A Problem From Hell by Samantha Power

Author:Samantha Power [Power, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780465050895
Publisher: Basic Books

Defeat on All Fronts

Not everyone quieted down. Like a broken record, Congressman McCloskey continued to seize every opportunity to badger administration officials. When Christopher blamed all sides as a way of explaining the weak U.S. policy, McCloskey pounced, slamming Christopher’s attempt to posit “moral equivalency.” In what was becoming a ritual between the two men, the Indiana congressman asked again for the State Department’s position on the term “genocide.” “I know—you know that my request is still pending right now,” McCloskey said. A skilled lawyer, Christopher agreed that the Serbs were aggressors, which was irrefutable, but again seized the opportunity to obfuscate. Christopher responded:

Mr. McCloskey, thank you for the question and for giving me an opportunity to say that I share your feeling that the principal fault lies with the Bosnian Serbs, and I’ve said that several times before. They are the most at fault of the three parties. But there is considerable fault on all three sides, and . . . atrocities abound in this area as we have seen in the last several days and weeks. But I agree that the aggression coming from Serbia is the . . . principal perpetrator of the problem in the area.

With respect to genocide, the definition of genocide is a fairly technical definition. Let me just get it for you here. I think I can get it in just a moment.

Christopher paused, read from the convention, and then said:

I would say that some of the acts that have been committed by various parties in Bosnia, principally by the Serbians, could constitute genocide under the 1948 convention, if their purpose was to destroy the religious or ethnic group in whole or in part. And that seems to me to be a standard that may well have been reached in some of the aspects of Bosnia. Certainly some of the conduct there is tantamount to genocide.140

As he had done in March, Christopher called the atrocities “tantamount to genocide” but refused to deliver a formal finding to that effect. Other U.S. officials were thus left to squirm for themselves.

During a September 15, 1993, hearing of the House Europe and Middle East Subcommittee, McCloskey pressed Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs Stephen Oxman, who stuck to the qualifier of “tantamount”:

Rep. McCloskey: As you know, since April, I’ve been trying to get an answer from State as to whether these activities by the Bosnian Serbs and Serbs constitute genocide. Will I get a reply on that today?

Mr. Oxman: I learned, just today, that you hadn’t had your response. And the first thing I’m going to do when I get back to the Department is find out where that is. We’ll get you that response as soon as we possibly can. But to give you my personal view, I think that acts tantamount to genocide have been committed. Whether the technical definition of genocide—I think this is what the letter that you’re asking for needs to address.

Rep. McCloskey: Right.

Mr. Oxman: And I think you’re entitled to an answer.

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