Showing papers in "Journal of Genocide Research in 2014"

The Nigeria–Biafra war: postcolonial conflict and the question of genocide

Abstract: The Nigeria–Biafra war that raged between 1967 and 1970 made headlines around the world, above all for the major famine in the secessionist enclave of Biafra, and prompted a major international relief. It was a genuinely global event. Yet by the late 1970s, it was seldom talked about outside Nigeria. Since then, it barely features in scholarly and popular accounts of the period. The conflict is also virtually entirely absent from the field of genocide studies, which began to form in the closing decades of the twentieth century. However, in recent years, scholarly interest in the conflict is increasing. Alongside with a renewed literary interest in the war and its legacy, the international history of the war and the humanitarian operation in particular has attracted the attention of historians and academics of other disciplines. On the basis of a brief account of the conflict and the issues it raised, this contribution argues that the conflict should be considered by students of genocide, since its implica...

Humanitarian encounters: Biafra, NGOs and imaginings of the Third World in Britain and Ireland, 1967-70

Abstract: This article examines the influence of the Biafran humanitarian crisis on British and Irish conceptions of the Third World. Drawing on evidence from non-government organizations (NGOs) in both countries, it argues that the explosion of non-governmental activity in this period, combined with the unprecedented attention afforded to the relief effort, crystallized a popular vision of the Third World that was rooted in western internationalism and the legacies of the imperial world. The model of humanitarian action pursued by Oxfam, Save the Children, Africa Concern and others transformed non-governmental actors into key mediators between the west and the Third World. Yet, this article argues, the image they presented and the tactics they pursued can only be understood as part of a broader adjustment to a decolonized world. From very different beginnings (British postcolonial responsibilities versus a strong anticolonial narrative in Ireland) considerable similarities emerged between British and Irish NGOs. T...

Deliberating the Holocaust and the Nakba: disruptive empathy and binationalism in Israel/Palestine

Abstract: This article develops a theoretical framework for shared and inclusive Jewish and Palestinian deliberation on the memories of the Holocaust and the Nakba. It argues that a joint Arab-Jewish public deliberation on the traumatic memories of these two events is not only possible, however challenging and disruptive it may be, but also fundamental for producing an egalitarian and inclusive ethics of binationalism in Israel/Palestine. In order to develop this conceptual framework, we first present some examples, most notably Elias Khoury's epic novel Gate of the sun (Bab al-Shams), which bring the memories of the Holocaust and the Nakba together in a fashion that disrupts the dominant, antagonistic and exclusionary Israeli and Palestinian national narratives. We then interpret Dominick LaCapra's notion of ‘empathic unsettlement’, which transforms ‘otherness’ from a problem to be disposed of into a moral and emotional challenge, as a political concept that best captures and explains the disruptive potential of a...

A research agenda for the economic study of genocide: signposts from the field of conflict economics

Abstract: In the field of conflict economics there is surprisingly little research on genocide and mass killing relative to war and terrorism, which I call the ‘genocide gap’. This article critically evaluates the potential for scholarship in conflict economics to help fill the gap with new research on economic aspects of mass atrocities. The article begins with an overview of the principal subject matter and methodologies of conflict economics and key interdependencies between economics and conflict. Relatively new civilian atrocity datasets and trends are then evaluated followed by a critical assessment of empirical economic risk factors for mass atrocities. The remainder of the article points to how three richly researched areas in conflict economics can serve as signposts for new quantitative research on economic aspects of genocide and mass killing. The three signposts critically assessed are: (1) empirical study of economic risk factors for civil wars; (2) promise and limits of rational choice theory; and (3)...

Marketing genocide: Biafran propaganda strategies during the Nigerian civil war, 1967–70

Abstract: Biafran propaganda played a pivotal role in the political and diplomatic conduct of the Nigerian civil war. Their propaganda campaign portrayed the war as the only possible response to a genocidal campaign against them. Despite the fact that Biafra's message remained largely focused on the genocide theme, Biafran propaganda was remarkably agile in its ability to adapt to the war's changing circumstances. Biafra's propaganda was designed to create a coherent message and intended to elicit sympathy from world public opinion and to instil a survival ethos in its population at home despite very limited communication resources. It is precisely this relationship between the aims of Biafran propaganda and the Biafrans' resourcefulness that allowed that message to be so effective, both during the war and in the collective memory of Igbo political nationalism. This article analyses Biafran print and radio propaganda as well as internal Biafran documents about the production, evaluation and monitoring of the moveme...

