- The Devastating Aftermaths of the Genocide and the conclusion with legal bases
Tsengelt Gonchigsuren
In the previous two parts of this article, I focused on the Brutality and Savage Nature of the Genocide and its general picture (part one), and the Scope and the Seriousness of the Genocide in Its Historical Context (part two). Now I discuss the devastating aftermaths of the genocide and the conclusion of this article.
The bitter and tragic irony is that this cultured, civilized country did this genocide also in the name of "culture" and "revolution." Let see what they did to Mongolian culture with this "Cultural Revolution." The genocide was not only human genocide, but it is also cultural genocide as well.
The campaign also targeted Mongolian language, culture and other national identities and it hit so hard on them and the aftermaths of the genocide could be far beyond recovery. Same as the people of the Mongols, their culture, language and lands also suffered and devastated. They confiscated all Mongolian books and other literatures, hundreds year old historical writings, cultural treasures and arts, and burned them. Writers, artists, artisans, scientists, Buddhist monks and scholars were the special targets of the campaign. The schools were closed and turned into concentration camps and Mongolian language was condemned to the language of the beasts and prohibited. Teachers were locked up in concentration camps and tortured and they killed many of them. This is how the oldest civilization in the world treated other peoples' culture and heritage (The Nazis did the same to those books that did not fit into their beliefs and closed schools that was not liked by the Nazis). The Chinese authority clearly aimed at
the complete extermination and destruction of the Mongolian culture and language and other highly valued national spiritual treasures. (The book "Kang Sheng and The False Case of 'The New Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party'" did not even mention about the devastating impacts and aftermaths of the genocide and its another nature of the cultural genocide).
As result of the cultural genocide, today Mongolian culture still remains unrecovered, and perhaps never will be. The Mongolian language is spoken less and less among Mongols and has increasingly become the second language of the owners of this beautiful language - the Mongols.
This is the only language of the nomadic culture with rich written tradition in the world. An entire generation of Mongols missed the chance to have a general education in their own Mongol language, let alone learn about their culture. To the Chinese rulers, the Mongol language was the language of "beasts" and "barbarians" had no culture anyway. Such an attitude added to the mental trauma suffered by many children and youths. The situation with the written language is much worse than the spoken language. More Young Mongols can't read and write in their own language, and have no chance to reach their cultural heritage. The change of the ratio of the Mongolian speakers and Chinese speakers has reached its historical dangerous level and the forceful assimilation continued after the genocide. The regime understand so well that to destroy a nation the language of the nation is the first and the most important thing to destroy. Because usually, the victims' only "crime" was being Mongols or speaking Mongolian duri
ng the genocide and this could become an excuse for being persecuted against in the future too. Another important point is that the cultural genocide did not end right after the Cultural Revolution, but pretty much is alive even after the end of the genocide 20 years later, today. We Mongols have to face the language and culture crisis and the endangered national identities more than ever. We have to do all these recovering works under extremely dangerous and a difficult situation, because the Chinese regime imposed on us a series of cultural genocidal policy. As result of this kind of policy, recently they have arrested and sentenced more and more young Mongolian intellectuals into prison, because they have been active in the cause of rescuing our language and culture, advocating national identities, which have been damaged severely by the Chinese cultural genocide in the past and in present.
The psychological impact is long lasting and even today it is still shockingly effective. Mongols' nationalistic feeling is completely devastated and many people don't even dear to admit that they were persecuted and tell the true horror of the genocidal experiences that they have gone through.
People afraid of talking about it and often do not want their children to know the complete terrifying picture of the genocide and the pain of the past. Many genocide survivors have to weak up from frightening nightmares every night and face the misery of the life everyday. Personally, I had tried to talk to some victims since when I was a student. Nevertheless, I have never succeeded in letting the victim tell a whole story, though I listened to hundreds of victims' past experiences. I have not heard one complete story, even from my parents. When people start to talk, they just cry, or silenced by the anger that build inside those victims' hearts and maybe show you those ugly and barely healed scares that remain on their faces and bodies, but unable to tell the whole stories from the beginning to the end. It was a great pain to listen to the victims and I always feel angry and frustrated. But can you imagine the victims' pain and courage just for telling the horrible experience that they had to go through,
not even mention going through them with your own blood and flesh, soul and body. People have to live with those unbearable traumas and the fear of being persecuted for rest of their lives. It is another greatest injustice that the Chinese government does not admit the genocide, after they committed the greatest injustice in the history of humankind - the genocide against my people.
