Beyond the “Never Agains”

Abstract

ASIANPERSPECTIVE, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2006, pp. 159-165. BEYOND THE "NEVER AGAINS" Milton Leitenberg The Government of Sweden released a magnificent book in 2005, titled Beyond the "Never Agains." It was the culmination of a series of four international conferences initiated in 2000, the first three being "Education, Remembrance, and Research on the Holocaust" (2000); "Combating Intolerance" (2001); and "Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation" (2002). Even before the first of these conferences took place, the Swedish government had produced a book dealing with the Holocaust in Europe, 1933 to 1945, titled Tell Ye Tour Children. Copies were supplied to every Swedish family with school age children, and translated into Finnish, Arabic, Turkish, Serbo-Croatian, English, Spanish, and Persian. In all, 1,270,000 copies were distributed and the book was also reproduced in Germany, France, and Denmark. But most impor­ tantly, the final conference in the series took place in 2004. It was titled "Preventing Genocide: Threats and Responsibilities" and it took place with the participation of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, heads of state, foreign ministers, resident ambassadors in Stockholm, and other senior international diplomatic figures representing fifty-five countries. Beyond the "Never Agains" makes extensive use of photogra­ phy, virtually an illustration per page, greatly enhancing its message. The book is essentially composed of three sections. It contains short summaries of each of the first three conferences. This commentary also appears in the Institute for the Study of Genocide, International Association of Genocide Scholars' ISG Newsletter, No. 37 (Fall, 2006), and is reproduced here with permission. 160 Milton Leitenberg These are followed by the major portion of the book, composed of interviews with eighteen individuals, including Kofi Annan, Kay Gusmao, Luis Moreno Ocampo, Samantha Power, Gareth Evans, and Gitta Sereny. The final portion of the book, as well as a fair portion of the interviews, concerns itself with the subject of the 2004 conference: Genocide. The fourth and final conference was held in January 2004 in anticipation of the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, which had cost the lives of between 800,000 and one million peo­ ple in the brief span of thirteen weeks. The conference had the sin­ gle material outcome in that it led to the establishment of a new position, a Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, in the Office of the UN Secretary General. The office of the new special advisor was meant to provide an early warning function to the Secretary General. The senior diplomatic official present from each of the fifty-five states addressed the conference, in addition to Kofi Annan and the President of Rwanda. Literally every single speech hinged and elaborated on the theme of "Never Again." Neverthe­ less it is possible that not a single one of the speeches by national representatives pointed out that the next "Again" had already taken place, in the Congo between 1998 and 2003, with a cost of perhaps 3.5 million lives. (This reviewer attended the entire con­ ference). In spite of this, there was absolutely no international response during that period. Furthermore, yet another Genocide had already begun and was well underway as the conference was taking place: in the Darfur province of Sudan, and perpetrated by the Government of Sudan. It is questionable whether any of the speeches by the diplomatic figures pointed this out either. It would continue through 2006 without any meaningful interna­ tional intervention sufficient to bring it to an end. If the events that followed in Darfur after January 2004 should be considered its test, the conference must be seen as a failure. In April 2004, a few months after the Stockholm conference, Kofi Annan also spoke at the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. He offered five "lessons" from international inaction in Rwanda in 2004, the fifth of which was "the need for swift and decisive action." And in January 2005, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps in 1945, the United Nations General Assembly held its first-ever special commemo­ rative session. Once again the rhetoric was heavy, not least by Beyond the "NeverAgains" 161 the sitting President of the General Assembly, the Foreign Minis­ ter...