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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Other warfare & defence issues > War crimes
In The Trial of Hissein Habre: The International Crimes of a Former
Head of State, Emmanuel Guematcha recounts the trial of Hissein
Habre, the former Head of State of Chad. Accused of committing
crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture while he ruled
Chad between 1982 and 1990, he was tried and sentenced to life
imprisonment in 2016 and 2017 by the African Extraordinary
Chambers. Guematcha examines the process that led to this
achievement in Africa, including the failed attempts to try Hissein
Habre in the Senegalese, Chadian, and Belgian courts. Guematcha
discusses the mobilization of victims and the involvement of
non-governmental and international organizations. He describes the
particularities of the Extraordinary African Chambers, discusses
the establishment of Hissein Habre's criminal responsibility, and
presents the trial through the testimonies of several victims,
witnesses, and experts. These testimonies shed light on what it
means for individuals to be subjected to international crimes. The
author also questions the impact and significance of the trial in
Africa and beyond.
At the time of drafting the UN Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), the
drafters were hopeful that the document will be the response needed
to ensure that the world would never again witness such atrocities
as committed by the Nazi regime. While, arguably, there has been no
such great loss of human lives as during WWII, genocidal incidents
have and still take place. After WWII, we have witnessed the
genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, to name only a few.
The responses to these atrocities have always been inadequate.
Every time the world leaders would come together to renew their
promise of 'Never Again'. However, the promise has never
materialised. In 2014, Daesh unleashed genocide against religious
minorities in Syria and Iraq. Before the world managed to shake off
from the atrocities, in 2016, the Burmese military launched a
genocidal campaign against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. This
was followed by reports of ever-growing atrocities against
Christian minorities in Nigeria. Without waiting too long, in 2018,
China proceeded with its genocidal campaign against the Uyghur
Muslims. In 2020, the Tigrayans became the victims of ethnic
targeting. Five cases of mass atrocities that, in the space of just
five years, all easily meet the legal definition of genocide.
Again, the response that followed each case has been inadequate and
unable to make a difference to the targeted communities. This
legacy does not give much hope for the future. The question that
this books hopes to address is what needs to change to ensure that
we are better equipped to address genocide and prevent the crime in
the future.
Wars have a destructive impact on society. The violence in the
first case is domicide, in the second urbicide, in the third
genocide, and in the fourth, the book introduces a neologism,
sociocide, the killing of society. Through the lens of this
neologism, Keith Doubt provides persuasive evidence of the social,
political, and human consequences of today's wars in countries such
as Bosnia and Iraq. Sociocide: Reflections on Today's Wars
rigorously formulates, develops, and applies the notion of
sociocide as a Weberian ideal type to contemporary wars. Drawing
upon sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and literature, Doubt
analyzes war crimes, scapegoating, and torture and concludes by
examining capitalism in the face of the coronavirus pandemic as a
sociocidal force. Embedded in the humanistic tradition and informed
by empirical science, this book provides a clear conceptual account
of today's wars, one that is objective and moral, critical and
humanistic.
The Number One International Bestseller. The heartbreaking,
inspiring true story of a girl sent to Auschwitz who survived the
evil Dr Josef Mengele's pseudo-medical experiments. With a foreword
by His Holiness Pope Francis. Lidia Maksymowicz was just three
years old when she arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with her mother,
grandparents and foster brother. They were from Belarus, their
'crime' that they supported the partisan resistance to Nazi
occupation. Once there, Lidia was picked by Mengele for his
experiments and sent to the children's block. It was here that she
survived eighteen months of hell. Injected with infectious
diseases, desperately malnourished, she came close to death. Her
mother - who risked her life to secretly visit Lidia - was her only
tie to humanity. By the time Birkenau was liberated her family had
disappeared. Even her mother was presumed dead. Lidia was adopted
by a woman from the nearby town of Oswiecim. Too traumatised to
feel emotion, she was not an easy child to care for but she came to
love her adoptive mother and her new home. Then, in 1962, she
discovered that her birth parents were still alive. They lived in
the USSR - and they wanted her back. Lidia was faced with an
agonising choice . . . The Little Girl Who Could Not Cry is
powerful, moving and ultimately hopeful, as Lidia comes to terms
with the past and finds the strength to share her story - even
making headlines when she meets Pope Francis, who kisses her
tattoo. Above all she refuses to hate those who hurt her so badly,
saying, 'Hate only brings more hate. Love, on the other hand, has
the power to redeem.'
