Topic:
Country: Ethiopia
Delegate Name: Julia Malone
11/20/23
Submitted To: Legal Committee
From: Ethiopia
School: Royal Oak High School
Subject: Definition of Genocide
In 1948, Ethiopia signed and ratified the Genocide Convention, along with 152 other states. This meant that all of these states were obligated to both “prevent and punish” genocide and its enablers. Instead of this happening, the world has seen a massive increase in potentially genocidal events at an unprecedented scope and scale. In this committee, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia seeks to stipulate an exact definition best equipped to define current and future genocides.
In the 1970s, the Republic of Ethiopia dealt with an event entitled “the Red Terror” that
could be deemed genocidal. Following the Ethiopian Revolution, the military took power and created a government-controlled communist system. Several non-government groups, entitled the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) and the All-Ethiopian Socialist Movement (MEISON), began to take shape and advocated for a more educated and worker-driven Ethiopian government. The military referred to these groups as ‘anti-revolutionaries.’ From 1976 to 1978, the government executed anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 of these anti-revolutionaries to keep its regime in power.
The Red Terror is often forgotten when discussing historical genocidal events despite it nearly ultimately qualifying as an act of genocide under the UN’s current Definition of Genocide. Genocide is currently defined as “a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.” While it may seem that the Red Terror qualifies as genocide under this definition, the victims were those allied with enemy political groups and not national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups. The Republic of Ethiopia would like clauses for protecting victims of social and political genocides included in an updated definition. We would also prefer for the committee to focus on the prevention of genocide (as opposed to the punishment of it). Ethiopia is the most significant contributor to all UN peacekeeping efforts, with 8,300 troops currently representing our nation on UN missions. We would be willing to expand our number of soldiers if we had sufficient cause to believe that our efforts would go toward the prevention of genocide. Overall, Ethiopia looks forward to committee and wishes every delegation a successful GLIMUN!
Works Cited
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