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Scoop.co.nz, New Zealand
April 13 2015
New Zealand, ANZAC & the UN Security Council
Monday, 13 April 2015, 9:18 am
Dr. Simon Adams
As the centennial commemoration of the mass slaughter we refer to as
World War One continues, the eyes of New Zealanders and Australians
shift towards the Dardanelles. Although the Anzacs have a sacred place
in popular memory, there is much that still eludes us.
At school I was never taught, for example, that the Gallipoli landing
was connected to the Armenian genocide. But as the Allies sailed
towards Anzac Cove on the night of 24 April 2015 the arrest of
Armenian intellectuals began in Constantinople. The arrests were
followed by the first mass deportations as the Ottoman Empire
systematically attempted to dispossess, disperse and exterminate the
Armenian minority whom they considered inherently treasonous. In all,
an estimated one million Armenians died.
The centenary of the Armenian genocide will not receive the global
recognition it deserves. In Turkey just acknowledging the genocide
remains a punishable offence under Article 301 of the country's penal
code. As a result, and with an eye on burgeoning Turkish trade and
investment, many governments will remain silent on 24 April. New
Zealand should not be one of them.
Britain, France and Russia had no qualms in denouncing the massacres
at the time. In May 1915 they jointly declared, for the first time in
history, that the Turkish attempt to exterminate the Armenians
constituted a "crime against humanity." But post-war attempts to bring
the perpetrators to justice were sacrificed for reasons of expediency.
Two decades later in August 1939, as another World War approached,
Adolf Hitler apparently asked his Generals, "Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Hitler was trying to
steady their nerves before invading Poland. But he was also aware that
despite sublime speeches given in Paris, London or Moscow about the
mass murder of the Armenians, most Turkish perpetrators had escaped
punishment.
What is the relevance of all of this, you may well ask, to
contemporary New Zealand?
On 1 January Australia ended its two-year stint as an elected member
of the UN Security Council just as New Zealand assumed its seat.
Australia's time on the Council is widely regarded as a diplomatic
success. Among other achievements, it got the deeply divided five
permanent members (China, France, Russia, United States, United
Kingdom) to agree to a resolution on expanded humanitarian assistance
to starving civilians in Syria.
Australia also helped place North Korea's human rights abuses on the
Council's agenda. In doing so it ensured that future discussions are
not just limited to avoiding a nuclear confrontation on the divided
peninsula, but will also focus on crimes against humanity perpetrated
by Kim Jong-un's regime against their own people.
The Australians played a supporting role in mandating enhanced
peacekeeping operations for Central African Republic and South Sudan.
They also helped the Council grapple with the need to recognise ISIL
not just as a terrorist menace, but as posing an existential threat to
minorities in Iraq and Syria. Overall, Australia's term on the Council
helped strengthen human rights at the UN and advanced the
international norm of the Responsibility to Protect.
What can New Zealand learn from this? The UN remains a
twentieth-century organization struggling to deal with twenty-first
century problems. The power imbalance between the permanent and
elected members means that the system is designed for elected members
to drown under its arcane working methods and formidable agenda. But
that does not mean they cannot make a difference.
The last time New Zealand was on the Council, in 1994, it was unable
to overcome the permanent members' resolute indifference to Rwanda's
genocide. Twenty-one years later, Syria's sectarian civil war has
exposed the historic anachronism of five permanent members who can
veto any attempt by the international community to stop mass atrocity
crimes if doing so does not accord with their partisan interests. But
New Zealand's election to the Council fortuitously coincides with the
best opportunity since 1945 to confront this problem.
France recently proposed that the Council's permanent members sign a
"statement of principles" agreeing to restrain the use of their veto
in any mass atrocity situation. New Zealand opposed veto rights for
the great powers at the UN's founding conference seventy years ago. It
should actively support the French initiative and similarly pledge, as
an elected member, not to vote against any resolution aimed at halting
the commission of mass atrocity crimes. Such actions will increase the
political cost of any Security Council member using its vote, or veto,
to protect perpetrators of atrocities.
Not least of all because the line of blood that connects Australia and
New Zealand to Gallipoli also leads to the Levant. In 1915 those
Armenians who survived the death marches and massacres eventually
arrived in the Ottoman territory of Syria. Survivors rebuilt Armenian
communities around Aleppo. An estimated 100,000 ethnic Armenians
remain there today, trapped between the atrocities of the Assad
government and those of ISIL and other extremist armed groups.
In honouring the sacrifice of the Anzacs, New Zealand should speak up
for the one million Armenian dead of 1915 and those millions of
Syrians trapped and crushed by civil war a century later. Lest we
forget.
