Abstract

Minority Report

The article presents a discussion on the issue of genocide and related war crimes. The term genocide has been both overused and underused in the present past. In Rwanda, where Madeleine Albright acted on U.S. President Bill Clinton's instructions to veto a United Nations resolution calling for pre-emptive action, the Administration sedulously avoided using the word "genocide," because it is a threshold word that triggers a law, solemnly passed by the U.S. Congress, mandating intervention. Defined by international law, "genocide" means any concerted attempt to destroy the identity or existence of a people. There is no room for doubt that this is what the S. Milosevic regime intended in Kosovo. Ethnic-cleansing battalions do not just blossom from nowhere under the pretext or excuse of the violence that purports to thwart them.