Donahue, Gilbert J

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Donahue, Gilbert J Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project GILBERT J. DONAHUE Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: April 18, 2000 Copyright 2002 ADS TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Arlington, Virginia and aryland American University Nepal - Peace Corps 1968-1970 Agriculture e,tension program Environment .oyalty /overnment Customs Evaluation Entered Foreign Service 1971 A100 course a0atlan, e,ico - Vice Consul 1971-1971 Narcotics Security Protection cases Environment arriage /uadalajara, e,ico - Vice Consul 1971-1972 Tandem couple Foreign Service Institute 4FSI5 - French 7anguage Training 1972 Abidjan, Ivory Coast - Economic Officer 1972-1976 /hana Economy African economies French influence Petroleum /overnment President Houphouet Boigny Foreign interests 7ebanese Environment FSI - Chinese 7anguage Training 1976-1977 Taichung, Taiwan - Chinese 7anguage Training 1977-1978 Environment China relations Chinese groups Hong :ong - China .eporting /roup 1978-1981 China recognition issue Post- ao atmosphere China and capitalism U.S. 7iaison Office, Beijing Chinese employees Williamsburg /roup .elationship with allies U.S.-China Business Council China trade issues Canton Trade Fair 7istening post value State Department - Bureau of Economic Affairs 1981-1985 Industrial and strategic minerals OPEC Commodity agreements Production and marketing decisions /overnment versus market roles State Department - Secretary>s Open Forum - Vice Chairman 1985-1986 Dissent channel Operations Dissent cases Beijing, China - Economic Officer 1986-1987 Ambassador Winston 7ord /ATT U.S. commercial interests Intellectual ferment Deep Purple Park Atmosphere Travel Security Visas State Department - European Bureau - Canada Desk Officer 1987-1989 NAFTA /ATT - Uruguay .ound U.S.-Canada agreement Hong :ong - Economic/Political Officer (ChinaA 1989-1992 Britain-China negotiations Tiananmen massacre /orbachev>s China visit Post Cultural .evolution Democracy movement U.S.-China relations Hong :ong and China relationship British-U.S. differences Emigration E,patriates and refugees Corruption inorities Communists China visits 7anguage Office of the U.S. Trade .epresentative 1992-1992 Director for Intellectual Property /ATT NAFTA U.S. trade law FSI - Portuguese 7anguage Training 1992-1992 Sao Paulo, Bra0il - Deputy Principal Officer 1992-1997 Economy U.S. interests Spanish ercosur Finance U.S. relations State Department - International Organi0ations - 1997-1998 Deputy Office Director IFAD UN food agencies UNDP INTERVIEW Q: oday is April 18, 2000. his is an interview with Gilbert J. Donahue. his is being done on behalf of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and raining and I(m Charles Stuart Kennedy. Do people call you Gil) DONAHUEC Des. Q: Let(s start at the beginning. Could you tell me when and where you were born and something about your family) DONAHUEC I was born here in Arlington, Virginia, on April 25, 1927. y mother and her family were native Virginians, back to about 1619. y father was from Taunton, assachusetts, and he was in World War II as a /I. He took advantage of the /I Bill for university education following WWII and came to Washington to work for the National Security Agency, which was at that time located here at Arlington Hall. Q: his interview is taking place at Arlington Hall. -here did he meet your mother) DONAHUEC Through mutual friends with whom he was staying. In those days, there were not a lot of apartment buildings for people freshly arrived in the Washington area to stay in in Virginia. So, he was renting a room in the house of friends of my mother>s and they introduced my parents. Q: -hat was your father(s background) DONAHUEC He was born in 1919 in Taunton, assachusetts and was one of about 15 children, a typical Irish-American family of the time. Because he was one of the younger children, most of his brothers and sisters had married and left home by the time he was ready to leave. Q: He was in the military. .ou say he took the GI Bill when he got out) DONAHUEC Des. Q: -here did he go) DONAHUEC Before he was drafted, he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCCA and did work in the New England area, especially in New Hampshire with some of the national and state parks up there. When he was drafted, he did not go into the Army, but into the Air Force, and so he saw service in North Africa, Italy, and what is now India and Pakistan. So, when he returned to the United States in 1925 after the war, he went to Boston University and completed four years of university. Q: hen he came here. How about your mother) -hat was her background) DONAHUEC She was in the first graduating class at Washington and 7ee High