This sounds bad.

33 countries face possible genocide, says report
Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, December 08, 2008

UNITED NATIONS - Genocide and other mass atrocities are underway or risk breaking out in at least 33 countries, says a new comprehensive watch list slated for release Tuesday - the 60th anniversary of the United Nations prevention of genocide convention.

As reports indicate UN peacekeeping efforts are in crisis amid dwindling contributions of both cash and well-trained forces, the authors of the new study call for an international focus on genocide prevention in countries they've identified.

Since the world pledged "never again" in the wake of the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina are but three examples of places where mass slaughter has occurred.


A United Resistance Front (UDF) soldier listens to a meeting between the movement's leadership and African Union and United Nations officials in Sudan's North Darfur province. Darfur has been given a "red alert" on a watch list compiled by a New York-based NGO on genocide prevention.

The list by the New York-based Genocide Prevention Project for the first time combines the findings of five leading independent watch lists to create a "watch list of watch lists."

"Red alert" countries include Afghanistan and Iraq alongside commonly known regions currently experiencing genocidal conflict such as Sudan's Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These and Myanmar, Pakistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka all made the list's top eight because they appear in each of the five "expert" indexes.

The next 25 "orange alert" countries appear in at least three of the indexes and include China, Colombia, Philippines and Indonesia as places where ongoing or simmering violence could flare to genocidal proportions.

"It is possible to identify early indicators of mass atrocity crimes. But what happens now is the international community sees what's going on, gets paralyzed and, if it acts, really only acts after the fact," said Jill Savitt, project executive director.

"You don't see assertive proactive diplomacy in the earliest possible moments, when the bloodshed isn't widespread or before arms have come into the region."

The report says prudent application of "carrots and sticks" - which it describes as the panoply of economic, diplomatic and legal measures available to nations and the UN Security Council - can result in "averting an escalation of violence."

Savitt said what's been lacking in the past was "political will," but added that may change because of a convergence of recent factors.

One is the stated determination of Susan Rice, U.S. president-elect Barack Obama's choice for U.S. ambassador to the UN, to prevent future genocides after witnessing the after-effects of the 1994 Rwanda slaughter.

Another is current discussion around the 60th anniversary of the genocide prevention convention, which calls on countries to prevent and punish actions of genocide.

Finally, there is what Savitt called the public "guilt" over what occurred in Rwanda and Bosnia, and what she additionally called public "hunger for a response" to the Darfur crisis.

"There are things states can do like dispatching the highest-level envoy - someone of great stature who can call (British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's residence) 10 Downing Street, or the UN secretary general, or President Obama," she said. "There are all kinds of penalties and inducements, including trade and aid, membership in political bodies, or expulsion from them. And even simple public criticism can work."

Still, many analysts agree the international community has long had difficulty trying to change state behaviour purely using sanctions or diplomatic pressure.

Among countries in the project's list of 33, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe all face varying UN or state sanctions aimed at convincing them to obey the international will.

The list comes as Irwin Cotler, former justice minister and attorney general, Monday released a petition calling on countries that have signed the genocide convention to "hold Iran to account for its genocidal incitement."

"The enduring lesson of the Holocaust and that of the genocides that followed is that they occurred not simply because of the machinery of death, but because of the state-sanctioned incitement to hatred," Cotler said.

"In the case of Iran, there is no justification for inaction," he added, citing statements by Iranian leaders calling for the destruction of Israel.

How does Bosnia get put in the same sentence as the other two?

Bosnia Genocide - 1992-1995 - 200,000 Deaths

In the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in Bosnia.

Seems fitting.

yeah but liberals don't care about brown people, duh.

Never again TO JEWS.

As long as it was the muslims getting killed, I don't see what the problem is.

FTFY.

Some are overrated, like Iraq.

Where in the fuck did you get this crap from?

31,270 soldiers killed
32,723 civilians killed
5,439 soldiers killed
1,899 civilians killed
20,649 soldiers killed
3,555 civilians killed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War

I'm sorry, but that's not a genocide.

Bosnia absoslutely positively does NOT belong in the same league as Darfur or Rwanda. More innocent civilians die in Caracas on a yearly basis than in the Bosnian war zone. And just for the record, we sent 60,000 NATO troops there.

Did you actually read the section you plucked those numebrs from, or did you just pull the lowest casualty figures you could find?

In answer to "where the fuck did you come up with those numbers?", the first sentence answers that.


So the answer would be "NATO and the Bosnian government". Are they accurate? Probably not particularly.

So where did your numbers come from? Next sentence...


Seemingly a much more scientific and peer reviewed study, but relatively recent, so it's completely understandable that someone might find the older estimates and not the newer one. It doesn't make him an idiot. It just makes you come off as the dick you are.

There is more though, next paragraph...




All of this information located within inches of your numbers, yet no need to read this. Nicely done.

Go look up the mother fucking definition of genocide, and then realize why you just made yourself out to be a complete ass.

Maybe this debate could actually go somewhere if people.

A.) Knew what the definition of a genocide was.

And B.

B.) Had any freakin' clue about the Bosnian war and how accusations of genocide were completely blown out of proportion in reference to it. And maybe if people took the motherfucking time to go to something like...oh Wikipedia. But that wasn't the point. The point of his post, and your post, is to somehow, someway, vilify the statement in the article that Bosnia belongs in the same league as Darfur and Rwanda.

Bosnia was NOT a genocide. And it most certainly was nothing even close Darfur, much less anything that happened in Rwanda.

You may be able to come up with a stretch and call it "ethnic cleansing." But a genocide, it was not.

Oh, and to answer you question.



The part where it says "Casualties and losses." The casualty and losses that are considered to be most accurate and most peer reviewed and most accepted.

Bosnia wasn't as bad as Rwanda and Darfur because they are not black non-Americans. Let's not forget we are talking to LW here folks. He has the hots for Africa, to say the least.

Get on meds, seriously.

Yeah guys, it was just ethnic cleansing. Let's not cry over spilt milk here.

Bosnia wasn't as bad as Rwanda or Darfur because a fraction of innocent people died there compared to Rwanda or Darfur. It'd be like comparing Rwanda to the holocaust. It's stupidity.

And Chud, I'm not saying that Ethnic cleansing is somehow a good thing. I'm just saying that it's not genocide, and what took place in the Balkans is nothing near the travesty that took place in Rwanda, or is taking place in Darfur, or the Congo, or Somalia.

Yet, for some reason the press and this community continue to romantacize about it and pretend like Milosevic was four times the monster that he actually was. Saddam killed more people in one single solitary uprising than the total number of innocent deaths in the Balkans after three years. But, for some reason, the writer of this rag piece feels like talking about the Balkans and how we it's an example of how humanity failed itself.

Maybe it's because we expect better from this part of the world. Africa and the Middle-East... well, we know dark people have a tendency to kill each other in mass numbers, so it isn't so alarming.

*

It just so happens that most of Africa is desperate and most of the middle-East is delusional. Fancy that.

yes, it does just so happen. most of america is delusional, but it just so happens they are not desperate.