by Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D.

In 1948, the United Nations passed the Genocide Convention, making it a crime to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.  Forty years later the Convention finally was ratified by the United States Senate, and then only because of truly heroic efforts by Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin.  Proxmire gave 3,211 speeches on the floor of the Senate, a speech a day for 19 years, every one of them unique, until the Convention was finally passed in 1988.

Why did it take forty years for the Senate to ratify the Convention?  One reason was that our leaders were afraid that the United States would be accused of genocide. [1]

In 1455 Pope Nicholas V proclaimed that Portugal and Spain could conquer North America in the name of Christian expansion. This ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ was used to justify stripping Indian tribes of their lands and their ways of life.

Indian Land For Sale

The resulting genocide of the American Indians was carried out against every aspect of their existence.  The buffalo, essential to the Indian way of life for food, clothing, weapons, decoration, shelter, fuel, and spiritual practice, was almost completely wiped out.  Tens of thousands of Indians were sold as slaves alongside African slaves and were even sold to other colonies in the Caribbean and South America.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced almost 50,000 Indians off their lands in the southeastern part of the country and marched them to present-day Oklahoma; thousands died of starvation and disease on this Trail of Tears.  Thousands more were housed in three concentration camps and an insane asylum.

From the 1850s to the early 1900s, Indian land was even further reduced by the Dawes Act; 90,000 more Indians became homeless and 90 million acres of Indian land were lost.

Dakota hangings, 1862

Mass executions occurred throughout the country.  Soldiers massacred women and children at Sand Creek, Colorado in 1812; no one was ever held responsible.  The U.S. 7^th Cavalry killed hundreds of Lakota Sioux in 1890 at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, with impunity; and of course the largest mass execution in the United States – 38 Dakota were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota in 1862, ordered by then-President Abraham Lincoln only one month before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Genocide includes not only extermination but also the transfer of children of the group to another group.  Indian children were taken from their parents and their communities to be raised in white-run boarding schools where they were forced to assimilate to white Christian culture. Native religions were outlawed until 1978.

The trauma continued on into the 20^th and, now, the 21^st centuries.  In the 1970s the U.S. Government Indian Health Services forcibly sterilized 25-50 percent of American Indian women.  And the centuries of brutality reverberate today in a legacy of familial violence, human trafficking, alcoholism, and disease.

The City Councils of Minneapolis and St. Paul have resolved to rectify some of the wrongs that were committed here in Minnesota.  We must all support efforts to bring truth, honor, and justice to those whose lives and cultures were so brutally destroyed.

November 6 – Election Day. It’s rapidly approaching and there are a number of important issues on the ballot.

World Without Genocide is advocating ‘Vote No’ on the Minnesota Marriage Amendment:

The Third Reich, the German regime that perpetrated the Holocaust, passed laws that deprived Jews of all of their rights and freedoms. The first of these ‘Nuremberg Laws,’ passed in 1935, stated that marriages between Jews and “subjects of the state of German or related blood are forbidden. ”

It’s shocking that the very first law to restrict Jews’ rights had to do with marriage.  More than a decade later, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the United Nations in 1948, stated that marriage is a human right. “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution” (Article 16.1). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1976, also tells us that marriage is a basic human right.

It is critical to note that these international documents do not specify that marriage is restricted to one man and one woman.  If marriage is restricted, that action becomes a slippery slope down which other limitations can follow – limitations that cast a shadow back to that first Nuremberg law that mandated imprisonment for Jews who married non-Jews.

We encourage Minnesotans to vote ‘no’ to the upcoming Constitutional amendment in November defining marriage as only between one man and one woman.

Click here for more information on Minnesota United for All Families.

A recent statement by the United Nations Association of the United States affirms that LGBT rights are human rights. They state,

“The United Nations is increasingly concerned with the prevalence of discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. In more than 70 countries it is a crime for LGBT people to simply be who they are – a reality that exposes millions to the risk of arrest, imprisonment, and, in some cases, execution. The UN Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and leaders of various UN agencies have advocated for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality and further measures to protect people from violence and discrimination on the bases of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Also, the Human Rights Council held an historic debate highlighting the discrimination faced by the LGBT community in March 2012 during which the Secretary-General denounced violence and discrimination. The Secretary-General boldly states that “the time has come” for the world to recognize LGBT rights.”

by Ellen J. Kennedy, Executive Director, World Without Genocide

View from Rio Negro community

Two nights ago I slept at a place in Guatemala that felt haunted.  In 1982, nearly 200 women and children were marched five miles up the steep mountain hillside – and then brutally killed and buried in a mass grave.  I heard their screams and cries in my dreams.