School here in Arlington. It was 1928. She went on to William and ary College and then what is now Eames adison University (at that time, it was Harrisonburg State Teacher>s CollegeA. She was an elementary school teacher in Arlington County schools for many years and later in the late F50s, we moved to Howard County, aryland, where my mother continued to teach until she retired. Q: -ere you here in elementary school in Arlington) DONAHUEC That>s right. I was. Q: -hat were schools like then) DONAHUEC In those days, Virginia>s schools were still segregated. It was almost like two school systems run within the county. I went to two schools, both of which were new when I went. One was Thomas Nelson Page School. I believe they changed the name because Page was considered pro-segregation. I believe it may be a special technical center for Arlington County now. Then I went to Ashlawn School as well, which is near the Fairfa, line. Q: -hile you were in elementary school, was there anything that interested you in school 0 reading or sports) DONAHUEC I was always interested in reading, especially about foreign countries. As a result, I was also always interested in the Foreign Service. Where we lived in Arlington in those days, some of our neighbors were in the Foreign Service. In another location, some of our neighbors were connected with foreign embassies. Even then, Arlington had a degree of cosmopolitan nature that many other communities lacked. When I was in the fifth grade, which was the 1957 period, there was a great deal of concern and even consternation when .ussia launched Sputnik. There was a great deal of concern that Arlington County schools better get their act together and train people in international relations to meet some perceived international threat. So, in the elementary school that I went to, which was Ashlawn, they began to include foreign language instruction on an e,tracurricular basis. I had a choice between French and .ussian. I chose .ussian. So, I actually had two years of .ussian in fifth and si,th grade. Q: hat(s remarkable. Did you get anything about what your father was doing or was this just not talked about) DONAHUEC If I ever asked my father what he was doing, the answer was that he just couldn>t say. That was generally what he told people. I think he would not deny that he worked for the National Security Agency, but when somebody asked him what that involved, he would not make any statement beyond that. So, he always avoided the subject of what he did, although we had a number of family friends with whom he worked. I never heard any of them talk about it. Q: Did you have any friends in elementary school who were Foreign Service kids) DONAHUEC Not really. But there were some families in the neighborhood who were with foreign embassies. This is where we lived when I was in late elementary school. I have no recollection of them attending the school I went to, but we played in the neighborhood together. Among them were Indonesians, Europeans (but I>m not sure which countryA, and people from South America (but again I>m not sure which countryA. Q: Did this turn you towards maps and learning where places were) DONAHUEC Oh, very much so. I>ve always been interested in geography. Q: -here did you go to high school) DONAHUEC Following my si,th grade, we moved to Ellicott City, aryland, where I went to school from seventh through twelfth grade. So, I went to Ellicott City Eunior High School and Howard County Senior High School. Q: -as there a difference between Arlington County and Howard County) DONAHUEC There was a great deal of difference then. Arlington was much more affluent and had a much larger proportion of professional people. Howard County in those days was very rural. In fact, the high school I went to still taught vocational agriculture as one of its fields. It was just before the city of Columbia was built, so there were already a number of suburbanites living in Howard County, but it was not yet the urban setting it is now. Q: I assume your father moved over to Fort Meade, which is where the National Security Agency now is housed. DONAHUEC That>s right. It was a very bad commute from Arlington, so it made more sense to move. Q: In junior high and high school, what sort of courses were you taking) DONAHUEC I could not, unfortunately, continue my .ussian language classes while living in Howard County. There was just no way to do that. But beginning in seventh grade, I was able to study Spanish. I continued Spanish in high school, with the eGuivalent of four years of Spanish. I also took 7atin for four years. Q: Solid. -hen you were doing all this, did desegregation efforts impact on you all) DONAHUEC They did. aryland was a little bit ahead of Virginia on that score despite the fact that Howard County was Guite rural.
