WHAT HEELS: Rhetorical Crimes Against Humanity
Reuters headlined an article about accidental deaths amongst mushroom-lovers in the mountains and forests of northern Italy, “Mushroom Hunter "Massacre" Claims 18 Lives In Italy”. And in several articles, New York magazine used the term “genocide” and “massacre” in headlines to describe the planned culling of geese near NYC airports (“Government’s Goose Genocide Just Getting Started”; “Protesters Object to Mayor Bloomberg, Perpetrator of the Goose Genocide”), the NY Board of Education junking unwanted classroom furniture (“Happy With the Results of the Goose Genocide, Officials Massacre Perfectly Good Furniture”) and the decision by Baskin Robbins to discontinue several flavors (“French Vanilla Primary Casualty of Baskin-Robbins Flavor Genocide”)
The Stiletto cannot fathom why the cavalier use of “genocide” and “massacre” is suddenly considered edgy amongst editors and headline writers, but the disturbing trend risks trivializing monstrous crimes against humanity, such as the Rwandan army massacre of Hutus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire) in the 1990s – the horrific details of which are just starting to emerge in a draft U.N. report, according to The Washington Times:
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) postponed the release of the report … after leaked sections of the document prompted angry protests from Rwanda. …
It accuses Rwanda's Tutsi-led army of killing tens of thousands of Hutus, including women, children and the elderly. …
"The period covered by this report is probably one of the most tragic chapters in the recent history of the DRC. Indeed, this decade was marked by a string of major political crises, wars and multiple ethnic and regional conflicts that brought about the deaths of thousands, if not millions, of people.
Very few Congolese and foreign civilians living on the territory of the DRC managed to escape the violence, and were victims of murder, mutilation, rape, forced displacement, pillage, destruction of property or economic and social rights violations," the draft report says. …
The group's researchers are familiar with most of the incidents document in the draft report, said Rona Peligal, acting director of the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. "But even they are still shocked and horrified by the extent of the abuses perpetrated against the Congolese people, particularly by the Rwandan army and its Congolese allies," she added. …
"We had heard that the Rwandans were very much trying to dilute the report and prevent its publication and the fact that it has taken this long to publish is a testament to that," Ms. Peligal said.
Editorial Note: The BBC published excerpts of the draft report’s key findings. The 600-page report is expected to be released in October.
Comments