The genocide also aimed at destroying Mongolian families and other family related social unities. Many people had to denounce their blood and kin relationships from their family members or relatives. Inter-ethnic marriages were forced and in many cases, the party leaders make the decision and make the two people become a family and propagate that this is a "Model of Ethnic Unity" and another "victory of the party policy." If someone refuses, he or she would be condemned as "undermined the unity of nationality" or "refuse the leaders hip and orders of the party." Because of the horror of the genocide, many couples divorced and remarried to Chinese spouses, try to seek the "ultimate refuge" in inter-ethnic marriages. Some horrified victims consider this type of Party Line Marriage as some type of protective shield from possible future ethnic persecution campaigns, and encourage their children to marry Chinese. Some desperate people try to hide their true national identities and refuse to teach their children t
he national language and culture heritages. For many victims, they rather die with the pain, but do not want to pass them to their offsprings as national experiences. From those desperate attempts, we should be able to perceive how terrifying and inhuman the genocide was. They took away almost all the joy and happiness that human life can offer and more tragically, they took away Mongols' courage that everyone ought to have to live on as who he is.
Mongolian religion and other tradition, spiritual beliefs, traditional values, the unique environment friendly nomadic culture was insulted and devastated by the genocide. Any thing that could have some Mongolian identities was under ferocious attacks from the so called "revolution masses," which was basically the pseudonym of the Chinese masses. The regime is doing the same thing today in the name of "fighting against the separatists."
They also changed the historical names of particular geographical areas and other names of the traditional administrative units to Chinese names, and further divided IMAR to three different parts and cut off a half of its territory and gave to other provinces to be assimilated in deeper levels. They separated the people and the culture of the Mongols from their lands, separated the people from their culture and history.
Economic loots and open robberies and other types of crimes of violating victims properties were committed. The gold, silver, jewelers, art objects, other cultural and ethnic heritages and other treasures were confiscated and have never been returned to the victims (The Nazis' did the same to their victims and the "Nazis' Gold Issue" is still unsolved.).
What do you call it, if it is not cultural genocide?
After we examined three aspects of the genocide: the brutality of the genocide; 2. The scope of the genocide; 3. the aftermaths of the genocide. Now I would like to conclude this article by discussing the genocide from a legal point of view and try to establish some legal bases according to the international treaties and laws, to define this campaign as genocidal crime against humanity.
However, I have to very frankly address the failure of those international statutes in protecting my people from the Chinese Genocide so far.
The Chinese government claims that the genocide against Mongols was just a mistake made by some bad people under a special circumstances called "cultural revolution". An argument like this is totally unacceptable. First, the genocide is not just a mistake which is like a murderer killed human beings and say it was a small mistake! Also, they did not launch any campaigns like this to unearth IMPRP in Beijing, other parts of the country where no Mongols lived. Second. There was no other campaign like this happened compare with the genocide against Mongols, in terms of the brutality, tremendous scale, lasting time period and the shockingly high death row and crippled, incarcerated victims numbers, the destructive impacts and all other aspects related to the genocide. Even the regime has to admit that this campaign was the largest "false case" happened in China, since the Chinese communists took power in 1949. Third. The Cultural Revolution is not a special circumstances at all, but just the worst episode of the
50 years Chinese communist rule, and this rule in IMAR is more brutal, and colonial rule. The current regime, party and rulers are just the continuation of the regime during the Cultural Revolution, thus cannot escape from the accountability and responsibility for committed genocide crime. Four. The genocide is deliberate, systematic, and outrageously, openly targeted the Mongols only, not Chinese, Tibetans or particular political organizations. The victims are Mongols and the killers are Chinese "Revolution masses."
