who are victims of rape, or threatened by it, must be able to use this as the basis of political asylum. Most of all, the indifference of Western governments and the political establishment, summed up in David Owen's statement that rape was 'too delicate' to raise with the Serbian leaders, must be broken.
What aids the rapists and other war criminals is the crime of silence; that is the first thing to break. Here we publish an article on this question by Ida Dequeecker of the Belgian section of the Fourth International. Bosnian Sert leader Karadzic: his troops are guilty of systematic rape " = brick wall. Accusing the boys did not seem very realistic. an international tribunal to bring the guilty parties to justice.
Everything leads us to believe that this demand will be heard. For good and sometimes not so good reasons. But if the women's movement succeeds in defending the interests of raped women from the sensationalism and propaganda to which the theme of rape so easily lends itself, an important step will have been taken in recogIt seems that the Serbian extremists have weapon of war within the framework of their policy of 'ethnic cleansing -But the Croatian and Muslim extremists are also guilty o!
called 'occasional rapes'. Is there any sense in this distinction? And is there a fundamental difference with rape in peace time?
Certainly not for the victims. Perhaps that is the only correct starting point: rape is always a crime, in the first place against women and girls.
Male society has never acepted rape as a serious socia problem. Rape is always veiled in myths based sensationalised stereotypes: the innocent virgin: the Imprudent with only herself to blame: the wrong-doer driven WHEN American feminists tried to get the anti-war move. ment to make a specific issue of condemning the rape of Vietnamese women by US soldiers they came up against a Following the rapes in ex-Yugoslavia the women's movement throughout the entire world has mobilised to seck the recognition of rape asa war crime and a crime against humanity and has demanded By Ida Dequeecker. (From the Belgian Trotskyist fortnightly La Gauche). by uncontrollable sexual urges - a monster, in one case, a 'red blooded' man in another. The logical consequence is away trom strange men and seck the protection of their own men. Effect of war? But then in times of war the protection is lowered and the combat troops suffer long periods of sexual abstinence. So the myth makes rape a secondary effect of all wars, regrettable but inevitable. Thus General Patton wrote in his memoirs about the North Africa campaign in 1942: whatevermyerors there were undoubtedly rapes' committed by the American soldiers under his command. And Milovan Djilas assures us that Stalin would have commented on the rapes committed by the Red Army during the 2nd World war: 'don't you understand that a soldier who has travelled thousands kilometres, through blood, fire and death looks for pleasure with a Alongside this vulgarisation ana jasuricanion of rape, without the least respect for the vicult, war also produces its own sensationalisation of rape Here also the victims don't count. The theme of rape, as a propaganda weapon against he enemy, is extremely effecIt was exploited on a large scale for the first time during the international campaige against the Germans who in. vaded Belgium in 1914: the image of barbarian Huns, with rape in their blood, raised nationalist sentiments in Britain and other countries.
After the war the whole affair was denied and put down propaganda exaggerations. No one (or rather no man) showed the least interest in the eventual victims.
In the same way today the Croatian elite depicts the Serbs as the only rapists and Croatia as a nation that has been raped strengthen Croatian nationalism.
This nationalism has a secondary perverse effect: an attitude which consists of pushing aside Croatian women who have been raped, and are therefore dirty, rather than helping them The result is that the women inemselves keep silent about what has happened to them. Rape is, in effect, a crime that
covers the victim - not the perpetrator crime which makes the victim into the guilty party, unless she has been murd ered into the bargain.
It is a crime which dirties the victim, as well as the child that may ensue. The result, which is equaly valuabie in danes or wat as in peace-time, is that rape is a hidden phenomenon, the frequency of which cannot be eslimated. It is only thanks to the actions of the women's movement that hesitant steps to gauge the extent are being taken.
Feminists have denonced the of the phe oves nawin toe feminist movement has particularly analysed the sociopsychological mechanisms of rape which come from the social and structural inequality between men and women. Rape is the result of sexism pushed to the extreme.
Certainly war makes rape Embassy in Seoul of their husbands, to make still worse. Then the same thing can hap pen to the allied well is that of the American soldiers after the Normandy landings during the Whether rape is tolerated (as appears to be the case with the erbian political and military till rape. Whether or not orr the US soldiers in Vietnam) there is rape.
This shows that rape has sexual desires, however popular this explanation may x, and everything to do witt violent instincts. And it is true that all men are not rapists, just as not all men love the violence of war.
When does the so-called occasional rape' become systematic policy?. In practice it is racist, fascist, ultra-nationalist people as inferiors which provoke this change.
A typical example is that of the Nazis who carried out a systematic policy of rape of Jewish Former 'comfort women" demonstrate outside Japanse and Russian women, treating them as species to be exterminated. The sexist contemp for women was combined with racist contempt for their nationality.
But vengeance can also unleash a systematic policy of rape. Thus it was that the Red Army marked out its advance on Germany during the second world war with a long trail of rapes, the official excuse being that the Germans had acted more savagely in the Soviet Union. in war-time, distinguishing ocтаре, cannot be to determine which is the most terrible.
The aim must be to show that rape is the product of social, ideological and psychological factors and that certain combinations of these factors lead to an escalation of rape.
That allows us to see that the knot of the problem lies in the way in which society moulds masculinity and femininity and has nothing to do with natural The recognition of rape as a specific war crime that is al ways forced upon women, and i punishment as such, does not, of course, extricate us from the problem itself. But it does constitute an important step in recognising the injustice done to women.
International WOMEN'S DAY 1993 EVERYWEDNESDAY afternoon, outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, women assemble to demand justice for the estimate 80,000 Korean, Chinese. Japanese, Filipino, Burmese and Dutch women forced into prostituton for Japanese soldiers during the last war.
Those women stil iving demand compensation. More importantly they demand official recognition of this crime. which denies, even forcing its ducation ministry to keep any reference to it out of school and college textbooks The story itsolf is horrific. As the Asia, 'comfort stasions" were estat hed lor the troops. The miltary logit ehind this was grotesque. During Bx lapanese attacks on Shanghai anc Nanjing during the 1932 campaign in China and Manchuria, the troops had run amok and mass rape had taken place.
The comfort stations were to koep minary discipe, o to make sureuk rape was orderiy. A large majority of he women came trom racially despised Korea. According to Lieut General Okamura, there was 'an endess supply of healthy Korean virgins' Most women were broken in' by beatings and rapes, to resign thom to their fate. Crude operations were performed on some io remove their reproductve organs, to stop them menstruating - and thus make them permanentty avalable". Others wero savageły murdored.
The women wore descrbed as war supples' and extreme logistical priority was accorded to thoir installa. ion whorover the Japanose armies went. Japanese soders powed thal following an advance the first things to arrive were the ammunition and te comfort women.
The Japenese government claims something disproved by hundreds of personal sastmonke In addition to B0,000 women estimated to have been forced into this slavery, another and cleaners.
What happened to the women and why was the issue buried foe 45 bars? Some of course were kiled by heir captors. Others suffered mutla tion or forture; thousands permanent sical damage as a result of syphil. x other disonses: and tens of thou sands suffered permanent psychological damage.
That the issue was buriod for so long was a result of the shaming of the vitims, the especially subordinated position of wormen in Japan and Korea, and the determination of the Japanese government to suppress But the question has blown open by the rise of now womens organisa Dons in Korea, which has inked the campaign to the issue of Japaneso sax toursm in war counuy, dito un growth of prostlution around American miltary bases.