Genocide Prevention Day

“Genocide is not just a murderous madness; it is, more deeply, a politics that promises a utopia beyond politics - one people, one land, one truth, the end of difference. Since genocide is a form of political utopia, it remains an enduring temptation in any multiethnic and multicultural society in crisis.”- Michael Ignatieff. Hatred is the dominant sentiment that drives genocide. Many are familiar with the word genocide. Our association with the word genocide perhaps is linked to war movies and documentaries of the Holocaust which occurred during World War 2. Unfortunately, there is also a tempting tendency to politicize the term genocide and in so doing we tend to lose an in depth understanding of the term and the lasting implications of the horrors associated with genocide. The Genocide Convention (article 2) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group … ", including: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The Convention confirms that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or war, is a crime under international law which parties to the Convention undertake “to prevent and to punish” (article 1). The primary responsibility to prevent and stop genocide lies with the State. Genocide Prevention Day, also known as the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, is observed on December 9th each year: The day marks the anniversary of the United Nations' adoption of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The day honours the victims of genocide and emphasizes the importance of remembrance in preventing future genocide. The theme for Genocide Prevention Day in 2024 is to focus on the experiences of Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The day will explore how remembering past genocides is a vital part of preventing future ones. The United Nations declares that commemoration and memorialization initiatives are inextricably linked to the two obligations set forth by the Genocide Convention, namely, the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. By promoting truth-telling and healing, fostering a culture of peace education, social cohesion and respect for diversity, keeping a record of the past and collecting testimonies of victims and survivors, establishing and maintaining archives, and contributing to reducing instances of genocide denial and glorification of war criminals, such efforts significantly contribute to the implementation of these two key obligations. Neologism. Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin introduced the word genocide in 1944. From childhood, Lemkin was fascinated with the history of religious and ethnic persecution. During the 1930s, Lemkin sought to introduce legal safeguards for ethnic, religious, and social groups at international forums, but without success. When the German army invaded Poland, he escaped from Europe, eventually reaching safety in the United States, where he took up a teaching position at Duke University. He moved to Washington, DC, in the summer of 1942, to join the War Department as an analyst and went on to document Nazi atrocities in his 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In this text, he introduced the word “genocide.” He came up with genocide, which he defined as the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group. He said he created the word by combining the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing). In 1948, nearly three years after the concentration camps of World War II had been closed forever, the newly-formed United Nations (UN) used this new word in the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," a treaty that was intended to prevent any future genocides. The results of that treaty and of the creation of that word would have a far-reaching impact on the way that we think about crimes against humanity worldwide, tolerance, justice, and responsibility to others. Reevaluate Global Failure Regrettably, the world has not learned the lessons associated with genocide. At the end of World War 2, the global consensus was never again. Yet, genocide has become a feature of our modern existence. Darfur Genocide in Western Sudan. Since February 2003, government-sponsored militias known as the Janjaweed have conducted a calculated campaign of slaughter, rape, starvation and displacement in Darfur. It is estimated that 400,000 people have died due to violence, starvation and disease. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced from their homes and over 200,000 have fled across the border to Chad. Sadly, many now live in camps lacking adequate food, shelter, sanitation, and health care. The Rwanda Genocide began on April 6, 1994 when groups of ethnic Hutu, armed mostly with machetes, began a campaign of terror and bloodshed which embroiled the Central African country of Rwanda. For about 100 days, the Hutu militias, known in Rwanda as Interhamwe, followed what evidence suggests was a clear and premeditated attempt to exterminate the country’s ethnic Tutsi population. The Rwandan state radio, controlled by Hutu extremists, further encouraged the killings by broadcasting non-stop hate propaganda and even pinpointed the locations of Tutsis in hiding. The killings only ended after armed Tutsi rebels, invading from neighboring countries, managed to defeat the Hutus and halt the genocide in July 1994. By then, over one-tenth of the population, an estimated 800,000 persons, had been killed. The country’s industrial infrastructure had been destroyed and much of its population had been dislocated. Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main ethnic groups – the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims – resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against Bosnian Muslims. In the late 1980’s a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic came to power. In 1992 acts of “ethnic cleansing” started in Bosnia, a mostly Muslim country where the Serb minority made up only 32% of the population. Milosevic responded to Bosnia’s declaration of independence by attacking Sarajevo, where Serb snipers shot down civilians. The Bosnian Muslims were outgunned and the Serbs continued to gain ground. They systematically rounded up local Muslims and committed acts of mass murder, deported men and boys to concentration camps, and forced repopulation of entire towns. Serbs also terrorized Muslim families by using rape as a weapon against women and girls. Over 200,000 Muslim civilians were systematically murdered and 2,000,000 became refugees at the hands of the Serbs. The Cambodian Genocide. From 1975-1979, Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge political party in a reign of violence, fear, and brutality over Cambodia. An attempt to form a Communist peasant farming society resulted in the deaths of 25% of the population from starvation, overwork, and executions. By 1975, the U.S. had withdrawn its troops from Vietnam, and Cambodia lost its American military support. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia. As a result different ethnic groups and all those considered to be of the “old society”, intellectuals, former government officials, and Buddhist monks were murdered. Mao Tse-tung Cultural Revolution: October 1, 1949 marked Mao Tse-tung’s proclamation of the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Communist Party launched numerous movements to systematically destroy the traditional Chinese social and political system. One of Mao’s major goals was the total collectivization of the peasants. In 1958, he launched the “Great Leap Forward” campaign. This act was aimed at accomplishing economic and technical development of the country at a faster pace and with greater results. Instead, the “Great Leap Forward” destroyed the agricultural system, causing a terrible famine in which 27 million people starved to death. The Holocaust. It began with a simple boycott of Jewish shops and ended in the gas chambers of Auschwitz as Hitler and his Nazi followers attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe. The Holocaust took the lives of close to six million Jews during the World War II era. Anti-semitism was the central component of Nazi ideology. While the Nazis also murdered many millions of Poles, Russians, Roma, Sinti, Serbs, Czechs, homosexuals, and political opponents, only the Jews were slated for total annihilation. The “final solution” was partially successful through the process of genocide. The Nazi Party who first targeted the Jews, then isolated them into ghettos, then deported their victims to concentration camps where most perished. Ukrainian Genocide. In 1932-33, Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, imposed the system of land management known as collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmland and livestock. By 1932, much of the wheat crop was dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The law demanded that no grain could be given to feed the peasants until a quota was met. By the spring of 1933, an estimated 25,000 people died every day in Ukraine. Deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished due to the resulting genocide. The Herero Genocide occurred between 1904-1907 in current day Namibia. The Hereros were herdsmen who migrated to the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. After a German presence was established in the region in the 1800s, the Herero territory was annexed (in 1885) as a part of German South West Africa. A series of uprisings against German colonialists, from 1904–1907, led to the extermination of approximately four-fifths of the Herero population. After Herero soldiers attacked German farmers, German troops implemented a policy to eliminate all Hereros from the region, including women and children. The Transatlantic Slave Trade. Unlike most twentieth-century cases of premeditated mass killing, the African slave trade was not undertaken by a single political force or military entity during the course of a few months or years. The transatlantic slave trade lasted for 400 years, from the 1450s to the 1860s. It has been estimated that in the Atlantic slave trade, up to 12 million Africans were loaded and transported across the ocean under dreadful conditions. About 2 million victims died on the Atlantic voyage (the dreaded “Middle Passage”) and in the first year in the Americas. Humanity Under the Microscope. Our view of humanity remains questionable. Oftentimes, the global community has taken a might is right approach and in so doing intolerance and suffering are the outcomes. Without a doubt it is important to identify the factors (discriminatory practices) in a given situation that lead to or account for acute disparities in the treatment of a diverse population, and to seek ways to diminish and eventually eradicate these possible causes of genocidal violence. The International Day is an opportunity to remember and pay tribute to the victims and survivors of genocides across the world. Undoubtedly, the global community must be resolute and coalesce with its international partners in order to raise awareness of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and its role in combating and preventing the crime of genocide, as defined in the Convention, as well as to commemorate and honour its victims. Genocide Prevention Day is a day to remember the victims of genocide and to encourage people to learn from the past and take action to prevent future atrocities. In the words of António Guterres- Secretary-General of the United Nations, tragically, in a world plagued by division, mistrust and violence, the dark spectre of genocide is still with us. In the name of the victims and survivors of genocide, all governments must ratify and fully implement the Convention, holding perpetrators to account. Wayne Campbell is an educator and social commentator with an interest in development policies as they affect culture and or gender issues. waykam@yahoo.com @WayneCamo © #InternationalDayofCommemorationandDignityofVictimsoftheCrimeofGenocide andthePreventionofthisCrime #GenocidePreventionDay