New York Times Article: Mr. Kamm's Third Way

Class: You may be interested in reading the article that Mr. Kamm mentioned that was featured in the NY Times. It is titled,
John Kamm's Third Way".

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E0D81F3EF930A35750C0A9649C8B63

Rotation Summary; H Block (10/5-10/12)

The H block class had two guest speakers during this rotation; Mr. Kamm, founder of The Dui Hua Foundation, and Naomi Roht-Arriaza, a law professor at UC Hastings Law school. We also learned through film by watching part of Ararat, a 2002 film that tells a fictional story about the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. Kamm spoke about the advantages of improving human rights in China from a business standpoint. The Dui Hua Foundation researches the names of Chinese prisoners and asks about them, which is proven to improve their conditions while in prison and increase their chances of being let out early.

Professor Roht-Arriaza talked about the legal definition of genocide as well as the definitions of "crimes against humanity," "war crimes," and "aggression." She also talked about the legal difficulty of proving that a massacre is in fact genocide because it requires proof that the intent was to annihilate a specific racial, ethnic, religious or national group. She is currently working on a case to prove that the massacres in Guatemala of the Mayan people was a genocide. She also explained how the International Criminal Court (ICC) works, and how a case can be brought to trial under the ICC, as well as its effectiveness. (The United States refuses to become a party of the ICC.)

The film, Ararat, set in the present, depicts an Armenian family that decides to help out an Armenian director, Edward Saroyan, to make a Hollywood-style film about the genocide, from the fictionalised point of view of a genuine historical figure, Archile Gorky. Though we only got to watch the first half of the film, it was very interesting to see the effects of the genocide on a family almost 100 years later.

Click Here to Save Darfur

Any of you with profiles on Facebook or other social networking websites are probably familiar with groups that support stopping genocide. The largest I found is “For Every 1,000 People That Join This Group I Will Donate $1 to Darfur,” with nearly 430,000 members. According to its founder, he has indeed donated money. He says his goals are to “1) Raise Awareness/Get Darfur Some Attention 2) Raise some money 3) Inspire people to donate on their own to charitable organizations."

The benefits of these kinds of groups are that it is a great way to reach a vast audience, since millions of people are members of social networking websites. Someone who stumbles across one of these groups may be the type of person that doesn’t usually watch the news, and therefore will not have known before about a genocide and inspire them to do something.

What makes me worry about this phenomenon is that I feel like it can make someone feel like they’re being an upstander without making any significant changes to their life or making any difference. The majority of Facebook groups I’m I’ve never really thought after. If people feel like they have changed the world by simply clicking their mouse, will they ever do anything else? I also feel that possibly, since people generally come on Facebook to talk to friends or look at pictures, it may create resentment or fatigue. When people just want to be carefree for a half an hour on Facebook, they are instead reminded of tragic world events. I think this may cause some people to not want to think about genocide at all.

Some other questions to consider

1) What are other benefits and drawbacks to groups that aim to raise awareness about genocide?

2) Do you believe these groups make a difference for people who join them, aid organizations, and victims of genocide?

3) Does widespread use of Facebook make stopping genocide seem less important? Tha is to say, does seeing a group about stopping genocide in between a group about Fergie and a group about the Disney "D" make it seem like a less worthy cause?

Please add anything else I haven’t thought of also.

wow

Hey everybody!
Sorry, I don't really know how to post links so I'll just give you guys the address...
this is a mp3 file of Dan Robinson reporting on the a measure to acknowledge the Armenian genocide that is going to be put before the House for a vote.

http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/english/2007_10/Audio/Mp3/LCR%20Robinson%20Congress%20Turkey%20Armenia%202342956%20101107%20tw.Mp3

and this is the link for the article

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-10-11-voa71.cfm

Turkey has temorarily revoked its ambassador to the US, and is very upset with this measure, so some US poiticians would like to back off this issue due to the Iraq war.
Do you think this measure will pass? Do you think that this vote will put our troops in danger? Do you think that Turkey will stop allying itself with the US? Do you believe that this vote is long overdue?