Let me put some relevant UN agreements and some articles of those international agreements that apply to this case and make comparative analysis and comments:
CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE (New York, 9 December 1948).
Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The Chinese regime did commit all above stated 5 accounts of crimes, which intent to destroy, in whole, or in part, a national - Southern Mongolia, ethnical - The MONGOLS, or a religious group - Mongolian Buddhist groups. Particularly: (a) Killing members of the ethnic population of the Mongols by 10%-15%. (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to more than 50% of the members of the Mongols, and the harms are unspeakable, brutal, inhuman; (c) Chinese authority did deliberately inflict on the Mongols' (group) conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group (see the paragraphs on tortures and other brutal damages in part one and two of this article); (e) The regime did forcibly transferring children of the group to another group by assimilating the younger generation and forbidding their rights and chances of learning their own languages, culture, and by destroying their families and separating them f
rom their ethnic and cultural masses (see part two and three of this article).
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
The Chinese authority intentionally, systematically, forcefully conducted all the five acts specified in the article III against my people but never been brought to justice and punished, never even been condemned in a serious way and because of these, Chinese authority is continuously conducting above mentioned punishable acts against my 3.78 million people with no intervention from the international community and the institutions that are supposedly responsible to monitor and to prevent this kind of acts against humanity.
Article IV
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
Article V
The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular; to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.
Article VI
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
Above cited 3 articles have not been complied with. The regime and the main culprits, the party, the PLA of China, and tens of thousands of individuals who are directly responsible for the murders and tortures have not been charged, triad, sentenced, punished under the crime of genocide against Mongols. Here I am also talking about the collective responsibility and collective guilt too. WHO is responsible for the genocide against my people, besides the parts of China?
Article VII
Genocide and the other acts enumerated in article III shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition.
The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.
Many individuals who were active and personally responsible for killing and torturing the Mongolian victims now live in many free countries. They have not been charged, or deported from those countries.
Article VIII
Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article
The UN, its member states, other international organization have failed to perform the duties stated in this and other conventions about to protect or preventing genocide against my people.
The key matter is that the genocide against my people happened AFTER the Genocide Convention and many other international laws and agreements had come to effective, and the holocaust against Jews taught the lesson to the world, and the world had sworn that NEVER AGAIN! This tremendous scale of atrocities and violation of the humanitarian laws since Nuremberg have not been brought to justice yet. The Chinese regime also violated all following laws during the genocide and is violating them now in the course of the oppression against MY PEOPLE:
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1948)
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (March 7 1966)
CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT (New York, 10 December 1984).
INTERNATIONAL CONVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS (New York, 16 December 1966).
CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS (Rome, 4 November 1950).
INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS (December 19, 1966. New York)
THE GENEVA CONVENTION
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
CHART OF THE UN
(Further modifications or additions may be made by the author in the future)
Appendix: The Changes of the Population of the Mongols in IMAR 1947-1997.
Year
1947
1952
1953
1957
1962
****
1965
**
1981
***
1987
1992
1997
Population
(Thousand)
832
910
1,026
1,116
1,496
1,445
2,020
2,972
3,600
3,870
* All the statistic numbers used in this article and in this chart quoted from the official documents and the historical writings that approved by the Chinese Authority and other Chinese public records.
** This is the year prior to the genocide and reflects the population numbers before genocide.
Also this is the year that Chinese government stopped to conduct census surveys for next 16 years.
*** The reasons that I used the number of 1981: 1. This is the year that China re-consolidated the 3 eastern Aimags and other administrative units (which were divided to other Chinese provinces in 1967) and lands back to IMAR, and the statistics can be seen as a whole. 2. During prior 16 years (1965-1981), China did not conduct a census survey. 3. The genocide's immediate aftermaths continued after 1977, means those severely wounded and sickened were dying slowly and continuously.
**** There was a big decrease in early 60s, from 1962's 149,600,000 to 1965s 144,500,000.
About 50,000 people were missing and the NGR was -2.5 %. What happened to those supposed 96400 people? Could it be the result of other campaigns and the big famine due to China's collectivization campaign?
