A Problem from Hell: Review

A Problem from Hell: Review

Introduction

Genocide can be described as the intentional and pragmatic completely or partly annihilation of people on the basis of national group, religious, racial or ethnical basis. Scholars interpret the definition of genocide but a legal definition was established by the United Nations in 1948. The United Nations convention define the genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”. This paper will review the book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide”, written by current Samantha Power, who currently serves in Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights office as a Senior Director. In the preface, Power sheds lights on the time when she was a war correspondent covering the war zone of Bosnia and Serbia. She mentions a story of a young, nine year old girl, Sidbela Zimic, who died when a Serb shell landed in the playground where she and three of her friends were rope jumping on 25th June, 1995. Power recalled that in February 1994, just two blocks away from Sidbela's home in Sarajevo, a shell crashed into a central market, killing innocent people. The then President of United States, Bill Clinton, together with their allies in NATO, cautions Serbians for severe consequences if they started bombardment of Sarajevo again. Power continued to express that despite that caution, Serbians after a while, resumed their massacre of innocent human lives. When the US and NATO, made their commitment to take stern action on any Serbian aggression, the people of Sarajevo had hoped that they were safe to resume their daily life. It was because of this, that Sidbela was able to come and play outside, as she insisted with mother that she will be safe. Her parents, who were very cautious about her safety, gave into her plea but may regret their whole life for allowing her to play outside her home. Power also highlights the massacre carried out in a United Nations safe zone Srebrenica, where Serbian forces searched and gathered approximately 7000 Muslim men and executed them. Going through the chapters from preface to the conclusion, Power highlights the struggle of Raphael Lemkin, who is considered to be the definer of the phenomena of such incidents as “genocide”. He was a Polish Jew, who fought to recognize “genocide” as a crime with United Nations. It was not until 1948, that United Nation passed their first treaty. They called it the Genocide Convention. Power also highlights the atrocities carried out by Turkish forces on the Armenians, Kosovo, Srebrenica, Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq and ...