Editorial: Genocide complicity

Close to the middle of the run-time of Steven Spielberg’s cinematic retelling of the Holocaust, Schindler’s List, we witness a dab of colour, in an otherwise monochromatic presentation. The sudden appearance of colour is courtesy of a little girl, dressed in a red winter coat, who seems lost and separated from her family, amidst the hordes of Jewish residents forced out of the Krakow ghetto as part of its liquidation by the Nazis, commandeered by Amon Goth, the commandant of the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp in Plaszow in German-occupied Poland. When Spielberg was asked about the significance of the girl in red, the filmmaker is known to have said that the extermination of Eastern Europe’s Jews during World War II was an act as explicitly evident to the Allied forces, as that little girl in red was to the viewers. The inaction of nations like the US and the UK in light of the horrors being meted out to Jews was represented through that little dab of colour.

On Monday, world leaders joined the last remaining survivors of the Holocaust for commemorations on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz. The observances took place at the site in Poland where the Nazis murdered over a million people, most of them Jews. The anniversary has assumed poignancy owing to an awareness these survivors will be gone in a few years. What has emerged as a bone of contention this year is that the observances are taking place at a time when Israel has battered Gaza with a military assault lasting over 400 days that has claimed over 47,000 lives, mostly women and children.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli PM Netanyahu, accusing him of crimes against humanity. The International Court of Justice is examining whether Israel can be held accountable for genocide in Gaza under a case brought by South Africa. These developments are transpiring against the backdrop of a change of regime in the US, and a shift towards extreme right wing leadership across Europe, with heads of states openly calling for crackdowns on migrants and refugees displaced by political or civil strife. This week, the US has paused sanctions on Colombia after it agreed to accept all terms of President Trump, including accepting flights of deported migrants from America.

Prior to that, Italy’s PM Giorgia Meloni came under fire on account of the repatriation of a Libyan warlord wanted by the ICC. The repatriation of Ossama al-Masri to Libya, a key partner in Europe’s efforts to keep migrants from crossing the Mediterranean and landing on its shores, sparked outrage from human rights groups. The ICC warrant accuses al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Mitiga prison, starting in 2015, that are punishable with life in prison. The court said he was accused of murder, torture, rape and sexual violence.

And around two weeks ago, the US imposed sanctions on the leader of Sudan’s military for blocking humanitarian aid and bombing hospitals, schools and markets in a war against an armed rival that has created a widening famine and the world’s largest displacement crisis. The strife has claimed over 24,000 lives and driven over 14 million — about 30% of the population — from their homes, according to the United Nations. An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have crossed into neighbouring countries, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan. Evidently, eight decades on, we haven’t learnt anything from history.