Recommended publications
  • American Diplomacy Project: a US Diplomatic Service for the 21St
    AMERICAN DIPLOMACY PROJECT A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century Ambassador Nicholas Burns Ambassador Marc Grossman Ambassador Marcie Ries REPORT NOVEMBER 2020 American Diplomacy Project: A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Harvard Kennedy School 79 JFK Street Cambridge, MA 02138 www.belfercenter.org Statements and views expressed in this report are solely those of the authors and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, Harvard Kennedy School, or the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Design and layout by Auge+Gray+Drake Collective Works Copyright 2020, President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in the United States of America FULL PROJECT NAME American Diplomacy Project A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century Ambassador Nicholas Burns Ambassador Marc Grossman Ambassador Marcie Ries REPORT NOVEMBER 2020 Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs | Harvard Kennedy School i ii American Diplomacy Project: A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century Table of Contents Executive Summary ........................................................................3 10 Actions to Reimagine American Diplomacy and Reinvent the Foreign Service ........................................................5 Action 1 Redefine the Mission and Mandate of the U.S. Foreign Service ...................................................10 Action 2 Revise the Foreign Service Act ................................. 16 Action 3 Change the Culture ..................................................
    [Show full text]
  • In Hong Kong the Political Economy of the Asia Pacific
    The Political Economy of the Asia Pacific Fujio Mizuoka Contrived Laissez- Faireism The Politico-Economic Structure of British Colonialism in Hong Kong The Political Economy of the Asia Pacific Series editor Vinod K. Aggarwal More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7840 Fujio Mizuoka Contrived Laissez-Faireism The Politico-Economic Structure of British Colonialism in Hong Kong Fujio Mizuoka Professor Emeritus Hitotsubashi University Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan ISSN 1866-6507 ISSN 1866-6515 (electronic) The Political Economy of the Asia Pacific ISBN 978-3-319-69792-5 ISBN 978-3-319-69793-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69793-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017956132 © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
    [Show full text]
  • Choosing Sides and Guiding Policy United States’ and Pakistan’S Wars in Afghanistan
    UNIVERSITY OF FLORDA Choosing Sides and Guiding Policy United States’ and Pakistan’s Wars in Afghanistan Azhar Merchant 4/24/2019 Table of Contents I. Introduction… 2 II. Political Settlement of the Mujahedeen War… 7 III. The Emergence of the Taliban and the Lack of U.S. Policy… 27 IV. The George W. Bush Administration… 50 V. Conclusion… 68 1 I. Introduction Forty years of war in Afghanistan has encouraged the most extensive periods of diplomatic and military cooperation between the United States and Pakistan. The communist overthrow of a relatively peaceful Afghan government and the subsequent Soviet invasion in 1979 prompted the United States and Pakistan to cooperate in funding and training Afghan mujahedeen in their struggle against the USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan entered a period of civil war throughout the 1990s that nurtured Islamic extremism, foreign intervention, and the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, ultimately culminating in the devastating attacks against Americans on September 11th. Seventeen years later, the United States continues its war in Afghanistan while its relationship with Pakistan has deteriorated to an all-time low. The mutual fear of Soviet expansionism was the unifying cause for Americans and Pakistanis to work together in the 1980s, yet as the wars in Afghanistan evolved, so did the countries’ respective aims and objectives.1 After the Soviets were successfully pushed out of the region by the mujahedeen, the United States felt it no longer had any reason to stay. The initial policy aim of destabilizing the USSR through prolonged covert conflict in Afghanistan was achieved.
    [Show full text]
  • By Any Other Name: How, When, and Why the US Government Has Made
    By Any Other Name How, When, and Why the US Government Has Made Genocide Determinations By Todd F. Buchwald Adam Keith CONTENTS List of Acronyms ................................................................................. ix Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 Section 1 - Overview of US Practice and Process in Determining Whether Genocide Has Occurred ....................................................... 3 When Have Such Decisions Been Made? .................................. 3 The Nature of the Process ........................................................... 3 Cold War and Historical Cases .................................................... 5 Bosnia, Rwanda, and the 1990s ................................................... 7 Darfur and Thereafter .................................................................... 8 Section 2 - What Does the Word “Genocide” Actually Mean? ....... 10 Public Perceptions of the Word “Genocide” ........................... 10 A Legal Definition of the Word “Genocide” ............................. 10 Complications Presented by the Definition ...............................11 How Clear Must the Evidence Be in Order to Conclude that Genocide has Occurred? ................................................... 14 Section 3 - The Power and Importance of the Word “Genocide” .. 15 Genocide’s Unique Status .......................................................... 15 A Different Perspective ..............................................................
