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NO GENOCIDE |
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QUESTION 5:
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TERM "GENOCIDE"?
This term refers to a well defined crime,
the definition of which has been given in
an international convention made
after the Second World War: the U.N.
Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide", approved by the General Assembly
of the United
Nations in its resolution of December 9,
1948 and which went into effect
on January 11, 1951, a convention
which Turkey signed and ratified.
In the convention the definition of
the crime of genocide consists of three
elements: for one thing, there has to be a
national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
Then, this group has to be subjected
to certain acts listed in the convention.
The
"murder of the members of the group, and
forced transfer of the children of one group
into another group
and subjecting the members of a group to
conditions which will eventually bring about
their physical
destruction" come within the range of
actions listed in the said convention. But
the third element
is the most important: there has to be "an
intent of destroying", in part or in whole
the said group.
This key-description helps to
differentiate between genocide and other
forms of homicide,
which are the consequences of other motives
such as in the case of wars,
uprisings etc. Homicide becomes
genocide when the latent or apparent
intention of
physical destruction
is directed at members of any one of
the national, ethnic, racial or
religious groups simply because they
happen to be members of that group. The
concept of numbers
only becomes significant when it can be
taken as a sign of such an intention
against the group. That is why, as
Sartre said in speaking of genocide on the
occasion of
the Russell Tribunal on the Vietnam War,
that one must study the facts objectively in
order to prove if this intention
exists, even in an implicit manner.
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