Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Liz Wade and.
Speaker 2: I'm Luke Hailey. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
Speaker 2: It is easier for people to understand no matter where
Speaker 2: in the world they live.
Speaker 1: You may have heard a Spotlight program on Raphael Lemkin.
Speaker 1: He lived during World War Two. At this time, the
Speaker 1: Nazis killed millions of Jewish people in Europe. This included
Speaker 1: many of Lemkin's family and friends. Lemkin named this mass
Speaker 1: killing genocide. He used this word to mean killing a
Speaker 1: group of people because of their race, nationality, or religion.
Speaker 1: Lemkin spent his life working with governments and the United Nations.
Speaker 1: He wanted to make genocide illegal under international law. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, the United Nations recognized genocide as a
Speaker 1: crime in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
Speaker 1: Many countries signed this agreement to prevent and punish genocide.
Speaker 2: Lemkin wanted the UN to recognize genocide as a crime.
Speaker 2: He hoped this would prevent genocide from ever happening again.
Speaker 2: But naming genocide did not stop the crime. Some people
Speaker 2: claim that the UN Genocide Convention does not work. They
Speaker 2: say that naming the crime of genocide does not stop
Speaker 2: people from doing it. Today's spotlight is on the difficulties
Speaker 2: around preventing genocide.
Speaker 1: The UN Genocide Convention presents a detailed definition of genocide.
Speaker 1: It says that genocidal acts have the intent or purpose
Speaker 1: to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. This
Speaker 1: intent can be to destroy in whole or in part.
Speaker 1: These acts can be punished under international law. Michio Ozaki
Speaker 1: Andrina dam share the acts that the Convention considers genocidal.
Speaker 3: Killing members of the.
Speaker 4: Group, causing serious harm to the bodies or minds of
Speaker 4: members of the.
Speaker 3: Group, causing bad conditions that attempt to destroy the group
Speaker 3: in whole or in.
Speaker 4: Part, attempting to prevent births within.
Speaker 3: The group, moving children of the group to another group
Speaker 3: by force.
Speaker 2: Not everyone agrees with this definition. Some say that it
Speaker 2: is too wide and difficult to prove. How can you
Speaker 2: tell if someone has the intent to destroy a whole group?
Speaker 2: Genocidal acts often happen during times of war. In a war,
Speaker 2: ethnic and religious groups often act against each other. It
Speaker 2: can be difficult to prove the intent to destroy a
Speaker 2: whole group of people. Also, people ask what does in
Speaker 2: part mean? What if an army general killed ten members
Speaker 2: of a particular ETAs Ethnick group during a war, could
Speaker 2: he be charged with genocide.
Speaker 1: People claim that too many situations could be called genocide,
Speaker 1: then the word loses its powerful meaning. Elaine Mistakes is
Speaker 1: the former head of the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book on genocide in the twentieth century.
Speaker 5: He said, genocide is a crime on a different level
Speaker 5: than all other crimes against humanity. It involves the intent
Speaker 5: to completely destroy the chosen group. Genocide is both the
Speaker 5: most serious and the greatest of the crimes against humanity.
Speaker 2: People like DESTEXI want to keep genocide as an extreme,
Speaker 2: unusual crime. They want to make sure that an extreme
Speaker 2: crime can receive just punishment. They claim that too many
Speaker 2: people can use the word genocide for many different crimes
Speaker 2: in war, then they say no one acts against it.
Speaker 1: Not everyone agrees with this way of thinking. Gregory Stanton
Speaker 1: is the president of the international organization Genocide Watch. Stanton
Speaker 1: believes that using the word genocide more often will not
Speaker 1: make people punish it less seriously.
Speaker 6: He writes, I am a former policy maker. I can
Speaker 6: say that policy makers do not act because of a
Speaker 6: special word. Even if a special word is named if
Speaker 6: they do not want to act for other reasons, they
Speaker 6: will not.
Speaker 2: Other people say that naming genocide has no purpose because
Speaker 2: genocide still happens. The country of Rwanda is a tragic
Speaker 2: example of this. For many years, there had been political
Speaker 2: disputes in Rwanda between the who to U and the
Speaker 2: Tutsi tribes. In April of nineteen ninety four, members of
Speaker 2: the Hutu tribes began killing Tutsis. In one hundred days,
Speaker 2: more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans died. No country acted
Speaker 2: to stop this mass killing. The countries that signed the
Speaker 2: Genocide Convention did not do anything. Although the convention states
Speaker 2: that nations must punish genocide, it does not say they
Speaker 2: must prevent genocide.
Speaker 1: Punishing genocide does happen. In nineteen ninety five, one year
Speaker 1: after the genocide in Rwanda, another genocide happened in Srebrenitza
Speaker 1: during the Bosnian War. During this war, three different ethnic
Speaker 1: groups were in conflict with each other, the Serbs, Bosnians
Speaker 1: and Croats. They were fighting over territory, but in July
Speaker 1: the Serbs captured the town of Srebrinitza. They forced twenty
Speaker 1: five to thirty thousand Bosnian women, children, and older people
Speaker 1: to leave. During this time, the Serbian military killed more
Speaker 1: than eight thousand Bosnian men and boys. International courts have
Speaker 1: ruled this event as genocide. These courts have charged more
Speaker 1: than thirty people on genocide charges in Sra Bernita. International
Speaker 1: courts have also made charges against individuals involved in the
Speaker 1: Rwandan genocide. They have tried and punished almost thirty people.
Speaker 2: But is this enough? Is this what the UN Genocide
Speaker 2: Convention is for punishing people after horrifying events happen. The
Speaker 2: Genocide Convention was a chance for the world to name
Speaker 2: a horrible crime. It was a chance to declare that
Speaker 2: the global community will stand against it and punish it.
Speaker 2: But these moral positions also gave the world the responsibility
Speaker 2: to prevent genocide.
Speaker 1: The United Nations recognizes that the international community does not
Speaker 1: always do this, so in two thousand and four, the
Speaker 1: UN created two special advisor jobs. One is for the
Speaker 1: prevention of genocide, the other is on the responsibility to
Speaker 1: protect against genocide. These advisors work together. They investigate, spread information,
Speaker 1: and call governments and organizations to act.
Speaker 2: Adama Ding is the UN's Special Advisor on the Prevention
Speaker 2: of Genocide In December of twenty fourteen, on the sixty
Speaker 2: sixth d anniversary of the UN Genocide Convention, Din gave
Speaker 2: a speech in New York. He expressed the same aims
Speaker 2: as Raphael Limkin and all people who dream of completely
Speaker 2: ending the crime of genocide. He said, we remember the
Speaker 2: millions of men and women who have lost their lives
Speaker 2: to genocide. We owe to them, and to ourselves and
Speaker 2: to future generations to create a world free of genocide.
Speaker 2: We are still far from that, but we aim to
Speaker 2: make it happen. We need to think about the importance
Speaker 2: of the Genocide Convention. We need political leadership from member states.
Speaker 2: We need courage to take steps that are not always easy.
Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Jen Hawkins. The producer
Speaker 1: was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted
Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this program again and read it on the internet
Speaker 1: at www dot Radio English dot net. This program is
Speaker 1: called Preventing Genocide.
Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Goodbye.
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