UN marks 65th anniversary of treaty on preventing genocide

As the world marked the 65th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Rwandans said there is need for globally coordinated effort to ensure no other genocide happens anywhere in the world.Top UN officials on Monday joined international experts at the UN Headquarters in New York to mark the international Day against genocide with commitment to a “never again” slogan.“The Genocide Convention has at its heart the commitment to protect vulnerable populations from mass violence. We have made significant advances since it was adopted but we have also registered some failures. We must be vigilant, courageous and persistent. We live in a troubled world, but it is within our power to make a difference. We must not be passive onlookers. We must always stand up for human rights, rule of law and dignity for all,” said UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, while addressing the UN event.Although the UN convention was in place in 1994, Rwanda experienced the worst genocide of the 20th century that claimed over a million lives in just 100 days.Senator Jean Damascene Bizimana, an expert in international law, says for the world to avoid another genocide, key measures should be considered, including respect for human rights and democracy.“All genocides that have occurred in history have been planned by governments. It is, therefore, the role of governments to ensure safety of citizens by observing fundamental human rights,” he told The New Times.Bizimana castigated the UN for not doing enough to prevent genocides, saying the Security Council serves the interest of the superpowers and cares less about the rest of the world.“The Security Council, for example, blacklisted the FDLR militia (Congo-based Rwandan terrorist group) because it comprises elements responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, but these UN resolutions only ended on paper because they were not serving the interests of the superpowers,” said Bizimana.He added that member countries have an obligation to implement UN resolutions.“Some countries’ deliberate ignorance of the UN resolutions on human rights and safety of citizens has been the reason behind several genocides,” Bizimana said. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the UN member states in 1948 as a reaction to the crimes committed by Nazis against Jews and other minority groups during the World War II. It defines genocide as any act committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.So far, 140 countries that are signatory to the UN are part of the convention, which declares genocide a crime under international law.Committing genocide, conspiring to commit, or inciting others to commit genocide constitute an international crime.The Executive Secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), Jean De Dieu Mucyo said countries’ deliberate abuse of human rights is one of the breeding grounds for genocide.“For the world to guard against genocide, there is need for nations to ensure that their citizens enjoy their fundamental human rights. In Rwanda, we have embarked on a campaign against genocide, mainly in universities to ensure that future scholars can document what happened here as a way of educating the world on genocide,” Mucyo said.He added that plans are underway to extend Genocide studies to primary and secondary schools in Rwanda.At the UN, Deputy Secretary-General Eliasson said genocide does not happen overnight, as there are many warning signs, usually over a period of years.Very often, he said, these are violations of human rights against one particular group or entity within a population.“That means genocide is enabled when we remain silent or are unwilling to act,” Mucyo said.The UN Secretary-General special advisor on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, noted that while the international community has a duty of prevent ing genocide, it has quite often failed in this duty, with devastating consequences.“We have to move beyond early warning to early action. We have to strengthen the capacity of our institutions to respond in a timely and effective way to potential conflicts and to the threat of massive human rights abuses,” he said. Dieng noted that whenever civilians are deliberately targeted because they belong to a particular community or ethnic group, it is evident that the international community is confronting potential or indeed actual genocide.