Both characters are known and feared for their violence and dictatorial character. They are dividers within their country (on the level of racial and social relations, Trump; on the ethnic and religious level, Erdogan) and internationally (Trump is viscerally anti-Chinese and anti-Russian, as well as anti-European and anti-everything that is not pro-American; Erdogan is also against everything that is not pro-Turkish, especially against Greeks, Kurds, Iranians, Jews, Christians). They use lies as a political practice of truth. They talk about peace when they make war. They invoke their God when they are blasphemous. They exalt their "nation" and their "people" when they act only for their personal power and "historical mission". But, above all, they have committed crimes against humanity.
According to Article 6c of the Statute of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg (1945) a "crime against humanity" is defined as "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and any other inhumane act inspired by political, philosophical, racial or religious motives....”. The crime against humanity can be committed in times of peace or in times of war. The Statute of the International Criminal Court of 17 July 1998 specifies the meaning to be given to "extermination" by article 7, 2 (b), according to which "extermination includes the intentional imposition of conditions of life, such as deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population".
On July 2, Trump had his government purchase 92% of the available stock of the drug remdesivir, the first drug recognized as useful and effective in the treatment of Covid-19. It facilitates rapid recovery. It is produced by an American company, Gilead, one of the companies active in the development of the Coronavirus vaccine. The argument used was to ensure that US citizens have access to the drug, knowing that by doing so it would prevent other populations from using it, at least not until October when the available doses of the remdesivir will be renewed again. Beyond the technical legal disquisitions on the matter, Trump's act falls into the category of crimes against humanity because it was committed with the deliberate intention of de facto preventing other civilian populations outside the United States from having the right and freedom to use an important drug for the fight against a particularly deadly pandemic (more than 780,000 thousand deaths on August 20, 2020).
As far as Erdogan is concerned, "the strong man of the region” has decided to put an end to the Kurds of Syria by launching in October 2019 the invasion and occupation manu militari (operation baptised "Source for Peace"!!) of the territories of the North-Eastern region of Syria, inhabited mainly by the Kurds. He did so with Trump’s green light. Since then, he has repeatedly authorized the cutting off of water to a population of half a million people already bruised, in a country that has been at war for years, by destruction, massacres, food and water crises. The latest cut-off came at the beginning of this month, at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic is growing considerably. Even UN refugee camps are facing serious problems with securing minimum access to safe drinking water. Isn't it said that regular hand washing is an indispensable tool for preventing the epidemic? Well, this is precisely why Erdogan's Turkey is using water as a weapon to achieve its objective of putting an end to the presence of the Kurds in Syria and thus to the "Republic of Rojava". This Republic, which the Kurds have succeeded in creating and operating since 2012, had become a unique political and socio-economic experiment that was highly innovative for the entire region. It showed that another, fairer and more democratic society, based on federal communalism, cooperativism and the abolition of gender discrimination, could be built. All the more reason for attacking the Kurds and trying to eliminate them by depriving them of water. In the case of Erdogan, the objective is clear: to exterminate, at least politically and socio-economically, the Kurdish populations.
The crimes of Trump and Erdogan are even more unacceptable and cruel because of the great silence of other world leaders. Where is the condemnation of Trump's actions, even if only verbally (!), on the part of the leaders of the European Union? And do they think they can get away with Erdogan's crimes by recalling that they had asked the UN Security Council to stop the invasion or, now, by limiting themselves to emergency humanitarian operations (like "Good Samaritans") by opening relief wells for refugees or by providing the people of Rojava with bottled water bought from Nestlé, Coca-Cola or Danone?
To leave the crimes of Trump and Erdogan without strong and effective reactions is to contribute to the loss of the immunological capacity of the peoples of the Earth to resist and fight the crimes of the powerful. If we also think of what is happening in Brazil, India, Russia... I dream of a universal movement for the liberation of humanity.