since World War II. While the
possibility of a civil war is often mentioned, one
grim specter is seldom mentioned, one with bleak
reminders from the previous century, that of
genocide.
Madaen, a town south of Baghdad,
earned notoriety in April 2005 when upwards of 150
Shi'ite men, women and children were massacred.
Despite being extremely gruesome even by the
blood-drenched standards of the violence in Iraq,
the incident has largely been forgotten. The event
was repeated elsewhere, particularly in Diyala
province, with insurgents attempting to decimate
the local Shi'ite population.
The phrase
"ethnic cleansing" emerged during the Bosnian
civil war. One side forced expulsion or killing of
the undesired ethnic group as well as the
destruction or removal of the physical vestiges of
the ethnic group, such as places of worship,
cemeteries and cultural and historical buildings.
Bosnian Serbs used ethnic cleansing to expel
Muslims in the north and east of Bosnia. This
parallels the situation in Iraq, with both
Shi'ites and Sunnis being forcibly expelled from
homes in areas dominated by the opposing
community.
The situation in Iraq today
bears considerable resemblance to the prelude to
the Bosnian genocide. Yugoslavia collapsed in 1991
when communist strongman Josip Broz Tito died.
With his death, strong nationalist forces were
unleashed, with Slobodan Milosevic leading the
Serb nationalists. In conjunction with a weakening
of the Communist Party, he managed to implement
amendments to the constitution reasserting control
over the autonomous region of Kosovo, attempting
to maintain a Yugoslavia under Serb dominance.
This was met by the rise of nationalist
forces in Croatia in the form of the Croatian
Democratic Union, which set the stage for the
independence of Croatia and Slovenia through armed
conflict. Subsequently, demands for independence
in Bosnia were met with arms, and the Bosnian
civil war began.
Now we see in Iraq that a
dictator, Saddam Hussein, has been removed. This
matches the death of Tito. Iraq like the former
Yugoslavia is a patchwork of different ethnic
groups with a single group in demographic
dominance - Serbs in Yugoslavia and Shi'ites in
Iraq. A single unifying political system collapsed
in both cases, Ba'ath Party rule in Iraq and
communism in Yugoslavia.
Without the iron
rule of Tito, Yugoslavia dissolved. Milosevic
attempted to use his own form of iron rule, yet he
could not hold back the Hydra of independence he
himself had unleashed. Serbian death squads,
formed out of paramilitary units such as Arkan's
Tigers, the White Eagles and others, unleashed a
wave of atrocities on Muslims and Croats. In
Yugoslavia, atrocities were committed by all
sides, but they paled in comparison with the
campaign waged by the Serbs enjoying the advantage
of the heavy weaponry inherited from the old
Yugoslav army.
It is all too easy for Iraq
to go down this path. Already Shi'ite groups and
Kurdish politicians proclaim federalism and
autonomy according to region. Many observers agree
this is a step away from independence of the
various regions, that Iraq will break apart in
this form of federalism, matching the collapse of
Yugoslavia.
In another reminder from the
Bosnian conflict, death squads are widespread in
Iraq, with groups often directly linked to the
Ministry of Interior. These include those linked
to the Badr Brigades, which are in turn part of
the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in
Iraq, a powerful Shi'ite political group.
Paramilitary units were also linked to political
parties in the Bosnian conflict.
Iraq
differs from Yugoslavia in one vital aspect.
Unlike Serbs in Yugoslavia, Shi'ites never
dominated Iraq. Saddam brutally suppressed
Shi'ites and any possible aspirations for power
during the decades of Ba'athist rule.
Additionally, Sunnis and Shi'ites in the main both
want the country to remain united. Many Iraqis
continue to hold strong nationalist feelings not
for their ethnic identity but for Iraq. Yet there
are still too many similarities with the Bosnian
situation for comfort.
However, there are
disparities too, which force us to look further
afield. In Rwanda, starting from April 6, 1994,
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered
by Hutu extremists within a hundred-day period.
The genocide was remarkable as much for its speed
and sheer scale as by the lack of response on the
part of the United Nations and the First World,
which stood by as hundreds of thousands were
slaughtered.
Like Sunnis in Iraq, Tutsis,
forming 20% of the population, had long been the
political elite. They were the aristocracy until
majority rule by Hutus began in 1959. Since then,
Hutu political
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