McGill recently hosted an international who's who of UN officials, dignitaries, NGO representatives and students from every corner of the globe who met to discuss the most compelling of topics: the prevention of genocide. I was fortunate to be among the hundreds of delegates at the Echenberg Family Conference on Human Rights. The abundance of goodwill that filled the conference halls was palpable. Delegates struggled to understand how such sentiment could be transformed into "political will to act" and not only stop current genocides, but also prevent future ones before they ever begin.
While discussion of the tragedy still unfolding in Darfur justly dominated the discourse, those who attended the session on "Early Warning: Triggering the UN into Action" could not help but reflect on the similarities between early warning signs of past genocides and what is currently transpiring in Iran.
In 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map, as the Imam says." He has warned that any Muslim who supports Israel will "burn in the ummah of Islam." He has presided over a rally in which a Shehab-3 missile was paraded through the streets of Tehran emblazoned with a slogan calling for the Jewish state to be annihilated, and encouraged the crowd as it chanted "Death to Israel." Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad again presided over a large crowd chanting "Death to Israel" and burning Israeli flags. He told them that the continued existence of Israel is "an insult to human dignity" and proposed that Jews vacate
the country.
Ahmadinejad denies the Nazi Holocaust, as he incites to, and prepares for, a new one. Instead of being indicted for violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, he was invited last month to share his views at the UN-the same organization entrusted to defend international peace and security.
This is analogous in its absurdity to the case of Ahmed Haroun, the Sudanese minister who is one of two members of the Sudanese government indicted by the International Criminal Court for their roles in the ongoing crimes against humanity in Darfur. ICC prosecutor Louis Moreno Ocampo told the conference that his investigations lead him to the conclusion that without Haroun, the Sudanese killing system would "break." Further, unless Haroun is arrested, the world will fail to protect the two million refugees who have been displaced from their villages and are desperately waiting for international intervention.
2008 Woodie Awards
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