Convention de Genève

[Aristiana]

J'ai trouvé ce texte sur sladot.org et j'ai tellement aimé que je désire partager.



OK, so I'm the course officer for a Basic Training course, and amongst my duties is teaching the Military Law courses to the new recruits - which largely consists of reading out the text of the Geneva Convention.

(That's not as bad a deal as it sounds - teaching the Hygene in the Field classes was far worse)

So anyway, we're on the portion detailing the rights of Prisoners of War, specifically, the obligations of the capturer towards the captured. The Convention, being a legal document, is complete to the point of anality, and lists a large number of things that one must supply to POWs. This goes beyond basic necessities, including such things as sports equipment, etc.

In the back of the room, one of the kids is fighting a losing battle with himself. As each item in the list is read, he has a fit of the giggles, shortly followed by a case of the horrors that I should notice his giggles and fall on him like the Hand of God. He is doing everything he can to stifle his laughter, and not having much success.

So I ask him to explain to the class what he finds so funny about the Geneva Convention - fully expecting that one of his buddies is making faces at him or something of the like.

Instead, he explains that he finds it ridiculous to the point of hilarity that the Convention should require one to be so nice to prisoners, given that (one assumes) right up to the moment of their capture they were actively trying to kill you. Prisoners, he argued, should be damned thankful that they were still alive at all, and should recieve the barest minimum of care.

I responded with a pair of stories, that I'll now relate to you.

Example the first:

The Canadians were, following the D-Day landings, the army that got the furthest inland. Furthermore, there had been WW1 experience that Canadians often formed the centre of axis of any major push. Accordingly, the German High Command sent 12th SS Panzer (Hitler Youth) to counterattack the Canadian front, with explicit orders to throw the Canadians back into the sea.

Despite the name, these were not boys. They had started off as boys in the Hitler Youth, but had matured and trained together, and were now an elite unit of fanatics.

To make a long story short, they failed to throw back the Canadians, and, in frustration, executed 156 Canadian prisoners.

Word that 12th SS was executing prisoners got out, and hardened Canadian resolve. Furthermore, 12th SS became a "marked unit" and prisoners taken from it rarely, if ever, made it back to the camps in the rear. By the end of the war, 12th SS had been destroyed utterly.

Moral: Mistreating prisoners makes the enemy fight you harder.

Example the Second:

In WW1, the Americans were late to the party. Accordingly, they had not suffered anywhere nearly as badly as the other Allied armies when they did join in. Furthermore, as the US home front was untouched by war, their soldiers were much better supplied than other Allied armies - not to mention Axis ones.

Accordingly, a prisoner held in an American POW camp was much better treated - and MUCH better fed - than a "free" soldier back in his own lines.

This made such a strong impression that, a generation later, German fathers and grandfathers were sending their sons out to fight with the advice "Keep your head down, don't volunteer for anything, and surrender to the first American you see".

Moral: Treating prisoners well encourages soldiers to surrender - not just in the current war, but in the wars to follow.

Do you get it now?

DG


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Clo.

[Kaladhan]

Le premier exemple est pris hors contexte. Il est vrai que 156 Canadiens ont été exécutés, mais ce n'est pas pour ces raisons! Le camp militaire était en Allemagne et une poignée de prisonniers ce sont échappés. La nouvelle de soldats ennemis évadés en plein coeur de l'Allemagne a créé une panique générale dans le pays.

[Aristiana]

Je ne suis pas très féru de l'histoire du 20e siècle

Clo.