    [Show full text]
  • ASIA WATCH OVERVIEW Human Rights Developments While China
    ASIA WATCH OVERVIEW Human Rights Developments While China, Burma and Kashmir exemplified the continuing human rights problems in Asia, the major development in the region was not so much the nature of the abuses but the debate over how to address them. Two factors had a major impact on this debate: the increased visibility of Asian nongovernmental organizations or NGOs and the growing economic power of East Asia. Asian NGOs were able to articulate a vision of human rights that differed radically from that of their own governments and thus called into question the ability of the latter to define what is "Asian." They were more successful than their governments in blurring the traditional sub-regional distinctions of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. And they helped redefine priorities for the human rights movement in a way that rendered obsolete the old division of labor among human rights, development, women's rights and environmental organizations. These efforts culminated in the issuing of the "Bangkok NGO Declaration on Human Rights" of March 27. Over one hundred NGOs from across Asia and the Pacific gathered in Bangkok on March 23 to coordinate their position for the World Conference on Human Rights, just as Asian governments convened a few days later, also in Bangkok, for the regional preparatory meeting of the World Conference on Human Rights. It was clear from a series of statements they made during 1992 that China, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, at the very least, were determined to promote an "Asian concept of human rights" which downplayed political and civil rights, highlighted the importance of economic development, stressed the need to take cultural, historical and religious factors into account when assessing human rights, and rejected aid conditionality and other forms of "interference in domestic affairs." It was this concept that the Asian NGOs set out to rebut in Bangkok.
    [Show full text]
  • The Foreign Service Journal, November 2017
    PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION NOVEMBER 2017 IN THEIR OWN WRITE THE AID-DEVELOPMENT CONUNDRUM OWNING LEADERSHIP FOREIGN SERVICE November 2017 Volume 94, No.9 Focus on Foreign Service Authors 27 In Their Own Write We are pleased to present this year’s roundup of books by Foreign Service members and their families. 42 Of Related Interest Here are recent books of interest to the foreign affairs community that 21 were not written by members Writing and the 24 of the Foreign Service. Foreign Service On the Writing Unique experiences are the stuff of Roller Coaster Foreign Service life—and compelling There’s no more everyday 52 literature. One former FSO describes boredom, but don’t expect writing Bibliography of USAID his journey to becoming a writer. to be easier than your old job. Authors–An Update By Peter Kujawinski By Charles Ray By John Pielemeier Feature 54 When Criticism Falls on Deaf Ears: The Case of U.S. Foreign Aid Although economists and practitioners have questioned the theory behind foreign assistance to underdeveloped countries for more than four decades, the aid industry is bigger and stronger than ever today. By Thomas Dichter THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2017 5 FOREIGN SERVICE Perspectives 85 Departments Reflections An Ambassador 10 7 Returns to China Letters President’s Views By Bea Camp Serving in Hardship Posts 13 Talking Points By Barbara Stephenson 70 In Memory 9 Letter from the Editor The Writing Life By Shawn Dorman Marketplace 19 80 Speaking Out Classifieds Owning Leadership 86 82 Real Estate By Michael Pelletier Local Lens London, United Kingdom 84 Index to Advertisers By Brittany McAnally AFSA NEWS THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION 59 The Foreign Service: A Home Run for America 66 AFSA Congratulates JSP Graduates 60 AFSA On the Hill—Supporting 67 A Great Way to Support AFSA U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • [ 1966 ] Part 1 Sec 2 Chapter 19 Assistance to Refugees
    398 ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS again acting as host to the Consultative Group on "4. Decides, pursuant to the suggestion made in Coca Leaf Problems; paragraph 21 of the note by the Secretary-General, to "2. Notes with deep satisfaction the extensive ad- set up a committee on candidatures consisting of ministrative and educational efforts made by Peru to thirteen members; restrict the production and chewing of coca leaf and "5. Approves the procedure for the election of its illegal utilization for the manufacture of cocaine, members of the International Narcotics Control Board, and gradually to replace coca bush cultivation by other as contained in the report of the Commission on Nar- viable agricultural and industrial activities; cotic Drugs and as outlined