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The University of Waterloo Genocide Action Group |
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UWGAG is a club where people who care about this issue can come together to discuss ideas and participate in film showings, guest speakers, fundraisers and lobbying efforts as well as stay up-to-date on the latest genocide news through our mailing list. We also cooperate with other student and community groups, both on-campus and across Canada. We are constantly attracting new members and groups and welcome absolutely anyone, so if you are interested in joining please email us for more information.
Our email address is uwgag@hotmail.com
To educate members of the student and general community about genocide all over the world, with the goal of stopping it in the present and preventing it in the future.
The word genocide was created by the Polish scholar Rafael Lemkin from the Greek root genos (race, tribe) and the Latin verb cide (to kill) during the Second World War to describe any effort to exterminate an ethnic, racial, national, or religious group. Literally, it means “race murder.” Lemkin was inspired in his work by the Armenian Genocide (though the word had not yet been invented) and began a crusade in 1933 to have international laws enacted against what he then termed “barbarity.” When Nazi Germany’s effort to exterminate the Jews (and other “inferior” ethnic groups) of Europe began to come to light, Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain, stated in 1941 that “We are in the presence of a crime without a name.” Within a couple of years, Lemkin had coined and published his soon-to-be-famous term and given that crime a name. He found a new receptivity for his law in the post-war world which was temporarily filled with an enthusiasm for ideas of justice and human rights.
On 9 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 260 (III) A - the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” The relevant articles of the Convention define genocide and punishable acts as follows:
Article 2
In the present Convention, 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;
(f) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
As can be seen, the key factor in genocide is intent. Even if only a few members of a target group are killed the perpetrator is guilty of genocide if he is intending to destroy the group. If on the other hand, large numbers of a group’s members are killed but the intention is not the destruction of the group as such, then genocide has not taken place, but rather mass homicide.
There is some debate on how appropriate that the Convention’s definition is, primarily because some people feel that other groups such as political, economic and gender groups should be included. However, this is the only definition enshrined in international law and therefore is the one with which those who oppose genocide must work in order to maintain consistency and credibility. For this reason, UWGAG adheres to the definition in the 1948 Convention.