“We Charge Genocide” - The Way I See It
By Jamala Rogers
September 4, 2005

Let’s talk about the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina victims in real terms. Let’s name it for what it is: Genocide.

That’s what Brother William L. Patterson did in 1951 after the Convention on Genocide went into effect. Patterson presented a document to the United Nations that argued the failure of the federal government to act against lynching. He used Article II of the UN Convention. And so can we.

The Convention on Genocide defines genocide as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” The acts that are applicable in this travesty that ultimately spanned three states include “killing members of that group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “deliberating inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part…”

For years, there has been the sounding of the alarm about the sinking city of “Nawlings”. The state of Louisiana loses about 25 square miles of land a year, roughly the equivalent of a football field every 15 minutes. The historic city, already below sea level, is surrounded by more water. Every year since 2001, the Bush Crony Congress have reduced the budget of the project to build up the levees withstand Level 5 and 6 storms. In 2004, it was reduced by 80% due to monies being diverted for the Iraqi War. The same place all the Louisiana National Guard troops were when they were needed for the greatest natural disaster this country has ever seen.

Last year, a mock exercise was conducted in New Orleans by officials from over 50 local, state and federal agencies using a fake hurricane by the name of Pam. Almost to the letter, what they saw then is what New Orleans got last week. One glaring fact was that over 100,000 people would NOT be able to evacuate because no one in the household had a car.

What I am saying is that the scope of devastation and ensuing complications were known and have been publicly stated for at least the last five years by experts from many different fields looking at the doomsday scenario.

Now to the response, or should I say lack of response, by federal departments. It became painfully clear after the first 24 hours that these poor folks, mainly African-American, were going to be left to fend for themselves. Even Mayor Ray Hagin telling them to “get off their asses” didn’t stimulate a faster pace. In the next 24 hours, the media people on the ground were compelled to speak to the glaring class and racial character of the situation. Independent filmmaker, Michael Moore, said it bluntly when he speculated that white people in Kennebunkport, MA would not have been left on rooftops for five days.

Yet before our very eyes, tens of millions around the world witnessed the abandonment as the despair and suffering deepened. Mayor Nagin predicted that most of the deaths will be unrelated to Hurricane Katrina and more to the turtle speed at which life-giving supplies and evacuators came. He included in this number the suicides that have taken place, including two city policeman. Bush finally began to feel the pressure and decided to come off his vacation.

Along side our efforts to give emotional, physical, medical support to Hurricane Katrina victims, this nation must have the discussion about the whys. I think we have to frame it in the most graphic and accurate way possible. It is genocide.

We must not let the blame-game degenerate into no one being held accountable. It has to start with Bush. Yes, we know he’s inept. Everyone knows he kept reading that children’s book while planes flew into the World Trade Building. That’s no excuse. He still holds the title of Commander-in-Chief (not be said with tongue-in-cheek). Our hard-earned tax dollars are not at work where we want them; the dollars are being used to build empire and consolidate greed while US citizens perish in mostly preventable deaths. Further, we absolutely shouldn’t tolerate blaming of the victims.

There’s one snag that we cannot let hamper us in taking this to the World Court.

The US finally signed the Convention on Genocide in 1988 but only with the provision that it had to give approval before any prosecution.



Jamala Rogers is a featured columnist in the award-winning St. Louis American black weekly. This article will be published in the September 8 edition of the newspaper. She is also the national organizer for the Black Radical Congress.