Originally published on the CGS blog on March 25, 2016.
Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Thursday that ISIS (also known as Daesh) has been committing genocide against religious minorities in the Middle East. This announcement marks the second time in United States history that the executive branch has used the term “genocide” in reference to a current conflict, the first instance being Darfur in 2004.
The announcement was made after the House of Representatives passed a nonbinding resolution by a unanimous vote condemning ISIS atrocities as genocide. The statement was made in response to a deadline Congress set last year for the Obama Administration to determine whether the targeting of minority religious and ethnic groups by ISIS could be defined as genocide.
During a news conference at the State Department, Kerry said, “My purpose here today is to assert in my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims.” He went on to detail the atrocities committed against each of the aforementioned groups, the entirety of which can be seen here. After listing the crimes he added,
Naming these crimes is important. But what is essential is to stop them. That will require unity in this country and within the countries directly involved, and the determination to act against genocide, against ethnic cleansing, against the other crimes against humanity must be pronounced among decent people all across the globe.”
He continued by defining genocide and explaining why ISIS fit the criteria. “One element of genocide is the intent to destroy an ethnic or religious group, in whole or in part,” Kerry said. “The fact is that Daesh kills Christians because they are Christians; Yezidis because they are Yezidis; Shia because they are Shia… Its entire worldview is based on eliminating those who do not subscribe to its perverse ideology.”
He went on to stress the importance of rightfully labeling the crimes of ISIS as genocide: “We must recognize what Daesh is doing to its victims.” While claiming to be “neither judge, nor prosecutor, nor jury,” Kerry said that the distinction was necessary to reassure ISIS victims that the U.S. “recognizes and confirms the despicable nature of the crimes that have been committed against them.” The announcement stands as validation of those victimized by the terrorist group.
However, the United States government is far from the first group to condemn the actions of ISIS as genocide. Over the past year, a growing number of groups and individuals have determined that Daesh’s actions have been genocidal. United Nations human rights investigators accused the group of genocide and war crimes last May, citing evidence that the group’s fighters had sought to wipe out the Yazidis, a largely Kurdish group that practices an ancient religious faith in Iraq. Months later, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a leader in genocide research, said in a report that the crimes against Yazidis constituted genocide.
After this announcement, the key question that remains is whether this statement will force the United States government into taking action to stop the genocide. State Department spokesman Mark Toner previously had said a genocide determination in ISIS’s case “would not necessarily result in any particular legal obligation for the United States.” A reporter from the New York Times argued that the statement is “unlikely to change American policy.”
However, a statement by John Kerry near the end of his speech shines some hope on the possibility for action from the United States:
So we must bear in mind, after all, that the best response to genocide is a reaffirmation of the fundamental right to survive of every group targeted for destruction. What Daesh wants to erase, we must preserve. That requires defeating Daesh, but it also demands the rejection of bigotry and discrimination – those things that facilitated its rise in the first place.”
With this in mind, please help us at Citizens for Global Solutions impact a positive change and force action against ISIS’s genocide in the Middle East.
