Sudan vs. Former Yugoslawia: Bad karma in genocide?

After Sharon Stone's comment regarding the chinese earthquake and the bad karma with Tibet, I hesitated to use this heading. But after reading this entry, I hope, that you will understand my point and not compare it to the thoughtless comment of Ms. Stone.
It has been a couple of days now, that I wanted to write about Sudan's president and that funally(!) the UN is taking action. My interest for Sudan actually developed after readin a great book named " They poure Fire from the Sky". This is not just a book about three of the lost boys, who had to wander around in the african sun, like thousands of others. It's a story of pain, death, loss, but also hope and persistence. A story by three amazing young men, who just did not give up and fought for life. At the age of 11- 14, seperated from their families, seeing how sisters and mother were raped and killed, seeing how fathers were burned alive, seeing skelettons of relatives next to their walkway. A story of three young men, who were so strong to continue their walk, despite of hunger, being forced to drink their urine in order to survive. A story, whcih makes wonder how children are sotime treated by grown-ups. A life-changing story. Rarely did a book leave such an incredible impact on me. I turn off the water when washing my face, I switch all the lights out when I am not in a room, I walked a couple of days ago (for fun) 6,5 miles, while it was somewhat warm, and realized that this children did not walk for fun and the sun was not only womehwat warm. They wlaked to survive and the sun was HOT. Why? Because the extremists in the sudanes government wanted them to become muslims. They wanted to cleanse the country, raped in order to produce more of their kind. My first reaction is that this is not Islam. Islam clearly forbids rape, the Koran speaks about the treatment of women in a different manner. So why did the sudanes government misrepresent Islam? I don't know. And I am sure noone will know the real reason behind it. Most likely it's the "Jerry McGuire" answer: 99 % of all the questions can be asnwered with: $$$, money. So I assume it was the same in this case.
Now, yesterday the former serbian minister was captured after 13 years. Also for genocide or " cleansing" purposes. In his case, he wanted to clean the country from everything but serbs. Killed 5000 muslims in one night, raped women and girls in ordr to spread the serbian blood. Created massgraves and became famous for one of the worst genocides in the past century.
This makes me wonder, in the first case muslims are the killers, in the second one, muslims are killed. What are we doing in this world? Most of all what kind of sample do we grow-ups set our children? Do as I say, don't do as I do? Or, sweetie, wait until you are older, then you can kill as well, for now play nice and share? The same way nature pays us back at times ( at right), does humanity do the same: tody you kill, tomorrow you get killed?
Noon wins, not the nations, not the leaders. they loose their pride pretty quickly, pay hiding in weird places, by looking pathetical pittyful when they hear what they are accused of, and yes, by begging for forgiveness. How can you even dare to ask for forgivenss when you ruined thousands of peoples lives? The ones you have killed are gone, thos enumerbs are given in the news. But noone talks about those who continue living, or ho actually try to survive with those terribe memories, day after day.
I guess in this case, it is bad karma for each side.

Is Rape a War crime?

Before focusing on the question, I have to admit that I got goose bumps when I read the victims’ stories within Mac Kannon’s article “Crimes”. Suddenly I remembered watching the news at the time of the Yugoslavian war and hearing the stories of women who were able to escape. I heard the stories of the rape/sex camps, their fear of being the “chosen one” for the night, their forced pregnancies and hating the child from the moment it was conceived. At that time I was 19 and while I understood how terrifying the experience of being raped and impregnated for the women must have been, I never thought of defining rape as a war crime. I only thought that it was rape, like the ones you read in the police reports; such as those happening next door.

Rape is a war crime, if the terms rape and war crime have an overlapping area. The dictionary defines rape as involuntarily sexual act through violence, force, threat of injury or duress, which is considered as a serious crime. War crimes are defined as violations of the laws of war in an inter-state conflict. In this context war crime is a criminal act that occurs during an armed dispute between nations. If for example state A and state B are in war any actions against The Hague Conventions of 1907 would be seen as a war crime. Hence, they would have international character and international jurisprudence would be applied in their judgment. Questionable is how violations within a state should be understood. Is rape a war crime within a civil war? International law would not be applicable, since it does not involve two different nations fighting against each other. It is unclear, whether a war based on religious or ethnic differences would be considered as war under the International Law.

I believe if rape is localized within a country it should be treated under the local jurisprudence of that country, which in most nations will be considered a crime. But, if it is used as a weapon of war between two nations or two different groups it should be regarded as an international crime. If men were the only target of a criminal action during war, it would be regarded as a war crime. If all humans were targeted, it would be regarded as a war crime. What difference does it make if a gun, a knife, or in this case body parts are used to humiliate, harm, and kill others? The problem usually does not occur when the rape victims are killed, since at that time the rape action becomes the lesser criminal action. But most often, like in former Yugoslavia, rape victims are used as “toys” for repeated abuse and as Mac Kinnon states “…make the victims wish they were dead.” While The Hague Convention allows holding prisoners of war in camps and explicitly states that they are allowed to work, it does not mention women-only camps, where their work involves forced sex.

While it could be argued that in every war, regardless of the fact if it is international or civil, rape could happen, and that not all of those incidents could be regarded as war crimes, we have to differentiate an important fact: Not only does it matter how many rapes have occurred, but it matters as well, if a certain identifiable group of women have been victims. Sudan-rape demonstrates that rape is not being discussed publicly. This might be because of being ashamed, maybe because of denial, or maybe because the target group are women. Mac Kannon states that in the early days of slavery in the United States some white farmers raped their female black slaves. The question arises if those rapes should also be seen as war crimes. The answer is No. To classify a rape as a war crime it needs to fulfill two requirements:
1) It has to be within a war, while it does not matter if it is an international or a civil war, and
2) It can not be only one or two incidents, but has to be against a group of women.

Nazi Germany was guilty of war crime by trying to erase Jewish Germans. They all had the same nationality, but the actions were targeting a certain group within their country. What difference would it be to have a group of women? The argument that women should not have explicit rights and that their protection should be included in the human rights, does not address the issue. It is not about excluding women from their natural protection within human rights, neither do women want to have “extra” rights. It just happens that in the case of rape they have to be seen as a certain group of humans. In the case of former Yugoslavia rape was used as a tool for ethnic cleansing, to “purify” the state and to ensure a pure Serbian state. Therefore rape was used not only as a sexual crime, but moreover as a method of spreading the Serbian genes by targeting the woman group. Those women were not “only” raped, but they were “brand marked”. They were not only used as sex objects, but as “birth machines”. Unlike the Sudan rapes, this tried to exterminate black women. In Sudan rape was one of the many crimes against humanity. The main objective was to target certain ethnic groups by torturing and killing regardless of gender.

Unfortunately what Mac Kannon states is still true: Women's rape becomes men's liberty, gang rape their fraternity, prostitution their property, forced pregnancy their family and their privacy, pornography their speech.”

Many people, mostly male lawmakers treat women differently based on natural differences between the genders. But on the other hand the problem becomes exactly the same as Mac Kannon notices with the German Jews: equality tests become the differentiation method and reason at the same time. However, what these people do not understand is the fact that because of the gender differences, human beings exist; therefore the term “human being” has to include men and women. This would result in treating any kind of crime against one of the subcategories as a crime against human race.

In conclusion I believe that rape is a war crime, which is used mostly used as a weapon against women of certain ethnicity and should be punished according to international criminal law.