Predicted genocide in Rwanda, I warn same could happen in India: Dr Gregory Stanton

Warning India of possible genocide against Muslims, Gregory Stanton, who predicted genocide years before it took place in Rwanda in 1994 said that there are ‘early signs of genocide in Kashmir and Assam.’ 

“Genocide is not an event, it is a process. It develops. And Genocide Watch has been warning India since 2002 Gujarat riots” said Stanton, Founder of Genocide Watch, an organisation launched to predict, prevent and punish genocide.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s usage of anti-muslim rhetoric to build his political base, Stanton pointed out two major policies in India that targeted Muslims; the revocation of the autonomous status to Kashmir and the Citizenship Amendment Act, which excludes Muslim refugees alone from citizenship and allows their deportation. 

Drawing parallels to the deportation of Rohingyan Muslims from Myanmar, after citizenship was stripped away from them in 1982, Stanton said that ‘200 million Muslims in India will be affected, which is more Muslims than in Pakistan.’

Pointing out to Haridwar hate speech which incited genocide, Stanton said it is a crime under Genocide Convention and also illegal in India.

He also condemned Modi’s silence on the same and reminded it was the Prime Minister’s moral obligation to denounce such hate speeches.

He also added that the language used in the meeting and many times also by the government as part of the ‘polarisation’, which is one of the ten stages in the genocide process. 

The former lecturer in genocide studies and prevention at the George Mason University in Virginia said that genocide takes place in ten processes. 

A genocide begins with classification and exclusionary citizenship. Polarisation and dehumanisation through terrorists and criminal labelling later follows, he elaborated. 

“So we are warning that a genocide could very well happen in India,” said Stanton. 

Before 5 years of genocide in Rwanda, Stanton had warned the then Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana that “if you don’t do something to prevent genocide in your country, there is going to be a genocide here within five years. That was in 1989. The genocide developed, the hate speech developed, all the early warning signs developed. And as we know, 800,000 Tutsis and other Rwandans were murdered in 1994″.

“We cannot let that happen in India,” he concluded