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In taking the position of disagreement, I suppose that I am in general in accord with Robert Grason who wrote the opening article here: the planning and systems used by the Nazis involved makes their crime unique to the best of my knowledge. Its uniqueness, I stress, is not related to the staggering scale of the killing it is certain that the great cynics Stalin and Mao tse Tung were responsible, each of them, for more murders and misery than were the Nazis. No, it is I repeat, in the intense and detailed planning and logistics and as Grason points out, the enormous resources used in the programme, ironically to the detriment of the war effort.

Consider the infamous top-secret Wannsee conference of January 1942, held under the chairmanship of Himmler to discuss the "Final Solution (Endlsung) of the Jewish Problem". I doubt that at any recent time in any country has such a conference taken place. Remember that the Third Reich had an elaborate and well-organised civil service; complex orders and instructions on a vast scale were well within the capacity of the relevant institutions to carry out. I cannot imagine that such a situation pertains today in the Sudan, where the murder and brutality appear to be carried out more or less by state-licensed bandits whilst the appalling Sudanese government no doubt funds and equips these vermin and indeed its members probably discuss the "progress". I should add in the interests of balance, that a UN panel has ruled that the Sudanese Government is not guilty of genocide in Darfur but mysteriously goes on to add that "[] there was the deliberate targeting of civilians in Darfur using murder, torture and sexual violence []" One is tempted to add "So that's all right then."

This is not to suggest, however that the machinery of state has not been involved in mass-murder elsewhere. A good example is the disgusting message sent to a USSR regional governor in 1937 by Nikolai Yezhov, head of the dreadful NKVD (forerunner of the KGB). The message ran: "liquidate 10,000 enemies of the state report results by telegram." This was of course driven by Stalin's paranoia*. Needless to add that the victims were probably selected largely by means of denunciations from jealous neighbours and other such wickedness the inevitable result of a society governed by fear. I doubt anyone will ever know how many deaths may be attributed to Mao, I have heard up to 60 million, presumably for "re-education" reasons. Equally, one might consider the misery and murder that prevailed in former Yugoslavia in the early-to-mid 1990s; there was arguably a racial basis, but it appears largely to have had mostly cultural or religious origins unfortunately with a very long history; Northern Ireland is another example.

It is my opinion that the killings in Darfur follow an age-old problematic tradition in Africa: that of tribal conflict, following on from previous horrors in Angola, Uganda and Rwanda for example. Indeed just recently, another tribal conflict has erupted in Kenya, until recently perceived as one of the more stable of the African nations.

The idea of one tribe endeavouring to destroy another is certainly genocide, but it is in no way the "Holocaust" and neither can it be likened to it.

*Stalin famously once remarked: "Ideas are much more dangerous than guns; we don't let them have guns, so why should we let them have ideas?"

Source: BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor ld/africa/3853157.stm

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