After the II World War the
trial for war crimes was held in Nuremberg and Tokyo and the persons
responsible for the commission of war crimes were punished, based on the
principle of “ direct responsibility of
individuals under international law”. The U.N. General Assembly (GA) also
approved the trial and the punishment awarded by those tribunals, by Resolution
95(I) on 11th December 1946.
By
another Resolution 96(I), on the same day, the GA declared that “ Genocide” was a crime under international
law, for which, the perpetrators, whether they were statesmen, public officials
or private individuals were punishable. Subsequently due the efforts taken by
the UN, The “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide”, known as “GENOCIDE CONVENTION” was adopted by the GA in 1948 and
that came into force in 1951.
According to the Convention, any act of
Genocide, whether committed during the time of war or in time of peace, is a
“CRIME” under International Law. The
Convention defines “Genocide” as ”
acts committed with intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, by 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 , imposing measures intended
to prevent births within the group, or
forcibly transferring the children of
the group to another group.” Persons charged with genocide may be
tried by a competent tribunal of the state within which the crime was committed
or by any international penal tribunal, whose jurisdiction had been recognised
by the states concerned. Thus, after 1948, genocide is considered as a CRIME
committed by individuals and that is punishable under international law.
As seen from the above
definition of genocide, any act creating circumstances that compels any woman of one group to marry a male from another group amounts to “ genocide”. Such act would fall
within the concept of creating serious bodily harm and also amounts creating
conditions calculated to bring about the extinction of that group or imposing
measures preventing births within that
group.
One must see the recent
letter written two days ago by the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the
Chairman of TESO, Kalaignar Karunanidhi , to the Prime minister of India that
Tamil Women in Srilanka are being forced
to marry the Singalese Army men. Any such compulsion is nothing but an act of
genocide, a crime under international law and the perpetrators of such act are
punishable by competent tribunals including any international tribunal. The
matter can also be taken to UNO. All concerned, including Govt. of India, must
take effective steps and prevent the continued acts of Genocide against Tamils
living in Srilanka.
Chennai Justice
A.K Rajan
21.12.2012. [ E-mail
justiceakrajan@yahoo.com]
No comments:
Post a Comment