Mechanics of Genocide: 101

Iljas Baker, a visiting professor at Mahidol, has provided an exceptional piece for Bangkok Post News that I suspect might foreshadow some of the legal knots and twists likely to be put before the proposed tribunal.

It details why the definition of "genocide" might be a sticking point.

Short snippets here can not do the full piece justice, however here is a sample:

Although the media frequently refer to the mass killings that took place between April 17, 1975 and Jan 6, 1979 as genocide, the exact legal nature of the Khmer Rouge's crimes is still the subject of debate and one welcome outcome of this trial would be a legal decision stating what, if any, crimes satisfy the definition of genocide contained in the Genocide Convention of 1948.

The Convention states that genocide means ``any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.''
.....
One would think that the mass killing of the Cham Muslims at least would be recognised universally as constituting genocide. After all, this is a homogenous ethnic and religious group that was specifically targeted for persecution. But there is no such consensus.

Philip Short, author of a recent biography of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, states that the persecution of the Cham Muslims resulted from the fact they resisted the new order more than other groups. But, he believes it would be impossible to prove there was a systematic attempt to destroy the Cham Muslims.

Link