Israel, Nigeria and the Biafra civil war, 1967–70

Abstract: The Biafran secession of 1967 and ensuing civil war presented Israel with an acute dilemma. Israel sought to maintain correct relations with the Federal Government of Nigeria, which viewed as a hostile act any support rendered to the Biafran separatists. At the same time, the plight of the Igbos reminded many Israelis of the Holocaust. This article makes use of Israeli archival material to shed new light on how Israel shaped its policy towards the conflict. The Israeli public, press and parliament called for assistance to Biafra, evoking their country's deep moral obligation to help a people in distress. Israel aided Biafra, including, in a clandestine manner, the supply of weapons for which the secessionists pressed, in addition to humanitarian assistance. At the same time, Israel also sold arms to Nigeria, seeking to prevent a diplomatic rupture with the Lagos government that would have affected Israel's position in all of black Africa.

The effects of diplomatic sanctions and engagement on the severity of ongoing genocides or politicides

Abstract: This study tests the effects of diplomatic sanctions and engagement on reducing the severity of ongoing instances of genocide or politicide. I argue that neither diplomatic measure will be effective in slowing or stopping the killing. I argue that diplomatic sanctions merely reduce the flow of information without credibly signalling intent or commitment, while diplomatic engagement does not challenge perpetrators. Neither policy raises the costs of perpetrating genocide or politicide. Therefore, neither is expected to be useful in mitigating ongoing atrocities. Ordered logit analyses of ongoing genocides and politicides from 1976 to 2008 confirm these assumptions, and demonstrate that changing levels of diplomatic representation with atrocity perpetrators may make policymakers feel like they are ‘doing something’, but does little to reduce the lethality of ongoing mass killing. Under one set of circumstances, increased engagement even exacerbates the atrocities.

The UK and ‘genocide’ in Biafra

Abstract: In late August 1968, following a British proposal, Nigeria announced that it would allow an international observer team into the country to show that it was not pursuing a campaign of genocide in Biafra. This article analyses why the United Kingdom pushed for the creation of the observer team, and shows how the team's work was incorporated into the British government's justifications for its support of the Nigerian government. The experience of the observer team illustrates the difficulties of providing an ‘objective’ view regarding whether or not genocide is taking place.

The Biafran secession and the limits of self-determination

Abstract: The Biafran secession crisis raised a series of profound and unanswerable questions about the nature and limits of self-determination, state sovereignty and African decolonization A wide range of actors—both supporters and opponents of Biafra—viewed the Nigerian civil war and Biafra's attempt to carve out a new state as an important moment in the history of self-determination as a political and legal principle Likewise, the collapse of Biafra seemed to offer a series of lessons for movements asserting their right to self-determination, as well as for those seeking to limit its application, suggesting the open-ended and contested nature of the concept even as it was institutionalized in the fabric of international human rights law Ultimately, however, Biafra's failed secession attempt could only highlight the ambiguity and contested nature of sovereignty and self-determination in the international system, and the ability of groups such as the Igbos to exploit their indeterminacy in an effort to achieve

‘Biafra of the mind’: MASSOB and the mobilization of history

Abstract: This article examines the circumstances of the emergence of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) in a period of political liberalization and considerable uncertainty as the armed forces began to prepare to relinquish their grip on power in 1999. It tracks MASSOB from its inception, shortly after a civilian government took office following controversial elections, through the imprisonment of its founding leader Ralph Uwazurike in 2005, precisely when the government, under pressure, convened a national conference to address the grievances of the various ethnic groups, to the present, even as members reassess their strategies in the face of the apparent reluctance of a significant section of the Igbo political elite to buy into a new secession project. Confronted with the task of discharging the burden of civil war memory, the young men of MASSOB sought to mobilize history, ethnicity and a parlous economic present to press their claims on an electoral authoritarian reg...

‘Ours is a war of survival’: Biafra, Nigeria and arguments about genocide, 1966–70

Abstract: Arguments about genocide played a central role in how the government of Biafra and its supporters framed Biafran assertions of independence. Claims that genocide was occurring first cited violence directed against Igbos in northern Nigeria during 1966, before expanding to include both Nigerian military action against civilian targets in Biafra and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. Belief in Nigeria's genocidal intentions became a central tenet of emergent Biafran nationalism, and drew on both distorted representations of Nigeria and on historical analogies with the Nazi genocide against Jews. While the determination by a team of international observers that genocide was not occurring eroded the persuasiveness of Biafran genocide claims abroad, it did little to undercut Biafrans' belief that they were marked for extermination.