China, the Olympics, and Dui Hua

Building on the posts about Dui Hua and China's upcoming Olympics, here is a link to Mr. Kamm's organization, Dui Hua, and its role in Chinese policy governing executions and political prisoners and the effect of the Olympics on all of this. The article appeared in Time magazine on June 11, 2007:

An Olympic Reprieve for China's Convicts

A previous post by Aaron Hui from early september (Sudan, China, and the 2008 Olympics) investigated the connection between China, the Olympics, and the genocide in Darfur. This article draws another connection, but this time between China, the Olympics, and human rights within China. Obviously, the Olympics is playing a big role in China's foreign relations.

Read the article, and say what you think!
Some questions to get the brain juices flowing:
1) Do you think that once the Olympics are over and the spotlight is off China, the execution numbers will rise again?
2) Mr. Kamm mentioned that his organization is using the Olympics, not morality, to convince the Chinese government to release prisoners and execute fewer people, but what can they use once the Olympics are over? In the meantime, using the Olympics as insentive is saving lives, but will all their work be for nothing once the Olympics are over (see question 1)?
3) Why is it that governments tend not to listen to reasons based on morality and common humanity, and instead respond to reasons based on economics, the Olympics, and foreign relations? Is this inevitable or a fault of the fundamental idea of government? Is it a fault at all - is it a good thing?

The Power of Cooperation

Sorry for all of those not in the H block class, but this post pertains to today guest speaker, Professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza. She talked about the legal work behind declaring, proving and defining genocide and crimes against humanity. More importantly to my post, she explained the formation and structure of the International Criminal Court, and went over the pros and cons of it's existance and the courts limitations.
According to Professor Roht-Arriaza, there are 4 cases currently in session - political leaders in Uganda, Darfur, The Central African Republic, and The Democratic Republic of Congo. Of these 4 cases, only one of the offenders has been apprehended and jailed during the trial. Therefore most of the people on trial for these humanitarian crimes are still free and for the most part aren't fleeing/ hiding. This is because the court doesn't possess the power or have the physical ability to actually arrest the perpetrators and the court's memeber nations can't reasonably go into Darfur and "kidnap" a political figure. There in lies the problem, The ICC and UN along with most other multinational organizations lack the ability to enforce rulings, decisions and policies. If the UN were to attempt an invasion of Darfur to stop the genocide, whose troops would be sent in? America's? We probabaly wouldn't concent. China? No. The same response would occur for all UN member nations.
So my question is do you believe that these multinational organizations will ever be effective without a military and what do you propose these organizations should/can do about there lack of enforcement? Can the UN or ICC ever have a police/militant force?

Is Torture Ever Acceptable?

Since the beginning of the Global War on Terrorism, the capture and prosecution of terrorists has been a focal US goal. To nobody’s surprise, most of the apprehended suspects have been reluctant to tell US military officials any information they may know regarding the locations of other enemies of state or of possible future terror attacks. To get these men to talk, the CIA and US military have used practices branded as “torture”, by definitions in the Geneva Conference and in the US Congress’s interrogation guideline. The Bush administration first issued to military officials that any policy that may end up saving American lives can be used, except for those that directly caused “organ failure or death.” In 2004, the White House retracted these statements and declared that it will and only has approved interrogation methods that have obliged to Congresses’ strict and clear guideline to legal interrogation. However, last week, the New York Times uncovered two secret memos, sent by then Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to US military officials and CIA leaders, designed to fudge their way around Congress's clear guidelines against torture. The memos approved the use of illegal techniques and said no CIA practices would violate the restrictions. The White House has dismissed allegations that it has supported the use of torture, even in light of the newly found documents.

My question to you guys is:
Is the use of torture against suspected terrorists EVER acceptable?

If you believe no, would you still say no even if there is a highly probable chance that the suspect has some sort of knowledge of an impending terrorist attack that could potentially kill hundreds or thousands of people?

If you believe yes, then wouldn’t this direct undermining of international torture regulations expose US soldiers to risk of torture if they are captured? Isn’t this a question of morals too?



http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/10/our-view-on-pri.html#more

White House Condemns Resolution Labeling Armenian Genocide

President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke against a House resolution that would officially call the killings of Armenians as "genocide".

In their comments they said that, "passage of the resolution would hurt relations with an important U.S. ally" and that "good relations with Turkey are vital because 70 percent of the air cargo intended for and 30 percent of the fuel consumed by the U.S. forces in Iraq flies through Turkey."

