Elie Wiesel, who is in a position to know, has argued this very point (see,
for example, his essay in the April 12 issue of Newsweek, found
electronically at
http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/issue/15_99a/printed/us/in/in0815_1.htm
<http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/issue/15_99a/printed/us/in/in0815_1.htm> ), but
nevertheless concludes, "The Serbs' inhuman treatment of their Albanian
countrymen, horrifying as it may be, is not the Holocaust. Still, it is evil
enough."
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<><><><><><><><><>
Becky Kennison [log in to unmask]
Production Coordinator Tel.: 781-388-0433
Blackwell Publishers FAX: 781-388-0533
350 Main Street Blackwell home page:
Malden, Massachusetts 02148 www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Redfern [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 12:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Kosovo - genocide or pogrom?
Apologies for clogging up inboxes with yet another posting on the
Kosovan
crisis.
It seems to me that positions on whether NATO intervention in Kosovo
is
justified or not depend on whether it is believed that a genocide is
occurring in Kosovo or not. If this intuition is correct, then it
would be
worth moving the debate onto this issue.
For what it's worth, I do not believe that what the Serbs having
been doing
in Kosovo, nasty and vicious as it is, does constitute a genocide.
Taking
my cue from Baumann's >Modernity & the Holocaust<, it seems to me
more like
a pogrom. The point of a pogrom is not to exterminate, but to
intimidate,
and intimidation of the local Albanian population certainly appeared
to the
object of the pre-intervention Serb activities in Kosovo. Since the
intervention, Serb objectives have shifted from intimidation to
expulsion,
but in neither case, do the Serbs appear to have had as their
principal
objective the extermination of a population, and it seems to me that
this is
the principal objective of a genocide. For instance, Baumann notes
that
during the German retreat from the USSR in 1944/45, significant
resources
were diverted from the Wehrmacht to the SS in order that the Nazi
programme
of extermination be promoted more vigorously before imminent defeat
actually
arrived. If this is the behaviour of a genocidal regime, I don't
see any
evidence of this in the current Serb regime's behaviour.
To repeat, I find the Serb actions in Kosovo to be reprehensible and
unjustifiable, but, having said that, so are Indonesian actions in
East
Timor, Chinese actions in Tibet, Turkish actions in Kurdistan, etc,
etc. If
the Serbian action in Kosovo really were genocide, then the current
intervention, which, let me remind colleagues, is in complete
contravention
of the basic principles of international law and of the United
Nations, and
which is ultra vires in terms of the NATO Charter (NATO is a
strictly
defensive alliance), and which is causing great strains in the
stability of
regimes in neighbouring states, especially Macedonia, might be
justified in
terms of a higher morality. If it is not, then it is hard to see
how the
intervention can be justified, especially when consequential rather
than
deontological morality is the basic currency of international
relations.
To conclude, I appreciate that this is an issue that excites great
passions,
I offer these thoughts in the spirit of David Crouch's posting. We
need to
be sure that we are witnessing a genocide. I am not sure that we
are:
others may care to convince me (& others).
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