I came to Guatemala a few weeks ago to learn more about the genocide that happened here between 1960 and 1996, a period when 200,000 people perished; 100,000 more disappeared without a trace; and more than a million others were displaced from their homes and their communities.  Nearly all of this terror was carried out by the Guatemalan government’s army.

Most of us in the US know very little about this conflict that the United Nations has called genocide.  Beginning in the 1960s, the Guatemalan dictatorial government, faced with a challenge to its power and control by rising left-wing groups of indigenous people, intellectuals, union supporters, and others, responded with tactics of horrific cruelty.

The Commission for Historical Clarification, in its 1999 report, declared, “In the majority of massacres there is evidence of multiple acts of savagery.  Acts such as the killing of defenseless children, often by beating them against walls or throwing them alive into pits where the corpses of adults were later thrown; the amputation of limbs; the impaling of victims; the killing of persons by covering them in petrol and burning them alive; the extraction, in the presence of others, of the internal organs of victims who were still alive; the confinement of people who had been mortally tortured, in agony for days; the opening of the wombs of pregnant women, and other similarly atrocious acts, were not only actions of extreme cruelty against the victims, but also morally degraded the perpetrators and those who inspired, ordered or tolerated these actions.”

Massacre site memorial

A report by Human Rights Watch from 1984 discussed “the murder of thousands by a military government that maintains its authority by terror. One example is the massacre of over 160 civilians by government soldiers in the village of Las Dos Erres in 1982. The abuses included burying some alive in the village well, killing infants by slamming their heads against walls, keeping young women alive to be raped over the course of three days. This was not an isolated incident. Rather it was one of over 400 massacres documented by the truth commission – some of which, according to the commission, constituted “acts of genocide.”

Although the conflict technically ended in 1996, the government continues to target those who advocate for indigenous rights, land reform, an end to corruption, and a commitment to the enactment of the rule of law.

Today I’m in the small town of Huehuetanengo, a community that was particularly targeted during the genocide.  Thirty years after that conflict, the human rights leaders here today want the same things that their mothers and fathers fought for a generation ago.  There are laws to protect innocent civilians, enhance democracy, and preserve indigenous rights and cultures – but the laws are not enforced and the government and its army remain in full control of the political and economic sectors.

Genocides destabilize communities, countries, and regions for decades and for generations.   Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum earlier this week and affirmed the United States’ commitment to genocide prevention.  The opportunity is ours – to leave a legacy of a world without genocide.

Greetings from Guatemala! Executive Director Dr. Ellen J. Kennedy and Program and Operations Coordinator Rachel Beecroft are traveling in Guatemala until July 26, in partnership with Rights Action, a human rights organization based out of Washington, D. C. and Toronto, Canada. Check out the work Rights Action does here.

We will spend time at the site of Marlin gold mine in the Department of San Marcos and the Chixoy Dam in the Department of Baja Verapaz, the site of the Rio Negro Massacre between 1980 and 1982.  We will have the immense privilege of hearing the stories of the Mayans who struggle against exploitation and atrocity testimony.

The Marlin gold mine is located in eastern Guatemala. Discovered in 1998 and developed into a working mine shortly thereafter, the mine has both open-pit and underground operations. Production will continue until at least 2017. Roughly 1,900 people work at the mine – half are locals and nearly all (98%) are Guatemalan. In addition to environmental concerns, there are allegations that development of the mine did not adequately consult the indigenous people and that existence of the mine is in violation of those peoples.

The Chixoy Dam is a concrete dam and power plant on the Chixoy River in central Guatemala. It was built in the 70s and 80s, and generates roughly 15% of the country’s power. Construction displaced over 3,445 people from several communities. The government orchestrated forced relocations from fertile agricultural lands to surrounding highlands. Over 440 Maya Achi were killed in the village of Rio Negro in as a result of the forced relocations and thousands were raped, kidnapped, and killed by paramilitary and military officials between 1980 and 1982, known as the Rio Negro Massacres. Claims relating to the Massacres have not yet been settled.

Upon return to Minneapolis, Kennedy and Beecroft will participate in an ‘It’s a Woman’s World’ taping and broadcast addressing the issues they investigated in Guatemala.

Stay tuned for more information on the broadcast and on World in Guatemala!

Tent Painting in My Garage

by Ellen J. Kennedy, Executive Director, World Without Genocide

I couldn’t use my garage for several months. There was no room for my car because the tents took up all the space. Tents would be put up for a few weeks, painted, and then taken down.