This book examines the origins of genocide and mass murder in the
everyday conflicts of ordinary people, exacerbated by special
interests. We examine cases harming people simply because they are
considered unworthy and undeserving-for instance, if they are
dehumanized. We confine our attention to genocide, mass murder,
large-scale killing motivated by hate or desire for gain, and
fascism as an ideology since it usually advocates and leads to such
killing. The book draws on social psychology, especially recent
work on the psychology of prejudice. Much new information on the
psychology of fear, hate, intolerance, and violence has appeared in
recent years. The world has also learned more on the funding of
dehumanization by giant corporations via "dark money," and on the
psychology of genocidal leaders. This allows us to construct a much
more detailed back story of why people erupt into mass killing of
minorities and vulnerable populations. We thus go on to deal with
the whole "problem of evil" (or at least apparently irrational
killing) in general, broadening the perspective to include
politics, economics, and society at large. We draw on psychology,
sociology, economics, political science, public health,
anthropology, and biology in a uniquely cross-disciplinary work.
The UN outlawed genocide in 1948, and the United States launched a
war on terror in 2001; yet still today, neither genocide nor
terrorism shows any sign of abating. This book explains why those
efforts have fallen short and identifies policies that can prevent
such carnage. The key is getting the causation analysis right.
Conventional wisdom emphasizes ancient hatreds, poverty, and the
impact of Western colonialism as drivers of mass violence. But far
more important is the inciting power of mass, ideological hate
propaganda: this is what activates the drive to commit mass
atrocities, and creates the multitude of perpetrators needed to
conduct a genocide or sustain a terror campaign. A secondary causal
factor is illiberal, dualistic political culture: this is the
breeding ground for the extremist, "us-vs-them" ideologies that
always precipitate episodes of mass hate incitement. A two-tiered
policy response naturally follows from this analysis: in the short
term, several targeted interventions to curtail outbreaks of such
incitement; and in the long term, support for indigenous agents of
liberalization in venues most at risk for ideologically-driven
violence.
Unlike their condemnations of Nazi atrocities, contemporary Western
responses to Soviet crimes have often been ambiguous at best. While
some leaders publicly denounced them, many others found reasons to
dismiss wrongdoings and to consider Soviet propaganda more credible
than survivors' accounts. Blissful Blindness: Soviet Crimes Under
Western Eyes is a comprehensive exploration of Western responses to
Soviet crimes from the Bolshevik revolution to the Soviet Union's
final years. Ranging from denial, dismissal, and rationalization to
outright glorification, these reactions, Darius Tołczyk contends,
arose from a complex array of motives rooted in ideological biases,
fears of empowering common enemies, and outside political agendas.
Throughout the long history of the Soviet regime, Tołczyk traces
its most heinous crimes—including the Red Terror,
collectivization, the Great Famine, the Gulag, the Great Terror,
and mass deportations—and shows how Soviet propaganda, and an
unmatched willingness to defer to it, minimized these atrocities
within dominant Western public discourse. It would take decades for
Western audiences to unravel the "big lie"—and even today, too
many in both Russia and the West have chosen to forget the extent
of Soviet atrocities, or of their nations' complicity. A
fascinating read for those interested in the intricacies and
obstructions of politics, Blissful Blindness traces Western
responses to understand why, and how, the West could remain
willfully ignorant of Soviet crimes.
Pioneering study of the role of the Christian churches in the
Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi; a key work for historians, memory
studies scholars, religion scholars and Africanists. Why did some
sectors of the Rwandan churches adopt an ambiguous attitude towards
the genocide against the Tutsi which claimed the lives of around
800,000 people in three months between April and July 1994? What
prevented the churches' acceptance that they may have had some
responsibility? And how should we account for the efforts made by
other sectors of the churches to remember and commemorate the
genocide and rebuild pastoral programmes? Drawing on interviews
with genocide survivors, Rwandans in exile, missionaries and
government officials, as well as Church archives and other sources,
this book is the first academic study on Christianity and the
genocide against the Tutsi to explore these contentious questions
in depth, and reveals more internal diversity within the Christian
churches than is often assumed. While some Christians, Protestant
as well as Catholic, took risks to shelter Tutsi people, others
uncritically embraced the interim government's view that the Tutsi
were enemies of the people and some, even priests and pastors,
assisted the killers. The church leaders only condemned the war:
they never actually denounced the genocide against the Tutsi.