by the Secretary-General. "3. Invites the Secretary-General of the United "6. Requests the Secretary-General to set in mo- Nations and the Heads of the specialized agencies tion the process for the first elections of the Interna- whose terms of reference permit their doing so, to tional Narcotics Control Board, in accordance with give sympathetic consideration, to the extent that article 9 of the Convention and the above approved (financial resources permit, to such requests for tech- procedure; nical and financial assistance as they may receive from "7. Urges all States which are parties to the earlier Member States of the United Nations for the purpose international narcotics treaties, and not to the 1961 of combating the habit of chewing coca leaf and for Convention, to co-operate with the International Nar- the replacement of the coca bush." cotics Control Board in the performance of its func- tions in accordance with article 45, paragraph 2, cf IMPLEMENTATION OF SINGLE CONVENTION the said Convention." E/4140.
    [Show full text]
  • NRC-2021-000027, Request for Copies of All Dissent Channel
    U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mail Stop TWFN-6 A60M Washington, DC 20555-0001 Email: [email protected] November 9, 2020 Greetings, This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552 and the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a. This request should be considered under both statutes to maximize the release of records. REQUESTER INFORMATION Name: Kenneth Klippenstein Position: DC Correspondent/The Nation Address: (b) (6) Email: (b) (6) Phone: (b) (6) Noelle Llamas Email: (b) (6) (b) (6) RECORDS SOUGHT I respectfully request copies of all dissent channel cables, memos or any other similar type of submission received by your agency from January 1, 2009 to November 9, 2020. BACKGROUND Many federal agencies contain a messaging framework through which they are invited to express constructive criticism of government policy; this request will refer to such mechanisms as a “dissent channel.” Some agencies may not formally call it a dissent channel but the purpose is the same. For example, The Central Intelligence Agency has "red teams" of intelligence officers and analysts "dedicated to arguing against the intelligence community's conventional wisdom and spotting flaws in logic and analysis.1 In 1980, one year after the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) created its Differing Professional Opinion process, a dissent resolution mechanism.2 In 2011 the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) created a dissent reporting mechanism they called the Direct Channel, and made
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project Foreign Assistance Series ELISABETH KVITASHVILI Interviewed by: John Pielemeier Initial Interview Date: December 5, 2016 Copyright 2018 ADST This oral history transcription was made possible through support provided by U.S. Agency for International Development, under terms of Cooperative Agreement No. AID-OAA-F-16-00101. The opinions expressed herein are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. TABLE OF CONTENTS Family background University and growing interest in international development 1979 entry into USAID as a GS officer 1983 conversion to the Foreign Service 1984 Assignment to Peshawar and the Cross-Border Humanitarian Assistance program for Afghanistan The “infamous” Primary Education Program for Afghanistan, work in Nepal and adventures in Srinagar 1986 USAID/Honduras and visits from Oliver North. Mob attack on the USAID mission USAID/Washington Asia Bureau: work in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Philippines and Thailand 1989: Setting up the new USAID program in the former Soviet Union. 1991: Work in Armenia, Chernobyl, Ukraine and airlifts with the DOD Office of Humanitarian Assistance 1992: Assignment to Moscow and opening the new mission 1 Changing the Russia program from humanitarian assistance to market and democratic reforms Providing humanitarian assistance to Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Visits by Pres. Clinton
    [Show full text]
  • Protection in Practice
    This is the original English version of the paper which was translated into Japanese for publication. To cite to this document please use the following citation: Brian Barbour, Protection in Practice: The Situation of Refugees in East Asia, 2 Nanmin Kenkyu Journal [Refugee Studies Journal] 81 (2012) (Published in Japanese; English original available at: http://www.refugeestudies.jp/) Protection in Practice: The Situation of Refugees in East Asia Brian Barbour, East Asia Chair, Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network1 I. Introduction In refugee protection, there are two goals which must be pursued simultaneously: protection in law and protection in practice. Without the law, refugees lack legal status, lack basic