Dr. Simon Adams is Executive Director of the Global Centre for the
Responsibility to Protect in New York.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1504/S00072/new-zealand-anzac-the-un-security-council.htm
April 13 2015
New Zealand, ANZAC & the UN Security Council
Monday, 13 April 2015, 9:18 am
Dr. Simon Adams
As the centennial commemoration of the mass slaughter we refer to as
World War One continues, the eyes of New Zealanders and Australians
shift towards the Dardanelles. Although the Anzacs have a sacred place
in popular memory, there is much that still eludes us.
At school I was never taught, for example, that the Gallipoli landing
was connected to the Armenian genocide. But as the Allies sailed
towards Anzac Cove on the night of 24 April 2015 the arrest of
Armenian intellectuals began in Constantinople. The arrests were
followed by the first mass deportations as the Ottoman Empire
systematically attempted to dispossess, disperse and exterminate the
Armenian minority whom they considered inherently treasonous. In all,
an estimated one million Armenians died.
The centenary of the Armenian genocide will not receive the global
recognition it deserves. In Turkey just acknowledging the genocide
remains a punishable offence under Article 301 of the country's penal
code. As a result, and with an eye on burgeoning Turkish trade and
investment, many governments will remain silent on 24 April. New
Zealand should not be one of them.
Britain, France and Russia had no qualms in denouncing the massacres
at the time. In May 1915 they jointly declared, for the first time in
history, that the Turkish attempt to exterminate the Armenians
constituted a "crime against humanity." But post-war attempts to bring
the perpetrators to justice were sacrificed for reasons of expediency.
Two decades later in August 1939, as another World War approached,
Adolf Hitler apparently asked his Generals, "Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Hitler was trying to
steady their nerves before invading Poland. But he was also aware that
despite sublime speeches given in Paris, London or Moscow about the
mass murder of the Armenians, most Turkish perpetrators had escaped
punishment.
What is the relevance of all of this, you may well ask, to
contemporary New Zealand?
On 1 January Australia ended its two-year stint as an elected member
of the UN Security Council just as New Zealand assumed its seat.
Australia's time on the Council is widely regarded as a diplomatic
success. Among other achievements, it got the deeply divided five
permanent members (China, France, Russia, United States, United
Kingdom) to agree to a resolution on expanded humanitarian assistance
to starving civilians in Syria.
Australia also helped place North Korea's human rights abuses on the
Council's agenda. In doing so it ensured that future discussions are
not just limited to avoiding a nuclear confrontation on the divided
peninsula, but will also focus on crimes against humanity perpetrated
by Kim Jong-un's regime against their own people.
The Australians played a supporting role in mandating enhanced
peacekeeping operations for Central African Republic and South Sudan.
They also helped the Council grapple with the need to recognise ISIL
not just as a terrorist menace, but as posing an existential threat to
minorities in Iraq and Syria. Overall, Australia's term on the Council
helped strengthen human rights at the UN and advanced the
international norm of the Responsibility to Protect.
What can New Zealand learn from this? The UN remains a
twentieth-century organization struggling to deal with twenty-first
century problems. The power imbalance between the permanent and
elected members means that the system is designed for elected members
to drown under its arcane working methods and formidable agenda. But
that does not mean they cannot make a difference.
The last time New Zealand was on the Council, in 1994, it was unable
to overcome the permanent members' resolute indifference to Rwanda's
genocide. Twenty-one years later, Syria's sectarian civil war has
exposed the historic anachronism of five permanent members who can
veto any attempt by the international community to stop mass atrocity
crimes if doing so does not accord with their partisan interests. But
New Zealand's election to the Council fortuitously coincides with the
best opportunity since 1945 to confront this problem.
France recently proposed that the Council's permanent members sign a
"statement of principles" agreeing to restrain the use of their veto
in any mass atrocity situation. New Zealand opposed veto rights for
the great powers at the UN's founding conference seventy years ago. It
should actively support the French initiative and similarly pledge, as
an elected member, not to vote against any resolution aimed at halting
the commission of mass atrocity crimes. Such actions will increase the
political cost of any Security Council member using its vote, or veto,
to protect perpetrators of atrocities.
Not least of all because the line of blood that connects Australia and
New Zealand to Gallipoli also leads to the Levant. In 1915 those
Armenians who survived the death marches and massacres eventually
arrived in the Ottoman territory of Syria. Survivors rebuilt Armenian
communities around Aleppo. An estimated 100,000 ethnic Armenians
remain there today, trapped between the atrocities of the Assad
government and those of ISIL and other extremist armed groups.
In honouring the sacrifice of the Anzacs, New Zealand should speak up
for the one million Armenian dead of 1915 and those millions of
Syrians trapped and crushed by civil war a century later. Lest we
forget.
Dr. Simon Adams is Executive Director of the Global Centre for the
Responsibility to Protect in New York.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1504/S00072/new-zealand-anzac-the-un-security-council.htm