Condoleezza Rice said, "We recognize the feelings of those who want to express their concern and their disdain for what happened many years ago...But the passage of this resolution at this time would, indeed, be very problematic for everything that we're trying to do in the Middle East because we are very dependent on a good Turkish strategic ally to help with our efforts."

Representative Adam Schiff spoke out against the White House's response saying, "The United States has a compelling historical and moral reason to recognize the Armenian genocide, which cost a million and a half people their lives. But we also have a powerful contemporary reason as well. How can we take effective action against the genocide in Darfur if we lack the will to condemn genocide whenever and wherever it occurs?
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Here US economic interests conflict with perhaps our moral obligations. If we pass the resolution, we could hurt our relationship with Turkey. But if the US sides with Turkish denial of the genocide, aren't we just "continuing genocide" as one of our guest speakers said?
-What should the United States do?
-What is more important, our economic interests or moral obligations?
-Does the fact that Iraq is involved in the situation affect how you think about it? Should it?
-Do you think the US is being selfish in refusing to call it genocide?
-Do you agree with Schiff, that this sets the tone for how the US deals with genocide and especially the current situation in Darfur?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/10/us.turkey.armenians/index.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/09/AR2007100902347.html?nav=rss_print/asection

Save one life, save the world

Today in class we had Mr. Kamm come speak to H block about his work with the Dui Hua Foundation, of which he is the founder. Very simply put, the purpose of this non-governmental organisation (NGO) is to find names of political prisoners in China in open sources (newspapers, public government documents, government reports, etc.) and request that they be released. In the best cases, the prisoner is released, at the very least they are usually given better treatment. So far they have found 5,000 names and helped around 500 prisoners lessen their prison time. At first glance these numbers seem large, and they are, but compared to the huge numbers of political prisoners in China, they barely scratch the surface. So then the question comes up, is it worth it? Dui Hua isn't stopping China from arresting people, it is only helping individuals whose names it finds.

There is a Jewish quote (variations of which appear in many other religions) that Mr. Kamm mentioned in support of his work: "If you save one life, you save the world entire."

Some questions to connect this back to our genocide theme:
1) Do you agree with this quote?
2) Should one focus on saving individuals at the risk of a genocide continuing indefinitely or on stopping a genocide at the risk of individuals perishing in the meantime? While neither option is a 'good' one, is there a lesser evil to the two?

Partick Desbois

Hey everyone!
so I just read an article that was in the NY Times on Saturday entitled "One Story at a Time, a Priest Reveals Ukrainian Jews' Fate".
It's about a French priest who has gone to the Ukraine and other parts of formally Soviet Union. He has interviewed Ukrainians who were forced to work for the Nazi's during Nazi occupation to hear their stories, and has uncovered mass graves that have been largely ignored or covered up over the past 60 years.
Over 1.5 million Jews were murdered in the Ukraine, but until now there it was not publicized to the same extent as in Germany or Poland.
"Over four years, Father Desbois has videotaped more than700 interviews with witnesses and bystanders and has identified more than 600 common graves of Jews, most of them previously unknown."
Why were these landmarks covered up and ignored by the country after other countries revealed their graves and gas chambers? Why didn't these witnesses tell their stories or reveal the graves before now? Would you qualify these people as bystanders? Are they as bad as David Cash? Would you qualify Father Desbois as an upstander (I would)?

Happy Columbus Day!

Because today is Columbus Day, I thought this would be a good time for discussion about Columbus and what we've learned about him in history thus far.

In elementary school (and, perhaps, middle school), as many of you probably know, Columbus is taught in a heroic sense... that is, he is viewed in a relatively good light. He discovered America, made a mistake and thought it was India, and basically is considered a hero because he was the "first one" to discover the "New World."

Then we get to the later grades (ie... world history sophomore year and US history junior year) and we start to learn about the details of Columbus' arrival. He brought over disease that killed the Native Americans, he cheated them, he killed them. Columbus is suddenly shown in a very different light.

My question is: from what we've learned about Columbus, can his actions here in America be considered "genocide?"

Also, consider this: President Andrew Jackson slaughtered many Native Americans (intentionally) during the War of 1812. Is this a genocide?

And... both Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren, forced many Native Americans out of their homes (Trail of Tears), causing the deaths of thousands. Is this genocide?

If these are considered genocide, can the US Government be held accountable today? How is this different from the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish Government?

Anyway, just some food for thought... Happy Columbus Day!

-coe