Site of memory and dismemory: the Valley of the Fallen in Spain

Abstract: This article focuses on the Valley of the Fallen in Spain as both a site of memory and dismemory. The monument at Cuelgamuros was constructed as a burial site for the Francoist fallen and the commemoration of their victory between 1940 and 1958 with the help of forced labour, consisting of thousands of Republican prisoners. Not only did many of these prisoners suffer serious injuries or death, but, in addition, thousands of Republican remains were exhumed from mass graves throughout the country, transferred and anonymously interred at the Valley in 1959 over and above the authorized burial of Francoist bodies. The destruction of the mass graves in the process, as well as the transfer of the bodies, was instrumental in disguising committed atrocities, and must be viewed as an attempted ‘mnemocide’ of the Republicans. The interment of dictator Francisco Franco's remains in 1975 at the basilica of the Valley certainly highlights the contested nature of this memory site. In this discussion, it will be argued ...

Dealing with ‘genocide’: the ICRC and the UN during the Nigeria–Biafra war, 1967–70

Abstract: This article examines how international and humanitarian organizations participated and positioned themselves in relation to discourses on genocide during the Nigeria–Biafra war (1967–70). During the first half of the conflict, the powerful Biafran propaganda regularly accused the Nigerian government of genocide against the Biafran population. The article looks at the way in which the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of the main humanitarian organizations present on the ground, reacted to Biafran accusations. In doing so, it analyses how information received from delegates in the field were apprehended and used—or not—by the headquarters. It shows that the ICRC attitude towards public denunciation was more nuanced than is often presented. Furthermore, the article sheds light on the involvement of the UN in the promotion of the counter-discourse developed by the Nigerian government to deny the genocide accusations. With a focus on the outcomes in the field, it fathoms the leeway the org...

Thinking comparatively about genocide memorialization

Abstract: This article argues for a comparative approach to studying genocide memorialization. Memorials and museums form an intrinsic part of state and society in post-conflict societies, and a comparative approach can capture the dynamics of memory politics and state building at play, especially the reception and instrumentalization in different national arenas of transitional justice mechanisms and the ways in which international agendas interact with domestic ones. The article first reviews the small existing comparative literature, and then offers a discussion of three potential comparative approaches: the transfer of representational strategies and discourses of remembrance by museum or memorial staff who serve as consultants for new projects; how genocide museums construct evidence or proof of genocide, and how these constructions might be received by victim and perpetrator groups in post-genocide societies, and by international visitors; and, finally, how the differences between official memorials and other...

‘And starvation is the grim reaper’: the American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive and the genocide question during the Nigerian civil war, 1968–70

Abstract: The American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive (ACKBA) was the largest and most influential organization in the United States that formed in response to the Nigerian civil war. While historians have pointed to the committee as an important source of activism that pushed the American government towards supporting more vigorous humanitarian relief, this is the first article to explore the development of the group from its inception and to look specifically at its claims of genocide. Not everyone at the time agreed that the Nigerian government was committing genocide against the people living in the secessionist state of Biafra, and that debate continues today. The ACKBA, appealing to genocide prevention and human rights, argued that the debate about the semantics of genocide got in the way of actually helping those that were suffering from famine as a result of the war. In the process, the committee offered a redefinition of genocide that wedded conceptions of Biafran identity to the Biafran state, which made ...

Holocaust commemoration in Romania: Roma and the contested politics of memory and memorialization

Abstract: In 2009, the Romanian government unveiled a $7.4 million Holocaust memorial to commemorate over 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma who died as victims of the Ion Antonescu regime. Located in central Bucharest, the monument is part of a national agenda, outlined by an international commission, to study the crimes of the Holocaust in Romania and to help the country come to terms with historical atrocities. Under communism and in the early post-communist period, the Romanian state denied its role in the Holocaust. In this article, we explore the representation of the Holocaust and, in particular, Roma victims in the dominant historical narrative and the Holocaust memorial. We delve into discourses around this monument, which feed into a larger dialogue of victim recognition and contested national narratives about the Holocaust. We highlight the construction and contestation of the Holocaust memorial, considering in particular the paradox of Roma victims and suggesting that Roma are simultaneously represented, unre...

