The last “red line” that separates humans from nonhumans was crossed in the Russo-Ukrainian war. This is how the mass atrocities committed against the peaceful population, against civilians can be interpreted sentimentally. These were discovered recently, but were allegedly committed during a long period of time and in many places. This suggests that they were committed intentionally and this is even more serious. The experts invited to IPN’s public debate “Atrocities in Ukrainian zones under occupation: what do they tell about and what do they oblige us to do?” discussed the legal, political and moral aspects of these actions.
Igor Boțan, the standing expert of IPN’s project, said that the UN General Assembly on March 2 adopted a resolution titled “Aggression against Ukraine”. By this document, the Assembly demanded that the Russian Federation should immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all its military forces from the territory of Ukraine, outside the internationally recognized borders, and to immediately cease its illegal use of force and refrain from any further threat against Ukraine that is a UN member state. Another demand was for the Russian Federation to immediately and unconditionally annul the decision concerning the status of particular regions in Donbas and Luhansk, which belong to Ukraine. On March 3, the International Court of Justice in The Hague announced the launch of an inquiry into Russia’s actions in Ukraine, regarding possible war crimes, starting with 2013.
“The war crimes are especially serious violations of international humanitarian law during armed conflicts. The legal definition of “war crime” is defined in Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, according to which the war crimes are serious violations of the Geneva Convention of August 1949. These are enumerated as such: premeditated murder, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, intentional causing of severe suffering or serious injuries, destruction and unlawful taking of property that are not caused by military necessities, deportation or illegal transfer and illegal deprivation of freedom, taking of hostage, etc.” explained the expert.
According to him, the definitions show that the war crimes involving a large number of victims are considered crimes against humanity and are examined not by national military courts, but by international military tribunals. Owing to the extreme gravity of crimes against humanity, there are no statutes of limitations for such crimes. “Atrocities” are crimes committed with cruelty against living persons accompanied by causing of physical, mental and other kinds of trauma. “Massacre” is mass murder or carnage. “Acts of terrorism” are deliberate, politically-motivated acts of violence committed against civilians with the aim of influencing their state of spirit so as to have consequences for the decisions of the political class. “Genocide” is a form of mass violence used with the intention of fully or partially destroying a nation, ethnic, racial or religious groups,” stated Igor Boțan.
University lecturer Vitalie Gamurari, doctor of international humanitarian law, said the states traditionally refuse to recognize the presence of an armed conflict, even on the own territory, due to the current concept of international law, primarily the humanitarian one. After World War II, together with the adoption of the UN Charter, there were clearly defined the cases when the use of force by a state is allowed. “If we look at the ex-Soviet space, we see that the notion of armed conflict was avoided in all the military operations and conflicts that occurred, including the two wars waged by the Russian Federation against Chechnya and the “anti-terrorist” operation against Ukraine of 2014 or even the Nistru conflict of 1992, which was also called restoration of constitutional order,” stated the expert.
According to Vitalie Gamurari, international law clearly defines the situations to which it applies. “It goes to the international armed conflict, which is the current war involving Ukraine and the Russian Federation, and to the non-international armed conflict. What is happening today is closely related to the developments of 2014. In that period, the International Criminal Court started to examine the situation in Donbas region. Actually, the Russian Federation has been at war with Ukraine since 2014. De jure, it comes to the occupation of Crimea, while de facto it comes to the conflict in Donbas,” stated the expert.
“Among the situations faced by Ukraine is the non-ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, unlike the Republic of Moldova, which ratified this earlier. But the Court started from ad-hoc situations, initiating the examination of the current developments in Ukraine. Evidently, what we saw, what we know are indisputably war crimes, but the responsibility for the commission of these acts is within the remit of special commissions or of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which already dispatched representatives. But no one annulled the right and obligation of the Ukrainian state to examine these events in accordance with the own legislation,” said Vitalie Gamurari.
Doctor of political sciences Ion Duminica, of the Institute of Cultural Heritage, said that in any war there are four main players – heroes, slaughterers, victims and profiteers. The Bucha atrocities revealed the victims. Time is yet needed to identify the “slaughterer” and to try and prove these atrocities. Regrettably, the history and historical education textbooks promoted the war from the perspective of the acts of heroism and the “heroes” were presented as the main players, while the victims were mostly ignored.
“That’s why, after World War II, after the war crimes, genocide against the Roma, the Jews, religious monitories, sexual minorities, prisoners of war were proven, the slogan “Never again” started to be disseminated to prevent such atrocities. But these repeat and the rhetoric question is, why do they repeat? Because these war crimes and these victims weren’t studied and the lessons of the Holocaust weren’t promoted in schools. If we look at the situation in the Republic of Moldova, we see that the Holocaust is an optional subject. To realize that doing bad things is bad and any crime against a human being has repercussions for the country you represent and for yourself, we should understand what genocide is, what the Holocaust is. The lessons of the Holocaust weren’t studied, at least in the Republic of Moldova,” stated Ion Duminica.
According to him, the crimes committed in Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka, Kramatorsk are acts of psychological intimidation. “It is hard now to carry out assessments to say who is to blame, but the crimes in these localities in a way diminish the acts of heroism of the Ukrainian army and peace at any cost for stopping the massacre and continuation of the war are placed on the scales. This is a sensitive issue for any politician, but it is important that the government of Ukraine should manage the country and bring this conflict to an end as the disaster will be greater if this conflict gets out of the Ukrainian authorities’ control and greater massacres will be witnessed then. For the military conflicts, wars, war crimes and atrocities not to repeat, we must present the position of the victims in history textbooks,” concluded Ion Duminica.
The public debate “Atrocities in Ukrainian zones under occupation: what do they tell about and what do they oblige us to do?” was the 236th installment of IPN’s project “Developing Political Culture through Public Debates” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