The tents are part of a project called Tents of Witness: Genocide and Conflict. This project educates about genocide and other atrocities around the world. There are ten tents, each one 8’ x 12’ in size, made of heavy white canvas, and similar to tents that hundreds of thousands of refugees live in today in Chad, a neighboring country of Sudan. People have fled in terror from the genocide in Darfur and have been living in tents like ours for nearly eight years.

Each of the ten tents tells a different story: the Holocaust, Cambodia, Argentina, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Sri Lanka, North Korea, and the Native Americans.

Each tent was prepared by people with a deep personal connection to the conflict – people who have fled from violence in their home countries, leaving loved ones, cherished places, their own language, and everything familiar and comfortable. The experience of creating this exhibit, of painting the outside and telling the stories on the inside through photos and text, gave them hope that ordinary Minnesotans will understand them better.

And that’s what happened in my garage. Each tent also had people from our organization working on the tents. The Bosnia tent, for example, had a team of four women: a Bosnian, a Serb, a South Korean, and a native-born Minnesotan. The women worked on the tent for several weekends. As they learned about each other, the divisions of country, religion, and ethnicity faded away. They became friends.

This is our vision. People will see the tents and read the stories, participate in shared experiences during the exhibit, and have conversations that bring them closer together. We hope the exhibit will be used throughout the state.

I don’t mind giving up my garage one bit.

Our tent project was recently selected for a grant. Check out our submission here:

If we win this grant, we will be able to send Tents of Witness to communities around the state, free of charge.

[to bring the tents to your community or for more information, contact admin@worldwithoutgenocide.org]

By Emerson Beishline

Over spring break, Ellen Kennedy, Director at World Without Genocide, headed a five-day trip to New York City and Washington, D.C. that gave a small group of us the privilege to engage in lengthy dialogue with some of the most brilliant minds in national security policy, international law, and the wide-reaching field of international human rights.

On the first day of our trip we toured the United Nations while it was in session and then met with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ External Relations Officer. He spoke with us for an hour, giving us a quick lesson in the UNHCR’s purpose and objectives, the status of displaced people, asylum seekers, and refugees around the world, and closed with a discussion of all the durable solutions currently being implemented by the organization. After the awe-inspiring tour of the UN (while the General Assembly was in session, no less) and our conversation with the officer, we met with the Convener and Deputy Convener for the American NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC) and the Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. We discussed the purpose and objectives of the International Criminal Court and parsed the Rome Statute and the related concerns of legitimacy and membership. That evening we had free time.   I explored Harlem, a place of interest given my Finnish heritage; it was a Finn enclave in the early 1900’s.

On Tuesday we visited Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and learned about their respective priority campaigns around the world and, of course, internship opportunities for law students. I think the biggest thing I personally took away from our meetings with people at the two organizations was how vastly different their approaches to human rights are. Amnesty International is a grassroots organization that focuses on educating and mobilizing the public, while Human Rights Watch approaches policymakers at the highest levels of government. Both approaches are essential and combine to create the synergy of bottom-up and top-down advocacy. After this fruitful day, I spent the evening at  Godspell on Broadway with a fellow law student.

Wednesday morning, we met with the Director of the International Women’s Program at the Open Society Foundation, and learned about the organization’s grant-making mission, discussed the Violence Against Women Act at length, and talked about the Israel-Palestine conflict. That afternoon we headed for D.C. by train and ended the evening with a  walking tour of the monuments on the National Mall.

On Thursday we visited the Holocaust Museum in the morning and then spent the rest of the day meeting with representatives of the Museum’s Committee on Conscience, The Enough Project, and United to End Genocide. The Committee on Conscience staff talked with us about the organization’s hybrid role as a public-private institution and programs to increase awareness among the general public and to provide perspective to influential think tank. People from the Enough Project explained their campaign for ethical supply chain management and conflict-free products, and programs to help reduce the violence happening in the northeast part of the Congo, where more than 6 million people have perished. United to End Genocide’s director of their national student movement ended the afternoon by focusing on worldwide activities to bring attention to mass atrocities in Sudan, Syria, and other parts of the world. We ended the day by solving the murder in Shear Madness, the long-running play at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

On the last day of our trip we toured the Supreme Court. We then went to meet with key staff at the offices of some our elected officials:  Representative Keith Ellison’s Legislative Assistant for Foreign Affairs, Senator Al Franken’s National Security Advisor and Deputy Legislative Director, and Senator Amy Klobuchar’s Chief Counsel. We talked about everything from national security to VAWA to the possibility of using drones for human rights abuses monitoring to internship and job opportunities on the Hill. We then visited with a lawyer from the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Fittingly, we ended the trip with a visit to the U.S. Institute of Peace and learned all about its mission and efforts to help de-escalate conflict situations.

