Almost 37 years after President Harry Truman first asked for its approval, the Senate has voted to ratify a treaty declaring genocide a crime. The vote Wednesday was 83 to 11, with the opposition coming from conservative Republicans concerned that the treaty could infringe on the sovereignty of the United States and that it did not include provisions relating to ”political genocide.”
The treaty, which was a response to World War II and the Nazi effort to eliminate European Jews, had been before the Senate for its advice and consent longer than all but two senators have served. The two, Senators John Stennis
(D., Miss.) and Russell Long (D., La.), voted for ratification.
Seven presidents have attempted to gain ratification of the treaty, with President Reagan succeeding partly because of his background as a strong conservative.
”He cut the ground right out from under the right wing,” said Sen. William Proxmire (D., Wis.), who has spoken on the subject of genocide every day that the Senate has been in session since Jan. 11, 1967.
”What broke the logjam was President Reagan`s support,” Proxmire told reporters. Reagan announced his support of the treaty in September, 1984, during the presidential campaign and at a time when his political advisers were concerned about his standing in the Jewish community.
Before the vote, Majority Leader Bob Dole (R., Kan.), who also was credited by supporters with finally shepherding the treaty through the Senate, said, ”We have waited too long to delay further.”
”This treaty has enormous symbolic value as a worldwide statement of outrage and condemnation over very real horrors–as real as the Armenian genocide and Hitler`s death camps,” Dole said.
Sen. Paul Simon (D., Ill.) said: ”I cannot guarantee nor can anyone else guarantee it is going to do one whit of good. But it may.”
Though its value may be mostly symbolic, conservatives from both parties have objected to the treaty over the years and it took delicate negotiations and deals to manuever the treaty past such opponents as Sen. Jesse Helms (R., N. C.).
The last hurdle was an attempt by Sen. Steven Symms (R., Idaho) to amend the treaty by adding ”political genocide” to its definition of the crime.
”This treaty must be constructed as a deterrent to today`s genocide, not merely as a condemnation of yesterday`s,” Symms said during the debate.
But his amendment, which was called a ”killer” by Lugar, was rejected by a vote of 62 to 31.