Focusing on the period of the genocide in 1994 and the subsequent
years (up to 2000), Denis examines in detail the responses of two
churches, the Catholic Church, the biggest and the most complex,
and the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda, which made an unconditional
confession of guilt in December 1996. A case study is devoted to
the Catholic parish La Crete Congo-Nil in western Rwanda, led at
the time by the French priest Gabriel Maindron, a man whom genocide
survivors accuse of having failed publicly to oppose the genocide
and of having close links with the authorities and some of the
perpetrators. By 1997, the defensive attitude adopted by many
Catholics had started to change. The Extraordinary Synod on
Ethnocentricity in 1999-2000 was a milestone. Yet, especially in
the immediate aftermath of the genocide, tension and suspicion
persist. Fountain: Rwanda, Uganda
What do we know about war crimes and justice? What are the
discursive practices through which the dominant images of war
crimes, atrocity and justice are understood? In this wide ranging
text, Michael J. Shapiro contrasts the justice-related imagery of
the war crimes trial (for example the solitary, headphone-wearing
defendant at the Hague listening with intent to a catalogue of
charges) with ?literary justice?: representations in literature,
film, and biographical testimony, raising questions about
atrocities and justice that juridical proceedings exclude. By
engaging with the ambiguities exposed by the artistic and
experiential genres, reading them alongside policy and archival
documentation and critical theoretical discourses, Shapiro?s War
Crimes, Atrocity, and Justice challenges traditional notions of
?responsibility? in juridical settings. His comparative readings
instead encourage a focus on the conditions of possibility for war
crimes as they arise from the actions of states, non-state agencies
and individuals involved in arms trading, peace keeping, sex
trafficking, and law enforcement and adjudication. Theory springs
to life as Shapiro draws on examples from legal discourse,
literature, media, film, and television, to build a nuanced picture
of politics and the problem of justice. It will be of great
interest to students of film and media, literature, cultural
studies, contemporary philosophy and political science
From 1991 to 1999, Slobodan Milosevic launched and ultimately lost
four Balkan wars, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands
and the displacement of millions. He saw himself as a modern day
Abe Lincoln, employing force in a valiant effort to hold his
crumbling Yugoslavia together. But the ruthless Serb leader's
tactics included systematic war crimes and ethnic cleansing,
ultimately prompting the U. S. and its NATO allies to launch a
controversial military intervention in the spring of 1999 to halt
the bloodshed.Now Milosevic is on trial in The Hague before the
United Nations-created International War Crimes Tribunal. He is the
first former head of state ever to face international justice. The
televised trial of Slobodan Milosevic is expected to last for two
years and could well prove to be the most watched criminal
proceedings since the trial of O. J. Simpson.There is much the
public will want to know about this historic and complex trial.
Written in a lively, journalistic style by two of the leading
experts on the International War Crimes Tribunal, Slobodan
Milosevic on Trial: A Companion is designed to inform the reader
about what to watch for, who the players are, what the rules are,
who has won in the past, and who is likely to win this time.
Complete with maps, photos, and a glossary of legal terms, this
comprehensive guide to the Milosevic trial will help the public
understand the important and complex proceedings taking place in
The Hague.
The Vienna Gestapo headquarters was the largest of its kind in the
German Reich and the most important instrument of Nazi terror in
Austria, responsible for the persecution of Jews, suppression of
resistance and policing of forced labourers. Of the more than fifty
thousand people arrested by the Vienna Gestapo, many were subjected
to torturous interrogation before being either sent to
concentration camps or handed over to the Nazi judiciary for
prosecution. This comprehensive survey by three expert historians
focuses on these victims of repression and persecution as well as
the structure of the Vienna Gestapo and the perpetrators of its
crimes.
Divided into five discrete sections, this book examines the issue
of Holocaust denial, and in some cases "Holocaust inversion" in
North America, Europe, and the Middle East and its relationship to
the history of antisemitism before and since the Holocaust. It thus
offers both a historical and contemporary perspective. This volume
includes observations by leading scholars, delivering powerful,
even controversial essays by scholars who are reporting from the
'frontline.' It offers a discussion on the relationship between
Christianity and Islam, as well as the historical and contemporary
issues of antisemitism in the USA, Europe, and the Middle East.
This book explores how all of these issues contribute consciously
or otherwise to contemporary antisemitism. The chapters of this
volume do not necessarily provide a unity of argument - nor should
they. Instead, they expose the plurality of positions within the
academy and reflect the robust discussions that occur on the
subject.
Written by Chinese Jurist Mei Ju-ao, this significant book
considers both the process and the impact of the International
Military Tribunal for the Far East, otherwise known as the Tokyo
Trial, which was convened in 1946 to try political military leaders
accused of involvement in war crimes. Offering valuable research
material on the establishment of the tribunal, it examines the
background to the establishment of the International Military
Tribunal and the lessons learned from earlier trials of World War
One War Criminals. Written from the perspective of a Chinese
prosecutor who was both jurist and witness, this unique text
engages with the Tokyo Trial from an interdisciplinary perspective
bringing in both international law and international relations,
measuring over 7 decades later the significance and ongoing legacy
of the Tokyo Trial for contemporary international criminal justice
in Asia and beyond..
