Genocide: What does it really mean

During World War II, when the horrible scope of the Nazi extermination of the Jews became known to the world, Winston Churchill, the then Prime Minister of Great Britain recognized it as "a crime that has no name" experiencing the terrible affects of such massacre. Later, this crime termed as genocide which derives its origin from Greek word genos which means "race" or "tribe" and a Latin word cide, which means "killer" or "act of killing".
From its origin of word, we can easily understand that genocide means the killing of a group of people. In broader sense, genocide includes within its ambit some other heinous crime.
In his book in 1943, "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe”, Raphael Lemkin first used the word "genocide" to describe the extermination of large groups of people.
The Nuremberg Trials (1945) at the condemnation of the Nazi leaders defines genocide as: "The extermination of racial and national groups - against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people, and national, racial or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others.''
According to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96 (1946) ''Genocide is a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings; such denial of the right of existence shocks the conscience of mankind, and is contrary to moral law and to the spirit and aims of the United Nations."
The resolution also declares that "genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns, and for the commission of which principals and accomplices are punishable."
In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to create the "UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" which recognizes that "at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity" and that international cooperation was needed "to liberate mankind from this odious scourge,"
Article 2 of the Convention States that: ''Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 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; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.''
Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2002) provides that 'genocide' means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such (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.''
According to Article 6 of the Statute of International Criminal Court (ICC) genocide involves, "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(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."
The International Crimes Tribunal Act, 2009 of Bangladesh also adopts the definition of Genocide provided by the Statute of International Criminal Court.
So, if we analyze the definitions of genocide as provided by different international instruments, it becomes clear that some conditions must be satisfied to treat a crime as genocide, for example, a killing or seriously injuring the members of a group of people with the intention of destroying the group. The reason of genocide may be either for racial or religion or for any other reason.
In 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established to prohibit genocide and crimes against humanity. Before the ICC was established, particular courts were established to try particular offences of a particular area. For example, The International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg (1945-1946) was the very first forum to try prosecuted Nazi German leaders for attacks on civilians under the rubric of crimes against humanity.
Further, The United Nations created the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993 in The Hague to deal with crimes in the Balkans and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1994 to punish the offenders responsible for the Rwanda genocide. On July 17, 1998, The International Criminal Court (ICC) was permanently established through treaty. The ICC is expected to supersede regional war crimes tribunals and assume the role of a permanent court. But, ICC has the jurisdiction to try an offence only when the state within which territory the offence has been committed gives its assent to such jurisdiction. Thus, separate statement on jurisdiction from a state is essential though it has ratified the Statute of International Criminal Court.
Now the 21st Century is also experiencing some serious types of genocides. But neither the leaders of the world nor the United Nations want to notice them or intentionally avoid them. There is a conflict of opinion whether the gory movement by a Sudanese Arab-dominated government against defiant African tribes in western Sudan during six-year war in Darfur meets the legal definition of genocide. The world leaders have been continuing their silences about the mass killing in Palestine by the Israel Government from the very beginning. Again, the Governments of Libya, Egypt and Syria are committing assassination in their respective countries but the so-called superpowers of the world as well as the United Nations are maintaining the principle of non-interference. But if we analyze the definition of Genocide provided by the International Criminal Court as well as that was given by several Courts, it is found that all of the mass-killing fall under the definition of Genocide. We can only hope that, the silence will be broken and the persons who are behind these genocides should be punished to ensure the peace of the world.

Farjana Yesmin
Lecturer,
BGC Trust University Bangladesh.