Setting the agenda for evidence-based research on ending mass atrocities

Abstract: The question of how mass atrocities end has been dominated by a normative approach regarding how they ought to end. Arguing that an evidence-based approach to terminate mass atrocities might offer profound insights into theories of mass atrocities as well as policies designed to prevent or end their occurrence, this article outlines the key questions and approaches needed for an evidence-based study of atrocity endings. It draws on theories of genocide, political violence and civil war termination, and presents initial insights from case studies, including the killing of civilians in colonial German Southwest Africa, the Soviet Union, the Nigerian civil war, the Guatemalan civil war, the Nuba Mountains of Sudan and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Imagined nations and imaginary Nigeria: Chinua Achebe's quest for a country

Abstract: This article argues that Chinua Achebe's memoir, There was a country: a personal history of Biafra (2012) articulates a hankering after a home, a habitable country in the context of colonially derived contradictions embedded in the institutional formation of Nigeria, the failure of the nationalist and postcolonial leadership to resolve such contradictions as well as the legacy of ethnicity. It demonstrates how the memoir expresses the writer's despair at unfulfilled hopes, while also celebrating utopic moments, such as his colonial childhood, the independence of Nigeria and the founding of Biafra. It is the dramatic contrast between promise and actuality that engenders a deep sense of loss, just as it inspires the belief in the possibility of a transformed and habitable Nigeria. Using trauma theory, the article also argues that the memoir is committed to ‘working through’ the historical trauma, as demonstrated by its breaking the national silence over the Nigerian civil war (1966–70), its assertion that a...

Beyond Holocaust Studies: rethinking the Holocaust in Hungary

Abstract: This article argues that the ideological and emotional meanings of the terms ‘Holocaust’ and ‘antisemitism’ have obstructed their use as analytical concepts in Holocaust scholarship. It claims, specifically, that they frame the persecution and annihilation of Jews during World War II as unique, placing these events and processes apart from essential historical and political contexts. The destruction of Jews in wartime Hungary underscores how histories of state and nation building—in this case the drive to realize ‘Greater Hungary’ with a marked Magyar majority—generated multi-layered mass violence against non-Jews as well as Jews. Focusing on the multi-ethnic borderland of Subcarpathian Rus’ before the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 illuminates the links in the state's multi-layered attack against the region's society and sheds new light on the particular victimization of Jews, also after March 1944. Almost all the scholarship on the Holocaust in Hungary has addressed the period after the German...

The Asaba massacre and the Nigerian civil war: reclaiming hidden history

Abstract: This article explores the consequences of a massacre of civilians in Asaba, a town on the west bank of the river Niger, during the early stages of the Nigerian civil war. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of the Igbo-dominated Biafra, remaining part of the ethnically diverse midwest region. In the international memory of the war, the midwest action, which claimed several thousand lives, has been eclipsed by the catastrophic events east of the Niger, after the federal blockade of Biafra. This article sheds new light on the human cost of the war on civilian populations outside Biafra. Drawing on interviews with survivors and their descendants, we describe the killings, pillaging and rapes that followed the arrival of the federal troops, and trace the long-term impact and memory of the physical and human devastation in Asaba on family structure, gender roles, educational opportunities and social structure. We show how the official suppression of the massacres, coupled with Biafran awareness of the ev...

Memorializing colonial genocide in Britain: the case of Tasmania

Abstract: Britain is a post-genocidal state, although it (not surprisingly) has no official means for the memorialization of its colonial genocides. Britain cannot, however, be simply considered amnesiac about its genocidal past, which it has informally memorialized across various cultural genres. This article explores this observation through a case study of the ways in which the genocide of Indigenous Tasmanians has been remembered and indeed memorialized. Accounts of the genocide of Indigenous Tasmanians have been a consistent feature of British museum, literary and academic culture since the 1830s. As such, British engagement with genocide in Tasmania offers an interesting example of how genocide can be incorporated into national narratives that rely on neither victimhood nor denial. This is a particularly appropriate case study because Indigenous Tasmanians were universally represented as victims of a British ‘extermination’ in the metropole from the outset. Travellers wrote home with tales of violence from th...

Revisiting the El Mozote massacre: memory and politics in postwar El Salvador

Abstract: In December 1981, the Salvadoran Atlacatl Battalion massacred more than a thousand men, women and children in and around the rural hamlet of El Mozote in Morazan Department during a scorched earth operation at the beginning of the Salvadoran civil war. The main massacre site has been the setting for commemorations, memorials and murals and attracts large numbers of national and international tourists. This article explores the way in which the history of El Mozote and its articulation with El Salvador's civil war history has been framed by different groups. We discuss the complexities of memory, politics and the place of the El Mozote massacre in postwar El Salvador in the context of Morazan's insurgent past and suggest, following Walter Benjamin, that the contested meaning of the massacre rises from the contradictory praxis of actors struggling to develop hegemony over the ways in which this event is/will be remembered and why.

The memorialization of genocide

Abstract: The origin of this special issue, ‘The memorialization of genocide’, emerged from a Journal of Genocide Research workshop held at the Wiener Library, London, in November 2012. The journal editors i...