human rights, and are vulnerable to exploitation. They are trafficked, subject to arbitrary arrest and detention, left destitute and homeless, and on top of it all, are vilified as "illegal immigrants". Without the law there is no solution and refugees are left in indefinite limbo; forced to be dependent on charity; re-traumatized and desperate; and eventually are forcibly returned to situations of atrocity, torture, and possibly death. For these reasons, we must push for the adoption of a meaningful, comprehensive, domestic legal framework that is consistent with international standards and ensures refugees are actually protected. And we must do this not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is cheaper, more effective, and more efficient than what we are currently doing. Having legal processes that lead to timely and fair decisions; while ensuring legal, social, and economic rights are respected throughout this process not only prevents destitution and the exploitation of refugees; but it also makes the process more efficient for the government, and lowers the human and financial costs governments incur by ignoring the problem such as through prolonged immigration detention, protracted displacement in camps, or the expense of social welfare and medical care where refugees are left in destitution.
    [Show full text]
  • H-Diplo | ISSF Article Review 99 Issforum.Org
    H-Diplo | ISSF Article Review 99 issforum.org H-Diplo/ISSF Editors: Seth Offenbach and Diane Labrosse H-Diplo/ISSF Web and Production Editor: George Fujii Amanda J. Rothschild. “Rousing a Response: When the United States Changes Policy toward Mass Killing.” International Security 42:2 (Fall 2017): 120-154. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_A_00295. Review by Debbie Sharnak, Harvard University Published by ISSF on 20 June 2018 http://tiny.cc/ISSF-AR99 https://issforum.org/articlereviews/99-rousing https://issforum.org/ISSF/PDF/ISSF-AR99.pdf ver the last year, the mass killing and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar has become a major international issue. More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled from the O Rakhine state, the death roll exceeded 10,000 in a four month period from August to December 2017 alone, and policymakers and United Nations (UN) experts have been moving towards calling the situation a genocide.1 In the U.S., Congress, the State Department, and public pressure has begun to mount over whether the U.S. response—thus far a combination of congressional hearings, humanitarian assistance, and withdrawal of aid to the military—warrants a shift. 2 1 Nicholas Kristof, “Is This a Genocide?” New York Times, 15 December 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/opinion/sunday/genocide-myanmar-rohingya-bangladesh.html; Barb Wilkinson, “UN Official Convinced of Myanmar Rohingya ‘Genocide’,” CNN, 12 March 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/12/asia/myanmar-rohingya-un-violence-genocide-intl/index.html. 2 U.S. House of Representatives, Hearing, “The Rohingya Crisis: U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Bangladesh's Genocide Debate; a Conscientious Research
    Bangladesh’s genocide debate; A conscientious research Collective and institutional commissions of crimes diminish the self-recognition of culpability; individual responsibility loses its meaning once it is applied to a group or a community that shares a common membership and is associated through the perpetration of a crime. Often this is applied to mass atrocities such as genocide. The perpetrators believe they are invincible since they act within a social structure that dictates their actions and make them feel part of a collective criminal project, which in return weakens any sense of personal liability. “Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing” - Hannah Arendt This paper will explore this notion by implementing it to the commission of war crimes, and will examine how the concept of power and particularly imposition of control and avoidance of responsibility facilitates its realization. It will outline a definition of war crimes and analyse the legal safeguards and frameworks that have been implemented in order to prevent their happening. The paper will further theoretically unravel the notion of political power and authority, and will subsequently examine how the two phenomena are interrelated – how powerful individuals and States are able to evade the law or use it to their own advantage while disregarding human rights, in order to pursue political objectives. This paper will further set out an approach of analysing this powerful juridical-political superstructure of the State apparatus through drawing an example with the war crimes and genocide committed over the East Pakistani people (present-day Bangladesh) during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
    [Show full text]