CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- With ISIS continuing to threaten vulnerable populations in Iraq and Syria, more action is needed to protect victims and offer justice before it\u2019s too late, said human rights leaders this week.<\/p>\n\u201cThe survivors of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Iraq and Syria merit the fullest possible assistance of our government, including consideration for admission of victim refugees to the United States,\u201d said David Scheffer, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues.<\/p>\n
Without adequate aid and support, these communities face total eradication, warned other speakers.<\/p>\n
Policies focused on individual aid instead of helping whole communities increase \u201cthe likelihood that the complete eradication of these groups from the region \u2013 which was the intent of the genocide \u2013 will succeed,\u201d warned Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.<\/p>\n
Anderson and Scheffer spoke at a Sept. 22 hearing before the U.S. Helsinki Commission on Capitol Hill entitled \u201cAtrocities in Iraq and Syria: Relief for Survivors and Accountability for Perpetrators.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hearing focused on the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2016 (H.R. 5961), introduced by commission chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R- N.J.), which includes steps to protect religious and ethnic communities targeted by ISIS \u2013 both in their homelands and as refugees \u2013 and how to guarantee that perpetrators of human rights abuses will be prosecuted and punished.<\/p>\n
Rep. Smith praised recent declarations by the United States and other organizations that acknowledge continued ISIS persecution of Christian, Yazidi and other religious and ethnic communities as \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, he criticized the lack of action, saying that \u201cdisplaced genocide survivors cannot pay for food, medicine, or shelter with words from Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities in areas of Iraq and Syria have been facing intense persecution, human trafficking and death since their territories fell under ISIS control. In late 2015, the U.S. State Department formally labeled ISIS\u2019 persecution as a \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
While documentation of the human rights abuses is necessary and can help spread awareness of the horrors these populations face, Smith continued, \u201cfirst and foremost, they are crimes committed by perpetrators who need to be investigated and prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis requires collecting, preserving, and preparing evidence that is usable in criminal trials.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scheffer explained in his testimony that it is already possible to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes, under some circumstances, but added that Smith\u2019s proposed legislation could help ensure that \u201cperpetrators of crimes against humanity do not find sanctuary from prosecution in the United States,\u201d by including their atrocities under the criminal code.<\/p>\n
Chris Engels, deputy director of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, a non-profit that carries out investigations of human rights atrocities, also spoke. He too stressed the need for increased accountability and prosecution of perpetrators of human rights abuses, and to prevent these events from happening in the future: two goals which he described as connected.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Noting again that some avenues for accountability and punishment of human rights abuses exist currently and do not depend on the creation of special tribunals and courts, Engels encouraged government leaders to start planning for accountability measures, pointing to their importance for rebuilding efforts after conflict.<\/p>\n
Prosecution of ISIS members and the Assad regime can also help the region \u201cevolve into stable, peaceful, and just societies,\u201d in a way that a lack of fighting or political settlements alone cannot, Engles continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese trials have the power to serve as tangible examples to all in the region that the rule of law is here, and here to stay,\u201d he said, warning that without avenues for justice, \u201cthe seeds of future conflict, cataclysmic destabilization, unprecedented human displacement, and militant terrorism lay undisturbed and ready to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecuting militant leaders for human rights abuses, as opposed to charges of terrorism, could also help to diffuse the \u201c\u2018clash of cultures\u2019 narrative\u201d between the West and the Islamic world, by providing fact-based evidence of the horrific crimes they have committed against whole classes of people.<\/p>\n
Anderson urged the commission that the communities facing the most horrific violence at the hands of ISIS are not receiving adequate public aid \u2013 an oversight which all but seals their extermination.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the one hand we have the unanimous policy of the elected branches of the United States government stating that a genocide is occurring. On the other hand we have an aid bureaucracy that is allowing the intended consequence of the genocide to continue, even though it is in our power to stop it,\u201d he criticized.<\/p>\n
The bureaucratic roadblocks threaten the survival of Christians and Yazidi communities, he said, asking the United States to expand aid to these populations more directly.<\/p>\n
Anderson also urged the commission to focus on building structures that end the \u201csystem of religious apartheid\u201d in the region and ensure that Christians and other religious minorities receive \u201cequal rights and the equal protection of the laws as enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephen Rasche, legal counsel and director of resettlement programs for the Archdiocese of Erbil provided an on-the-ground perspective of working with more than 10,000 displaced families fleeing violence in Northern Iraq, echoing Anderson\u2019s critique of the lack of public funding for the diocese\u2019s work. The care for the tens of thousands of Christian and non-Christian internally displaced persons has been accomplished mainly through private donors, Rasche testified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is no exaggeration to say that without these private donors, the situation for Christians in Northern Iraq would have collapsed, and the vast majority of these families would without question have already joined the refugee diaspora now destabilizing the Middle East and Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
He noted that the \u201cindividual needs\u201d policy assessment imposed by the United States and other international organizations excluded these displaced persons, because the care they receive from the Church is better than that received in many refugee camps. Such an assessment fails to acknowledge that they are \u201cthreatened with extinction as a people, the victims of genocide and a cycle of historical violence which seeks to remove them permanently from their ancestral homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bill Canny, executive director of the U.S. bishops\u2019 Migration and Refugee Services, spoke of the need both to rebuild the societies in Iraq and Syria, and to address \u201cthe root causes of the forced migration,\u201d as well as the need for the United States and other countries to \u201ccontinue to protect and support internally displaced people and refugees from Syrian and Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed out that \u201creturn is the first choice and option most viable for most refugees,\u201d but that in some cases, return is not possible. He suggested that in those cases, resettlement of refugees in new homes should be considered, particularly those who are most vulnerable if they return.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have urged the United States and other concerned countries, as well as countries in the region, to do more to protect them and others who are facing persecution at the hands of both state actors and non-state actors.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, he continued, the United States has resettled a concerningly low number of religious minorities in the past year, particularly Christians.<\/p>\n
Whatever the causes for the low numbers of Christian resettlement, Canny said, it is clear \u201cthat Christians and other religious minorities have become a target for brutality at the hands of the non-state actor ISIS, and that they are fleeing for their lives, and that far too few of them have been attaining U.S. resettlement.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
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