Dare we call it genocide?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

In 1932-33, after plans for collectivization of farms in the Ukrainian SSR failed, residents were faced with a major grain shortage and hunger began to consume the people. However, instead of seeking to assist his people, Soviet Leader Josef Stalin--who found the Ukrainian people to be ungrateful towards Moscow and was highly suspicious of their motives--deliberately withheld food and supplies from the area.

As a result, a great famine enveloped Soviet Ukraine. Conservative estimates have over 3 million people starving to death; others have the death toll even higher. Besides starvation, disease and cannibalism were rampant. Stalin's intentional famine and act of collective punishment against the Ukrainian people became known as the Holodomor.

Fast forward to 2017, where Category 5 Hurricane Maria hits the US commonwealth of Puerto Rico. As president, Donald Trump is hesitant to visit the stricken island. Finally, several weeks later he visits; once on the ground, he attacks the island's government for its debt, minimizes the situation by claiming that it "wasn't a real catastrophe like Katrina", and infamously chucks rolls of paper towels at a relief center as if he's an eight year old shooting baskets at his local Chuck E. Cheese.

Despite all this, he's quick to pat himself on the back, tweeting the following:

Link to tweet

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

Nobody could have done what I’ve done for #PuertoRico with so little appreciation. So much work!

4:37 PM - 8 Oct 2017

Despite lauding himself for his efforts, Trump decides to remind the people (the majority still without power and clean water at this time) of Puerto Rico that assistance is not a certainty. He tweets the following:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Donald J. Trump
✔ @realDonaldTrump

"Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making." says Sharyl Attkisson. A total lack of.....accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend....We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!

7:07 AM - Oct 12, 2017

On October 9, 2017, he lets the temporary waiver of the Jones Act expire, which hampers relief efforts; his initial decision to waive the Jones Act in the first place was delayed compared to other disasters. Some of the contractors sent to the island are highly suspect, such as Whitefish Energy, a company given $300 million by the government and charged with restoring a portion of the power grid. The company had a grand total of two employees and just so happened to come from the same small Montana town as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. The hospital ship USNS Comfort took weeks to arrive at Puerto Rico's shores and was sent back to the US mainland almost as soon as it arrived; when it was tethered off shore it saw approximately 6 patients a day. Food supplies were cut off at the end of January 2018, but not before it was reported that many of the supplies being shipped to the island were spoiled and useless.

Now, a Harvard University study has estimated the death toll of deaths that could be attributed to Hurricane Maria in the tumultuous three months that followed the storm was around 4,600, far more than the official death toll of 64.

The best case scenario for the Trump government was that this was simply gross incompetence on its part. But given Trump's cold, vindictive and absolutely non-empathetic attitude towards Puerto Rico, and considering the inexcusable level of corruption and neglect in the government response, should we consider the horrifying possibility that this was an act of genocide targeting the Puerto Rican people?

And no, 4,600 deaths is not the same as the 3 million plus that died in the Holodomor, or the 6 million to 12 million plus that died in the Holocaust, or the 1.5 to 3 million who died in the Cambodian genocide, but we have a tendency to compare our own actions to the very worst and dismiss it just because it doesn't match the scope of the very worst, even if it does match the spirit.

And, as the Holodomor shows, not all genocides are highly militarized events with killing fields or extermination camps; genocides can just as well take place when a people is collectively targeted and punished via means of intentional neglect.

So dare we take the step and consider whether what happened in Puerto Rico wasn't just a bungling act of mismanagement, but rather an intentional act of genocide by the Trump government?