One month after Secretary of State John Kerry’s declaration that the mass slaughter of Christians and other minorities by the Islamic State is genocide, the administration so far appears to be satisfied by checking that box, and has yet to take any new, concrete steps to help the victims.
Pope Francis, the European parliament and U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have hailed the genocide declaration as a gratifying first step, but others argue it may do little to preserve communities living on the edge of extinction if the U.S. government fails to go beyond its finding and take some action.
Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., last week commended Secretary of State John Kerry for making “the accurate, right and just decision” to designate Islamic State atrocities as genocide. But he said the determination “may prove to ring hollow” if the U.S. government doesn’t do something about it.
“The United Nations convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide requires our government and other parties to the agreement to prevent and punish acts of genocide,” Pitts said during a Tuesday hearing.
The world watched as the Islamic State broadcast the murder of 21 Christians in Libya last year, but outside groups have since documented far more extensive brutality against Christians, Yezedis, Turkmen and other minorities. That includes forced conversions, mass slayings and the enslavement and rape of women and young girls.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., went even further by accusing all of Washington and other nations of sitting idly by and allowing the genocide to continue.
“We seem not to have the right tools, or we have been unable to reach consensus on the policies, or we lack the political will to provide sufficient resources to make a bigger difference,” he said.
The State Department spent months equivocating on whether to make the designation, and was worried that doing so would legally require the U.S. to intervene more directly to protect certain religious groups in Iraq and Syria.
When announcing the declaration last month, Kerry was careful to say that he is “neither judge, nor prosecutor, nor jury” with respect to the “allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.” The full facts, he said, must be brought to light by an independent investigation and a formal legal tribunal.
But the administration has done little to help form such a tribunal in this country or internationally.
The Knights of Columbus, a group that was instrumental in pressing the genocide case to the State Department and wrote a 300-page report chronicling atrocities in Iraq, last week made a series of recommendations for U.S. policymakers.
Carl Anderson, the group’s CEO, said the U.S and Iraqi governments must help assist those evicted by the Islamic State to return to their homelands as soon as more areas are retaken from the terrorist group.
The U.S. must also stop putting genocide survivors who want to come to the United Sates at the back of the line. Of the 1,366 Syrian refugees admitted to the United States in the current fiscal year, fewer than 3 percent were Christians, Yezidis and other minorities targeted for genocide, he said.
“It is wrong to exclude those who faced genocide — often on the basis of bureaucratic oversight,” Anderson testified to Congress.
Anderson says Christians and other minorities who want to remain in Iraq and Syria should be able to do so without facing a threat of genocide, discrimination or second-class status among Muslims.
“If [Christians and other religious minorities] disappear, pluralism and stability leave with them,” he said. “Iraq and Syria will at best become unstable majoritarian tyrannies.”
Former Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., a senior fellow at the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, said the administration should at least help victims seek refugee status or aid if they wish to remain in their home countries. Wolf’s group is a nonprofit human rights organization that also aggressively advocated for the genocide designation.
Women and girls released from the Islamic State also need rehabilitation and counseling, and all religious minorities who have fled their homes need a safe haven free of persecution to rebuild their lives, he said.
In the longer-term, the U.S. government should not hesitate in capturing and prosecuting the perpetrators. But Wolf, along with many others, remain frustrated that the U.S. has done little beyond the genocide designation, and fear that the Obama administration’s international priorities aren’t what they should be.
“If the Justice Department is able to find a way to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over a case of sports corruption as seen with FIFA, surely it can do the same against a genocidal group that has taken the lies of American citizens,” Wolf said.