This study focuses on the first group targeted in the genocide
known as the Holodomor: Ukrainian intelligentsia, the "brain of the
nation," using the words of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term
genocide and enshrined it in international law. The study's author
examines complex and devastating effects of the Holodomor on
Ukrainian society during the 1920-1930s. Members of intelligentsia
had individual and professional responsibilities. They resisted,
but eventually they were forced to serve the Soviet regime.
Ukrainian intelligentsia were virtually wiped out, most of its
writers and a third of its teachers. The remaining cadres faced a
choice without a choice if they wanted to survive. The author
analyzes how and why this process occurred and what role
intellectuals, especially teachers, played in shaping, contesting,
and inculcating history. Crucially, the author challenges Western
perceptions of the all-Union famine that was allegedly caused by ad
hoc collectivization policies, highlighting the intentional nature
of the famine as a tool of genocide, persecution, and prosecution
of the nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia, clergy, and
grain growers. The author demonstrates the continuity between
Stalinist and neo-Stalinist attempts to prevent the crystallization
of the nation and subvert Ukraine from within by non-lethal and
lethal means.
This book offers a radically new and definitive reappraisal of
Allied responses to Nazi human experiments and the origins of
informed consent. It places the victims and Allied medical
intelligence officers at center stage, while providing a full
reconstruction of policies on war crimes and trials related to Nazi
medical atrocities and genocide. The analysis of the Medical Trial
considers the prosecution, defense, judges and observers to present
a rounded picture of the court and its context, and the aftermath
in terms of Cold War politics, compensation and research
ethics.
An internationally acclaimed aviation pioneer, Herbert Cukurs,
running a hydroplanes rental company out of Sao Paolo, Brazil,
liked his new customer: an Austrian businessman, who asked for a
short sightseeing flight. The pilot had no idea that his customer
was not Austrian but a top agent in the Israeli Mossad, working
under cover to set the trap for Cukurs - a criminal personally
responsible for the murder of over 30,000 innocent Jews. This was
the beginning of the 'war of wits' between the Nazi war criminal
and the German-born Israeli (both of whose parents had perished in
Nazi death camps). It was a unique duel, played out in the Sao
Paolo residence of the Cukurs family, in the jungles of Brazil, by
the lagoon of Porto Alegre and on the beautiful beaches of Punta
del Este. In this unique book a former senior Mossad agent
describes an operation carried out in 1964-65 to identify, locate
and execute the notorious Nazi war criminal Herbert Cukurs, who was
personally responsible for the murder of over 30,000 Latvian Jews.
The main part of the operation was undertaken almost
single-handedly by 'Anton Kuenzle'. identity as a successful
businessman and offering Cukurs a lucrative deal to entice him away
from his secure life in Brazil to a trap laid for him in Uruguay.
There Cukurs met his fate at the hands of a Mossad hit team.
* The military tribunals organized by the Allies in Nuremberg in
1945 were described as 'the greatest trial in history' by Norman
Birkett, one of the British judges who presided over them * The
first of the trials began 70 years ago on 20 November, and last
ended almost a year later
In Indonesia, the events of 1st October 1965 were followed by a
campaign to annihilate the Communist Party and its alleged
sympathisers. It resulted in the murder of an estimate of one
million people - a genocide that counts as one of the largest mass
murders after WWII - and the incarceration of another million, many
of them for a decade or more without any legal process. This drive
was justified and enabled by a propaganda campaign in which
communists were painted as atheist, hypersexual, amoral and intent
to destroy the nation. To date, the effects of this campaign are
still felt, and the victims are denied the right of association and
freedom of speech. This book presents the history of the genocide
and propaganda campaign and the process towards the International
People's Tribunal on 1965 crimes against humanity in Indonesia (IPT
1965), which was held in November 2015 in The Hague, The
Netherlands. The authors, an Indonesian Human Rights lawyer and a
Dutch academic examine this unique event, which for the first time
brings these crimes before an international court, and its verdict.
They single out the campaign of hate propaganda as it provided the
incitement to kill so many Indonesians and why this propaganda
campaign is effective to this day. The first book on this topic, it
fills a significant gap in Asian Studies and Genocide Studies.
Highly respected US based academic Ground breaking research on a
controversial topic Italian archival cover-up and film censorship
of the Libyan genocide transnational, cross-cultural memory, and
history of the Libyan genocide that includes Europe, and the USA
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