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By
Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, 07/10/17
When
the matter at stake is an ongoing genocide, response should be swift and
decisive. After all, the days and weeks are measured by the worst kinds of
human suffering.
Indigenous
Christians and other religious minorities are the targets of an ongoing genocide
in Iraq and Syria, with violence spreading in surrounding regions. Earlier this
year the House of Representatives passed, unanimously, a resolution
to provide relief to survivors of genocide committed by the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS) against Christians, Yazidis, and Muslim minorities, and
it is hoped that a quick passage through the Senate will put it promptly on
President Trump’s desk for signature. It would also be wonderful if the
remainder (roughly half) of the $5.6 billion earmarked for relief of refugees
in the Middle East were allocated and disbursed.
ISIS
has declared and demonstrated that any region under their control will be
subjected to a rigorous ethnic cleansing. Even in countries where they are
struggling to assert themselves they proudly showcase their intentions with
atrocities like the Palm Sunday church bombing in Egypt.
It’s
important to remember that their Christian targets in the Middle East are not
interlopers or outsiders, but indigenous peoples whose culture and religion
predate Islam by 600 years. They are Levantines, Armenians, Chaldeans, and
Copts, to name a few, and their peaceful presence is an irresistible irritant
to Islamists whose philosophy rests on complete subjection to Islam.
ISIS
uses murder, rape, kidnapping, and forced displacement to terrorize these
innocents, and all because of the way they practice their faith and worship
God. The result? In 1914, Christians made up about a quarter
of the population of that region. Now they make up less
than 5 percent.
The designation
of the persecution of Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities
by the European Union and the United States in 2016 as an ongoing genocide was
meant as serious business. Genocide was officially defined in legal terms by
the Genocide Convention adopted by the United Nations in 1948 as a response the
atrocities of the 20th century in which deaths were counted in the many
millions. It means killing and seriously harming members of a group and “deliberately
inflicting … conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction.”
In
other words, not only the barbarity of war but the deliberate stamping out and
expulsion of a whole people. The designation is meant to be a spur to action to
the world community of nations to intervene in the case of an ongoing
situation, and to bring perpetrators to justice when the incident is over.
What
is happening in the Middle East has, indeed, all the hallmarks of genocide, and
echoes odious events in history. As Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks pointed
out: “The persecution of Christians … is one of the crimes against humanity
of our time. … It is the religious equivalent of ethnic cleansing.” But the
lack of concerted response from world governments has been appalling. For
instance, it has been over a year since the United States called the
persecution of Christians and Yazidis in the Middle East a genocide, but direct
U.S. aid to persecuted Christians and other minorities who have abandoned their
homes due to Islamist violence has been meager. Instead, these refugees have
been helped mostly by concerned private groups like the Knights of Columbus.
The
trouble is that although the United States has been generous in its support of
the victims of Islamist violence in the Middle East, it has done so through the
United Nations. The money (over half of the $5.6 billion earmarked for
humanitarian aid for Syrians has been sent to the U.N. since 2012) reportedly
bypasses the victims of the genocide.
The
refugee camps set up and run by the U.N. are inhospitable to minority groups
who fear — and encounter — the same kind of intolerance and persecution they
have fled. Camps for Christians receive almost no help from governments
overseas. Stephen Rasche, the resettlement official for the Chaldean Catholic
Archdiocese in Erbil, Iraq told
Congress in September, “Since August 2014, other than initial supplies of
tents and tarps, the Christian community in Iraq has received nothing in aid
from any U.S. aid agencies or the U.N.” Erbil’s Archdiocese cares
for over 70,000 refugees, including about half of all the Christians in
Nineveh, yet they subsist on private donations from concerned Christians across
the world.
H.R.
390, the bipartisan “Iraq and
Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act,” requires the
United States to abide by its own genocide designation and intervene in this
humanitarian catastrophe. Once passed by the Senate and signed by President
Trump, the law will direct the administration to fund entities that are already
effectively providing aid on-the-ground to these beleaguered people, and to
address the needs and triggers that force them flee. It also directs the administration
to help bring those responsible to justice by collecting and preserving
evidence that links ISIS to specific atrocities.
Every
man, woman, or child who has fled from their home or been seriously harmed or
killed in the Middle East is a tragedy, no matter their religion or ethnicity.
But the systematic campaign to eradicate Christianity from its ancestral home,
and the violent persecution of other religious minorities reaches new heights
of cruelty. Intervening effectively to stop the genocide will put the United
States on the right side of history, where our country should always be.
Dr.
Grazie Pozo Christie specializes in radiology in the Miami area and serves on
the advisory board for The
Catholic Association. Follow her on Twitter @GChristiemd.
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