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Channel 4 News, UK
Jan 27 2015
Genocide: a term we use too often or not enough
Young, old, school uniforms and zimmer frames - they came. Muslms in
veils and hijabs. Christians too, people no doubt of no faith and of
course Jews. Jews like Solly Irving who survived a number of Nazi
forced-labour camps like Buchenwald. Here today, he said, because it
matters so much to tell young people about it.
"I live in Plymouth now and you know? I have spoken to over 25,000
school children there down the years. For 30 years I said nothing. But
now, if these children meet someone who denies the Holocaust they can
say, 'No - Solly Irving came to see us. He stood before us. He told
us'."
Aptly enough school children were a major part of the audience today
along with Solly, Prince Charles and the prime minister at
Westminster's Central Methodist Hall. Here David Cameron announced a
£50m education programme for Holocaust education in the UK.
And not just the Final Solution. Today's organisers, the The
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), emphasise that it is about
recognising the series of genocides said to have happened since the
Nazis.
Any use of the term is highly controversial but, by one legal
definition, it includes Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and they
are remembered in today's commemoration ceremony.
In 1946 the UN resolved that genocide be a crime under international
law, its convention defining it as any of the following acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical,
racial or religious group by:
a. Killing members of the group
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
So why Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur? Or why not Armenia or the
US or Australian ravages of their indigenous people? Or England and
the Irish Famine? Indeed some would want Palestine cited after Israeli
actions in Gaza - the definition is nothing if not controversial.
Well, the HMDT goes with international criminal tribunal rulings
since 1946, where suspects have been indicted for war crimes up to and
including genocide.
Genocide cases are currently before the Extraordinary Chambers of the
Court of Cambodia. Dozens of perpetrators have been found guilty of
genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
In 2004 the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia ruled that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre
constituted genocide.
In 2010 Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was indicted with three
counts of genocide by the International Criminal Court, for his role
in ordering the genocide in Darfur.
The UK government recognises the term genocide as applicable to the
Holocaust, the 1994 killings in Rwanda (as found by the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) and the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, and
is monitoring the outcome of the tribunals relating to Cambodia and
Darfur.
But this is of course just one position. Notably absent is the widely
cited Armenian genocide carried out by Turkey during and after world
war one in which up to 1.5 million Armenians were systematically
slaughtered. To this day, Turkey refuses even to recognise that it was
genocide.
Equally to deny it is a criminal offence in at least three European
countries - Switzerland, Slovenia and Greece. One example - one
starting point for a much wider debate on whether genocide is an
over-used term, or not nearly widely used enough.
http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/genocide-holocaust-8845/8845
Jan 27 2015
Genocide: a term we use too often or not enough
Young, old, school uniforms and zimmer frames - they came. Muslms in
veils and hijabs. Christians too, people no doubt of no faith and of
course Jews. Jews like Solly Irving who survived a number of Nazi
forced-labour camps like Buchenwald. Here today, he said, because it
matters so much to tell young people about it.
"I live in Plymouth now and you know? I have spoken to over 25,000
school children there down the years. For 30 years I said nothing. But
now, if these children meet someone who denies the Holocaust they can
say, 'No - Solly Irving came to see us. He stood before us. He told
us'."
Aptly enough school children were a major part of the audience today
along with Solly, Prince Charles and the prime minister at
Westminster's Central Methodist Hall. Here David Cameron announced a
£50m education programme for Holocaust education in the UK.
And not just the Final Solution. Today's organisers, the The
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), emphasise that it is about
recognising the series of genocides said to have happened since the
Nazis.
Any use of the term is highly controversial but, by one legal
definition, it includes Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and they
are remembered in today's commemoration ceremony.
In 1946 the UN resolved that genocide be a crime under international
law, its convention defining it as any of the following acts committed
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical,
racial or religious group by:
a. Killing members of the group
b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
So why Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur? Or why not Armenia or the
US or Australian ravages of their indigenous people? Or England and
the Irish Famine? Indeed some would want Palestine cited after Israeli
actions in Gaza - the definition is nothing if not controversial.
Well, the HMDT goes with international criminal tribunal rulings
since 1946, where suspects have been indicted for war crimes up to and
including genocide.
Genocide cases are currently before the Extraordinary Chambers of the
Court of Cambodia. Dozens of perpetrators have been found guilty of
genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
In 2004 the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for
the former Yugoslavia ruled that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre
constituted genocide.
In 2010 Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was indicted with three
counts of genocide by the International Criminal Court, for his role
in ordering the genocide in Darfur.
The UK government recognises the term genocide as applicable to the
Holocaust, the 1994 killings in Rwanda (as found by the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) and the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, and
is monitoring the outcome of the tribunals relating to Cambodia and
Darfur.
But this is of course just one position. Notably absent is the widely
cited Armenian genocide carried out by Turkey during and after world
war one in which up to 1.5 million Armenians were systematically
slaughtered. To this day, Turkey refuses even to recognise that it was
genocide.
Equally to deny it is a criminal offence in at least three European
countries - Switzerland, Slovenia and Greece. One example - one
starting point for a much wider debate on whether genocide is an
over-used term, or not nearly widely used enough.
http://blogs.channel4.com/alex-thomsons-view/genocide-holocaust-8845/8845