ShareUN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon's call to fully respect the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) on the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime is a highly significant perspective to boost awareness and eliminate some of the bad images about inhumane practices in some parts of the world.
Despite the presence of a convention to prevent and incriminate genocide since 1948, this did not prevent some devastating violations of the principles of prohibiting killing mankind or a certain race over delusions about the supremacy of a race or a religion over another.
Ban's emphasis that genocide means more warnings and preparation to take immediate measures to solve the problem and show respect to human rights all the time everywhere for protecting victims and their families' rights, especially since those violations were not incidental forms of conflicts (as he put it) and are, most of the time, systematically planned for defined purposes that can happen without any conflicts, means that solutions should be systematic, especially as poverty, famine and ignorance have spread as planned by certain regimes in certain spots to keep certain groups under constant pressure.
We must overcome shortsighted concepts based on fanaticism and hate for others worldwide according to their identity, religion, race or others to consequently create fake excuses to commit some dreadful and vicious actions that violate the simplest rights of life and enhance humiliation of the human race, be that in times of war or peace. There is more of 'we and them' or 'north and south,' which is totally against all international justice and etiquette rules.
The secretary general's emphasis on preventing genocide reflects commitment to international laws, and governments have to keep such commitments by investing in prevention, taking effective steps that call for the international community's respect to principles called for by various religions, and accordingly prevent barbaric behaviors built on ideas that are supposed to have become instinct because we belong to the human race that had been created to build and construct rather than destroy earth.
By Labeed Abdal
