Genocide accusations against China Sinophobic propaganda, says former UN expert

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(Xinhua) 08:29, May 14, 2021

-- Genocide is a well-defined crime under the 1948 Genocide Convention and Article 6 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. Using the term requires a high level of proof, particularly as to the "intent" to "destroy in whole or in part" a group of people.

-- It is not the first time Washington has targeted a country with false accusation. "If you look at the organizations that have been peddling this kind of information, they are mostly United States-based think tanks or non-governmental organizations directly or indirectly financed by the United States."

-- "The nonsense takes a degree of respectability when it's peddled by supposed 'independent' experts, among them Gay McDougall" who made the claims "without backing it up with any evidence."

-- "Nobody really cares about the human rights of Uygurs in Washington. The allegation is a geopolitical weapon, a useful Kalashnikov in the propaganda war."

GENEVA, May 13 (Xinhua) -- The accusation of genocide against China is not supported by credible evidence and constitutes propaganda for war and Sinophobia, said a former UN expert.

Such an allegation is also contravening Article 20 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and is a "geopolitical weapon" against China, said Alfred de Zayas, former United Nations (UN) independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

ILL-FOUNDED ACCUSATION

Noting that genocide is a well-defined crime under the 1948 Genocide Convention and Article 6 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, de Zayas said using the term requires a high level of proof, particularly as to the "intent" to "destroy in whole or in part" a group of people.

It is irresponsible to use the term loosely and without giving opportunity to the other side to contradict the allegation, he said.

"I was surprised. I am American, and I would expect that the U.S. (2020) Country Reports on Human Rights (Practices) would be professional," he said, describing the report as "shoddy."

In the 2020 report issued by the U.S. State Department late March, Washington accused China of "genocide," without, however, substantiating the claim. In his latest interview with CBS News, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken again accused China of so-called "genocide."

"This (2020) report was prepared, of course, in the Trump years, but I am not about to absolve the Biden administration of issuing this propaganda pamphlet. Blinken is himself a lawyer, and his advisors should have dissuaded him," said de Zayas.

"It diminishes our authority and our credibility to make allegations that are not backed up by solid evidence," he said.

Foreign diplomats visit the International Grand Bazaar in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, March 30, 2021. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

It is not the first time Washington has targeted a country with false accusation. In his interview with Xinhua, de Zayas recalled propaganda used by former U.S. President George W. Bush to prepare the assault on Iraq in 2003.

"We had (former U.S. secretary of state) Collin Powell appear before the UN Security Council. He lied to the United Nations, he lied to the American people," he said.

"If you look at the organizations that have been peddling this kind of information, they are mostly United States-based think tanks or non-governmental organizations directly or indirectly financed by the United States. They work in collusion with a compliant corporate media that has its own geoeconomics interests," he added.

"If you look at the sources of their financing, you see the role of the National Endowment for Democracy and United States Agency for International Development," said de Zayas. "So their objectivity and their independence is very much in question."

CONCOCTION OF FAKE NEWS

"The nonsense takes a degree of respectability when it's peddled by supposed 'independent' experts, among them Gay McDougall," de Zayas said, referring to a U.S. member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) who claimed in 2018 that there were credible reports about 1 million Uygurs being kept in "concentration camps."

McDougall made the claims "without backing it up with any evidence," de Zayas stressed, adding that after solid investigative journalism by American independent news website Grayzone, McDougall's claim was "pulled apart, and there is nothing behind it but propaganda."

"It was not a statement by the United Nations, nor was it a statement by the CERD. It was a statement by Ms. Gay McDougall, the American member in the CERD," he said.

According to the CERD's official website, the committee is "the body of independent experts," not UN officials.