War in Ukraine: Genocide accusation wins chorus against Russia, but crime is difficult to prove

April 14, 2022

Robert

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US President Joe Biden has raised the tone of criticism against the invasion of Ukraine by classifying Russia’s actions as genocide.

Rhetorical escalation is a White House strategy, along with economic sanctions, to position itself in the war without military involvement. Biden had previously accused Putin of committing a war crime, but had so far denied the genocide thesis.

Understand: War crime and genocide are two of the serious violations established by international treaties. The ICC (International Criminal Court), based in The Hague, is investigating suspected three crimes in the context of the Ukraine conflict:

War crimes: they include, among others, attacks on the population or on civilian objects (such as residential buildings and hospitals) that are not part of the objective of a military action;
Crimes against humanity: widespread or systematic attacks directed against any civilian population;
Genocide: acts committed with intention to destroyin whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

On Wednesday, international observers and the ICC said they had seen clear patterns of potential war crimes and other violations committed by Russia.

To remember: the Hague Court is also competent to determine the crime of aggression —configured, in this case, by the invasion of Ukrainian territory. But this could only happen against countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute, which is not the case for Russia.

The open investigation in The Hague investigates crimes committed against anyone anywhere on Ukrainian territory;
It also covers cases since November 2013, when Russia disputed the territory of Crimea – annexed by Putin the following year.

When raising the suspicion of the crime of genocide, on Tuesday night (12), Biden argued that Vladimir Putin “is trying to end the possibility of being Ukrainian”. The Kremlin called the statement an “unacceptable distortion”.

The call for the international community to recognize the deaths and destruction caused by the war as genocide was also made by the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky when he visited Butcha – where hundreds of civilian corpses were found.

But the evocation of the theme of genocide predates – it was used by Putin himself as a justification for initiating the invasion.

The Kremlin says Russian people living in eastern Ukraine are victims of a “genocide” committed by nationalist and neo-Nazi groups allegedly linked to the government. Hence the alleged need for “denazification” of Ukraine.

Moscow’s argument, however, was overturned by another court in The Hague, the International Court of Justice – which judges countries.

In the judgment in which it ordered Russia to stop the invasion, the court said there was no evidence that Ukraine had committed or planned attacks that could be considered this type of crime.

How difficult is it to prove crimes of genocide?

“Many of the acts that constitute a war crime also constitute genocide, such as homicide and torture. But to be genocide it is necessary that these acts have a specific intention to destroy the group”, explains Professor Lucas Carlos Lima, coordinator of the Group of Research on International Courts and Tribunals at UFMG.

And then we enter into a discussion that should mark the judgment of the abuses of war in its various impacts: the fact that Russia and Ukraine share a history and many values and cultural references that define a people.

“Russia’s attack is not an attack on any enemy, but on an enemy that bears symbols of Russia itself”, emphasizes Izabela Tamaso, a professor at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG) and a specialist in heritage preservation. She made this point when talking about the damage to cultural sites in the war.

“The sharing of an identity, a history, a system of values makes some experts not believe that Russia has the deliberate intention of reaching these targets. what that people represent.”

Do not get lost

We recall some historical cases involving the accusation of genocide:

Holocaust: The Nuremberg Tribunal (1945-1949), which tried former Nazi leaders for the extermination of Jews in World War II, cited “genocide” in the context of crimes against humanity. But it was only in 1948 that this crime was typified, in the Genocide Convention;
Rwanda: The massacre of more than 800,000 people of the Tutsi minority, in 1994, was tried by an extraordinary court, which considered the case as genocide and condemned authorities such as former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda for the crime;
bosnia: The court that prosecuted the killing of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the former Yugoslavia in 1995 has also upheld genocide convictions. One of the sentences, that of former Serbian military leader Ratko Mladic, the “butcher of Bosnia”, was confirmed last year.