[PEN-L:9629] RE: Re: tiresome debates

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, these debates are indeed "tiresome" for those removed from the ugly
realities of genocide that occurs every day in the US.

To get the facts straight. In response to the "homogenizing" imperatives and
dynamics of neoliberal globalism, the UN, and international law
distinguished between "ethnocide" and genocide on the basis of presence or
absence of "mens rea" (evil mind or intent). It is supposed that if some
groups are extinguished as groups as a result of homogenizing forces or
willing assimilation in order to gain supposed advantages of being
assimilated in a dominant culture, this would be characterized as
"ethnocide" which is not considered illegal under international law.
Genocide, on the other hand, involves ANY--not all--ANY of the acts listed
under Article II with intent to commit those acts. The INTENT or mens rea of
the US Government throughout history and in the present very clear: not
necessarily from stated intentions--as in the case of Indians where the
intent to destroy was/is clearly stated--but also from the inexorable and
foreseeable consequences of the stated policies.

Even if it were true, and it is not, that the origin of the language in the
UN convention on Genocide was the USSR, or Stalinists, so what? The issue is
what is correct and answers to the realities of genocide as it is commonly
understood and practiced. But it is not true. The language of the UN
Convention came directly out of the mandates, language and presentations at
Nuremberg at which the US was a prime mover.

I am attaching one of my Tribunal Findings and in the section 3 the history
and international law behind the UN Convention is examined.

Further, intent or mens rea is not defined in law only from self-expressed
statements of intent. If one commits an act whose inexorable or higly
probable consequences are foreseeable by the "mythical reasonal and prudent
person", intent to commit those acts and produce those consequences can be
and will be inferred from the inexorable or highly probable consequences
of those acts. The brutality, violence and exploitation associated with
slavery inexorably produce the destruction of the slaves as invidividuals
and as members of whole groups; that is one of the fundamental
contradictions of slavery--past and present--the brutal productive relations
and practices of slavery designed to extract maximum surplus value from the
slave, the main force of production, destroys the slave himself/herself
individually and slaves in mass numbers collectively as a group.

Jim Craven

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Brown [mailto:CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, July 23, 1999 10:21 AM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:9577] Re: tiresome debates


By the way, the international law definition of genocide was not formulated
by only Soviet Communists, but U.S. and other Western liberals, So, use of
the UN definition is not somekind of inappropriate. Communist rhetoric in
arguments with liberal/social democrats. The Nurembourg statutes and
definitions were not formulated by only radicals. They are the products of
the anti-fascist war coalition which included liberals, social democrats, et
al.

Charles Brown

>>> "Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 07/23/99 12:40PM >>>
The UN Convention  for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which Jim Craven has posted several times on the list specifically
defines the mental element (mens rea) of the crime of genocide as intent to
kill or do an number of other things to a goup as a whole OR IN PART. This
intent to kill the WHOLE group is not a requirement. Furthermore, it does
not only include the act of killing members of a group as members of a
group, but torturing , maiming, removing children, et al. So acts other than
murder constitute genocide in the international law definition.

Charles Brown

>>> Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 07/22/99 07:58PM >>>
>
>One more question -- If slavery was not a Holocaust because the
>intention was not immediate death

I said that slavery did not seem to me to be "genocide"--because the
aim was not to destroy West Africans as a people, but rather to be
(and remain) in the business of bribing some of them to deliver
others bound and shackled to the slave ships at the coast. "Genocide"
seems to me to require that extermination be the end in view: the
Abenaki people do not live in Westbrook, ME any more.

I also said that we need another word for what happened to West
Africa and West Africans between 1600 and 1820 that carries an
equally powerful emotional load, but I don't know what that word is...


Brad DeLong

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