På baggrund af måneders overvejelser besluttede Obama-administrationen i marts 2016, at IS overgreb på yazidierne var et forsøg på folkedrab. Det er et af få eksempler på, at USA har betegnet et igangværende massedrab som værende indenfor Folkedrabskonventionens juridiske kriterier.
Obama-administrationen
Se udenrigsminister John Kerrys fremlæggelse (twitter.com).
Repræsentanternes Hus
Repræsentanternes Hus i den amerikanske kongres har vedtaget en fordømmelse af ISs overgreb som et folkemord. Se resolutionen (congress.gov).
Den amerikanske presse
Der har været debat om emnet i den amerikanske presse. 24. februar 2016 skriver Washinton Post en artikel med titlen ”Some are pushing to call the Islamic States actions genocide. What would that mean?”
Citat fra artiklen (vores fremhævelser):
The U.S. government rarely designates conflicts “genocide,” a term that was created after the Holocaust. Crimes in Bosnia in 1995, Rwanda in 1994, Burundi in 1972 and 1993 and Darfur beginning in 2003 have been given that label.
Use of the word is governed not by any U.S. law but by the 1948 convention adopted by the United Nations on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It defines genocide as acts ”committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
“There is a misconception about the word. The Genocide Convention doesn’t require us to do anything,” said Greg Stanton, president of Genocide Watch and a past president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Stanton believes the word is underused, and that there have been 55 genocides since the Holocaust – including the crimes perpetrated by ISIS. ….“Essentially people don’t care. The bystander phenomenon is why genocide continues. As long as we don’t call it the right name, nothing will be done about it. That’s what worries me.”
Læs mere (washingtonpost.com).