Wanton exaggeration?
It is true that Israel has been carrying out genocide in Gaza. It was in December last year that the Amnesty International concluded that Israel had committed and it continued to commit genocide during its war on Gaza.
'Amnesty International's report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. These acts include killings, causing serious bodily or mental harm and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction…,'according to Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.? Agreed. But one must not lose sight of the fact that both Israel and Hamas have often traded accusations of genocide against each other. Insofar as the case of Khmer Rouge is concerned, however, the then communist terrorist government made no such accusation ever.
When Khmer Rouge came to power after a bloody civil war in which 600,000 people died, the cities were evacuated; economic production and consumption were collectivized; books were confiscated; Buddhism, Islam and other forms of religious worship were banned.
The list of Khmer Rouge's crimes against humanity is indeed very long. It was under Pol Pot's rule over one and a half million of Cambodia's eight million inhabitants perished owing to a variety of reasons, including torture, disease and hunger.
Be that as it may, no doubt, Sirajuddin Aziz is a prolific and highly knowledgeable writer. Armed with a highly appreciable sense of history, he writes with conviction. Generally, his are brilliant pieces of writing.
Unfortunately, however, he often overstates situations. In my view, therefore, wanton exaggeration now appears to be another feature of Sirajuddin Aziz's writing style.
Mehtab Akhund (Karachi)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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