May 27, 2025 2:11 pm
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If genocide is used loosely, will it lose its strength?

Dr. A K Abdul Momen

Nowadays the word “genocide” is being used very loosely and at times, in a way that reflects total ignorance of the term “genocide”.

As per the UN Resolution 96 on December 11, 1946 , and subsequently the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide provided a Legal definition and a Treaty came into force in 1951. The genocide is defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crime of Genocide (1948) as
“any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such; killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to the 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”.

If you follow this definition, the actions of the Bangladesh governments at various times, in 1991, or 2005-06, or 2024 to combat demonstrations may not be correctly considered as “genocide” in the international court of law.

The global community has recorded a few major genocides and these are (1) Holocaust of Nazi Germany in 1942-45, (4.9 to 11 m died), (2) Operations Search Light or Bangladesh genocide of 1971 (nearly 3 m died), (3) Ukrainian genocide of 1932-33 (1.8 to 7.5 m died), (4) Cambodian genocide of 1975-79 (1.7 to 3 m died), (5) Armenian genocide of 1915-22 (800k to 1.5 m died), (6) Rwandan genocide in 1994 (500k to 1.0 m died), (7) Greek genocide in 1915-23 (289,000 to 750,000 died) and in addition, in recent years, the Gaza genocide of 2023-24 (42,000 died), Rohingya genocide of 2017 plus unrecorded genocides of the Great Leap Forward in 1958-61 and the Red Indian or Native American elimination of nearly 100m in 14th /15th centuries.

20 years after the genocide in Rwanda, the UN Security Council in April 2014 urged the “member states to develop educational programs to help prevent similar events”. In order to stop war and tension, mass uprooting of people due to genocide or similar acts due to spread of venom of hatred and vengeance by one group against another, Bangladesh provided a vision a hope to the rest of world in its “Culture of Peace” (COP) resolution adopted by all 193 countries and it aims at in calculating a mindset of tolerance and a mindset of respect towards others, irrespective of color, ethnicity, religion, race or opinion to have a sustainable world of peace across nations. It is time for Bangladesh to truly develop that mindset of COP, away from a mindset of hatred, intolerance and vengeance.

Dr. A K Abdul Momen, Human Rights activist

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