Justice for genocide should have no expiry date Colin Tatz

Justice for genocide should have no expiry date Colin Tatzhttp://theage.com.au/October 1, 2010Victims of genocide should be able to receive justice irrespective oftime passed or who they were. Photo: Andrew MearesAfter World War II, the Germans gave us their new term for reparationpayments to be made to Holocaust survivors ‹ wiedergutmachung. Atfirst, the English translation, making good again, sounded profoundand exotic ‹ until I realised that dead husbands, wives, parents,children and the half-alive survivors can't be restored in the way theterm suggests.So what kind of justice is there for victims of genocide? In the longroad towards some moral standard, one that includes the victims aspart of the atrocity, an admission of responsibility by theperpetrator is a start, if not the start. The Germans readily admittedtheir role in killing 30 million people, including 6 million Jews, 3.5million Poles, 8.2 Russian civilians, 5.7 million Russian prisoners ofwar, 5.9 million Ukrainians and 500,000 Gypsies. The next milestone iscriminal trial of both the architects and the mechanics of mass murderin the pursuit of both punishment and a sense of retribution. Mostpeople know a little something about the Nuremberg Trials of the 22leading Nazis; few know that since then, more than 110,000 domestictrials have taken place in both Germany and Austria, albeit with lowconviction rates. They continue, without an expiry date, as this iswritten.But justice, of any kind, appears to exist only for "worthy" victims:very few prosecutions were for crimes against Gypsies (Romany people)for example. And it took just over a century for Germany to admit thatit committed genocide against the native Nama and Herero peoples ofwhat was once German South-West Africa (now Namibia). The crime wasadmitted in 2006, but with the rider that no reparations would bepaid.Advertisement: Story continues belowAdmission of responsibility,trial, apology, restitution, reparations, reconciliation (of sorts)enable a pathway to that dearly beloved cliche of our time ‹ "movingon". (Moving on is just fine, provided one knows what it is one ismoving on from.) Restitution can involve giving back the giveable andrestoring the restorable (like the thousands of Nazi-looted artpieces). Reparations means money for civil wrongs, however tokenistic,when physical restitution isn't possible. The Germans have paidreparations money to Israel and to individuals, but the sum for eachsurviving slave labourer has averaged about $10,000. Romany people gotnothing, not even a "token nothing". Their requests to the Germangovernment were deemed "unreasonable" and "slanderous" and in 1980 theMayor of Darmstadt refused their participation in a ceremonycommemorating the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen camp because it"insulted the memory of the Holocaust".A decade ago, Roy Brooks edited an acutely titled volume, When SorryIsn't Enough. A singular omission was an Australian entry among thedozens of cases of apology and reparations for the victims of humaninjustice from around the world.The Australian path has been lamentable. In 1992, prime minister PaulKeating's Redfern speech about our treatment of indigenous Australiansadmitted the murders, dispossessions, the alcohol, diseases, theremoval of children, the smashing of traditional life and theirexclusion from society and its benefits. This was one kind of balm forthe victim people. The Howardites saw this moral inculpation as aslide towards costly economic reparations, refusing to admit or toapologise for just that specific reason. The Ruddites apologised in2008, with some reluctant and even truculent bipartisan support ‹ buteveryone was happy enough that the rider to the apology was that therewill be no reparations. And so only Tasmanian Aborigines, who receiveda state apology in 1997, now have a state-initiated $5 million fund todisburse to the surviving stolen generations.The ultimate negation is, of course, the Turkish denial of itsgenocidal campaigns against Armenians, Pontian Greeks and ChristianAssyrians between 1915 and 1922. There is no admission, noaccountability, no responsibility, no apology, no restitution, noreparation and no justice. There is only a paranoid denialism and thecounter-claim that more Turks than Armenians died in a "civil war":Turks were simply and only defending themselves against a traitorousand fifth-columnist minority who were aiding their enemies. Turkey istotally dedicated, at home and abroad, to having every hint or mentionof an Armenian genocide contradicted, countered, explained, justified,mitigated, rationalised, relativised, removed or trivialised. Theentire apparatus of the Turkish state is tuned to denial, withofficers appointed abroad for that purpose.In September this year, Turkey allowed Armenians to conduct areligious service in a former major church at Akhtamar on an island inLake Van, one they turned into a museum. In what was intended as apublic relations exercise, the Turks banned the erection of a cross onthe dome for this momentary revisiting of some grim history. And foras long as Turkey denies that anyone died at their hands, and refusesto release any death records, descendants of the dead can't claim themillions in insurance policies taken out by parents and grandparentswith American and French companies.Rwanda, Burundi, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina andIndonesia have acknowledged, in their way, that "something happened"in their domains this past century. For the perpetrators, admission,even apology, is usually about a regret, however fleeting, passing orsuperficial, that they were once the sort of people, or the sort ofnation, that they now wish they had not been at those points in time.But Turkey will neither concede such blots on their escutcheon noradmit their homicidal treatment of Christians over a very long time.Their victims have died twice: physically in the killing fields andthen obliterated from the history books.Colin Tatz is a visiting fellow at the Australian National Universityand a director of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and GenocideStudies. He was part of a panel yesterday, Genocide: Does justice havean expiry date, at the Jewish Museum of Australia in Melbourne.