So, you, the persevering reader, might wonder if the trip was worth it. Make that an emphatic “Yes!” The trip was remarkably engaging. It was incredibly formative and life-changing. I finished this trip with a more complete understanding of how much  impact each of us can have in the realm of international human rights. I currently intern for a civil liberties organization that deals primarily with abuses that occur  here in Minnesota. I am also a Finnish citizen and have lived abroad for several years. This trip helped me realize more than ever that to become a truly conscientious global citizen, I need to dedicate myself to providing solutions both at home and abroad. Take this trip, gain some perspective; see if it changes you.

(Note from World Without Genocide:  Next year’s trip dates are Sunday, March 3 – Friday, March 8, 2013.  For more information call 651-695-7621 or contact admin@worldwithoutgenocide.org.   The trip is open to all William Mitchell students.)

World Without Genocide officially voices its support for today’s very first International Criminal Court (ICC) verdict. Read on in our press release below.

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World Without Genocide Heralds ICC Verdict

                                                Contact:  Dr. Ellen Kennedy
952-693-5206
kennedy@worldwithoutgenocide.org

 For Immediate Release

(St. Paul, MN, March 14, 2012)  World Without Genocide, a human-rights organization headquartered at William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN, heralds today’s ‘guilty’ verdict at the International Criminal Court that found Thomas Lubango Dyilo guilty of enlisting and using child soldiers under the age of 15 in armed conflict. This decision by the ICC represents a milestone in ending impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, crimes that the ICC investigates on a global level.

World Without Genocide is a member of AMICC, the American association of nongovernmental organizations supporting the International Criminal Court.  As an AMICC member, World Without Genocide advocates for the United States to join 120 nations world-wide that have ratified their participation in the ICC. World Without Genocide also raises awareness about the crime of using child soldiers in armed conflict through speeches, workshops, and engagement in the Red Hand Day program, a global campaign to end the use of child soldiers.

World Without Genocide promotes education and action to protect innocent people, prevent genocide, prosecute perpetrators, and remember those whose lives and cultures have been destroyed by genocide. Visit www.worldwithoutgenocide.org for more information. 

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Contributed by Dragana Vidovic, News and Legislation Associate, World Without Genocide

Individuals meet in unexpected situations and places. Those encounters are a reminder of how small our world is – that all humans are connected in some way. Strangers start conversations and discover that they have common friends or enemies in one or another part of the world.

Although the modern world is connected in unprecedented ways, people often choose to isolate each other, ignoring the suffering of their fellow humans. Almost 20 years ago, in a war-torn city of Banjaluka, Bosnia (officially known as Bosnia-Herzegovina), 14 newborn babies became victims and witnesses to human cruelty and isolation. While those in power debated their war tactics, 12 newborn babies died in a hospital from lack of oxygen. The troops surrounding the area around Banjaluka didn’t let oxygen be imported by land. The UN Security Council had established a no-fly zone over Bosnia and the airplane bringing the oxygen from Belgrade was not allowed to fly. Slađana Kobas, the 13th baby from this incident, died at the age of 13 and the last surviving baby, Marko Medaković, is still living in Banjaluka and struggling with horrific physical and mental consequences. The groups involved in the 1990s conflict are blaming each other and creating controversies around this event, only to vindicate their souls and prolong the pain of those who lost their loved ones. I remember watching the news and hoping naïvely that someone would save those babies and stop the war, but the violence continued for the next three years. I ask myself the same questions today as I did then; what motivates humans to hurt each other and what inspires us to protect each other? During trying war times, events like these happen over and over again due to lack of communication, trust, and empathy.

There is a one key emotion that those who isolate others lack: empathy. The ability to imagine someone else’s feelings and understand other people’s perspectives enables us to resolve our misunderstandings in a peaceful way. Yet the nature of empathy is such that we are most empathetic towards those who live close to us, are similar to us, or are our family members. A question often asked is “why should we care about people living thousands of miles away in another country?” While participating in the “Children of Genocide: Five Who Survived” film project, I met people who survived Nazi persecution, war in Darfur, and the killing fields of Cambodia, and I realized that they were affected by war violence in similar ways that my friends and neighbors were in Bosnia during the war. Millions of people around the world are forced to fight “someone else’s” war and that threatens the safety and security of every one of us. If we can understand our commonality and begin to feel and imagine the lives of other human beings, we will learn how to make our world better place.

American prison psychologist Gustav Gilbert said during the Nuremburg trials after interviewing several Nazi war crimes defendants in 1945, “I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil. I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy…A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” I have witnessed this kind of evil firsthand, and I believe that mass destruction is preventable if we will take the time to listen to and understand each other. It is our behavior toward others that produces either friends or enemies. The choice is yours to make.