By Abdulhaleem Ishaq Ringim
In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted as General Assembly Resolution 260 the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” or more popularly known as the “Genocide Convention”.
Raphael Lemkin, the person who coined the term “Genocide” in his book titled “Axis Rule In Occupied Europe” describes it as “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups”.
But unfortunately, there exist a gap between the original understanding of “genocide” according to Lemkin and its present legal conceptualization.
Lemkin puts “culture” at the center stage of the Crime of Genocide and believes the very essence of the crime is indeed cultural – a well orchestrated attack on a particular group of people and their cultural identity – one could say an attack on diversity itself. He described it to have two phases: One, the destruction of the original life pattern of the oppressed; and the other, the imposition of the life patterns of the oppressor on the group.
Not only Lemkin, some tribunals like The Polish Supreme Military Tribunal (SMT) and some victims of the most devastating genocide in history; the holocaust, like Abraham Sutzkever and Salo Baron, tried at different avenues to center the Crime of Genocide around cultural elements, but the cultural elements still did not prevail as an integral part of the Crime of Genocide in international law, instead, Nazi repression was mostly centered around aggressive wars, war crimes and crimes against humanity in both the International Military Tribunal (IMT) and the subsequent Nuremburg Military Tribunal (NMT).
Today, the United Nations only recognizes physical (causing deaths) and biological (preventing births) genocides as the integral parts of the Crime of Genocide and have almost completely ejected cultural genocide(destruction of a group’s specific characteristics) from it. Hence, cultural genocide is not punishable by international law even though many supporters of its inclusion especially those that were part of the sixth UN committee on Genocide believed that cultural genocide is always the aim while physical genocide is the means therefore excluding it as an integral part of genocide will surely be an impediment to curtailing the physical type.
The explanation behind this conscious exclusion right from Nuremberg Trials to the Genocide Convention drafting is the fact that there is an existential fear by countries that the inclusion of Cultural Genocide will set a precedent that would supposedly weaken their sovereignty and give way for international interference in internal affairs of states concerning the treatment of their national minorities.
Sadly, China, a superpower country is now harnessing this international law loophole and has resorted to a systematic ethnic cleansing of Uighur Muslims and other minorities in the occupied East Turkestan otherwise known as Xinjiang.
Activist reports have shown that 3-5 million people are being arbitrarily detained in torture-driven concentration camps that China always refer to as re-education centers.
Hiding behind ‘Crackdown against terrorism & extremism and promotion of social harmony’, China is systematically enforcing all it’s citizens regardless of religious and cultural affiliation to conform with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) atheist principles even after legally recognizing five religions Islam and Catholicism inclusive.
Detainees are forced to denounce their religion, forcibly learn mandarin and adopt CCP’s atheist values and doctrines. Major crimes like sexual abuse, torture, forceful abortions, sterilization, artificial infliction of mental retardation through drugging with unknown substances and organ harvesting have also been reported.
On release from these camps, former detainees often face arbitrary imprisonment while some are subjected to forced labour with little or no pay, some even disappear without any explanation.
There exist a clear apartheid-like discrimination between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese in terms of employment opportunities and salaries/wages in Xinjiang province.
More excruciating reports suggest that a lot of these detainees die in these concentration camps as a result of numerous means of torture.
China have destroyed mosques (and converted some to CCP propaganda centers), homes, graveyards and other culturally valuable destinations in Xinjiang all in an attempt to erase the indigenous people of East Turkestan, their culture and religion!
Safety is not guaranteed even for victims that flee China as some usually face deportation. For example Thailand deported around a hundred Uighurs in 2015 while most unfortunately, Egypt which is a Muslim dominated country deported 24 Uighurs in 2017 most of which disappeared, got imprisoned or got summarily executed upon arrival, only Malaysia have so far resisted pressure to deport Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims.
Uighurs staying abroad are being threatened mostly with the lives and safety of their families in China. In fear of retribution, most families urge Uighurs staying abroad to come back.
CCP officials are being forced into Uighur homes for very extensive home stays to monitor each and every aspect of their lives.
Children are being forcibly taken from parents and enrolled in orphanages where they learn CCP atheist doctrines and then get adopted into Han-Chinese families, an act in absolute conformity with the definition of genocide as prescribed in article 2 paragraph e of the Genocide Convention.
Not only Muslims, it has also been reported in the testimony of the secretary of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Chinese authorities also restrict the freedom of religion of Christians as a lot of churches have been destroyed, some shutdown, authorities demand for removal of crosses and hanging of Xi Jinping’s portraits in the churches. Destruction of religious materials have also been reported in the case of Quran and Bible incineration.
While countries like France, UK and Surprisingly US even with its harsh policy on Muslims publicly denounced Chinese repression most notably through their letter to the UN Human Rights Chief, most Muslim countries are surprisingly silent about it. In fact, sequel to the condemnation letter signed by the critics of this repression, a set of 37 state among which 14 are OIC members including Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE signed their own letter praising Beijing’s “remarkable achievements” in human rights and its “counterterrorism” efforts in Xinjiang.
Disappointingly, My country Nigeria through Ambassador Audu Ayinla Kadiri is also a signatory. These countries have shamefully prioritized economic ties over acting against active genocide.
Although there is a restriction as to the extent the international community can act in this case because of the undefined nature of cultural genocide in international law, there still exist evidences that show a paradigm shift from cultural form of genocide to both physical and biological forms.
The UN defines Genocide in The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
a. Killing members of the group;
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Reports have shown that a lot have died in these concentration camps as a result of torture and different forms of maltreatment, a lot have become mentally retarded due to drugging with unknown substances, a lot have been sterilized while some forcefully implanted with contraceptive devices to prevent births, a lot of children have been forcibly taken from their families to orphanages and eventually to Han-Chinese households as adopted children!
What are we waiting for then to start calling this an active genocide of cultural, physical and biological inclination?
While I strongly believe that the prevalence of these sardonic crimes is largely a result of failure of international law for not categorizing cultural genocide as an integral part of the crime of genocide even with the existence of facts that points it to be the precursor and usual aim of every genocidal attempts, I stand to call on the international community to see ample reasons why including it as a major type of the crime of genocide and according same punishments to its perpetrators is the way forward in protecting ethnic minorities against ethnic cleansing and halting any genocidal attempts all over the world.
Let us converge in unity and demand that our country Nigeria should follow Turkey’s footsteps and retract its support for China’s repression against minorities because whether Muslim or Christian, China is after all of us – atheism and absolute loyalty to CCP is China’s supreme objective!
Let us boycott Chinese corporations operating in Nigeria, Opay and the likes until China dissolves all concentration camps and answer to their crimes.
Let us call for a diplomatic African regional intervention through ECOWAS, AU and a Consensus African Block at the UN.
Let us as a country and region call for the International Criminal Court’s attention on this barbarism.
For today it is them, tomorrow it might be anybody, remember, there’s something called “Economic Warfare”
Abdulhaleem Ishaq Ringim is a political analyst, an activist and an advocate for sustainable development. He writes from Zaria and can be reached through Haleemabdul1999@gmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sky Daily
