Topic:
Country: Ghana
Delegate Name: Thomas Meyer
Committee: LEGAL
Topic: Definition of Genocide
Delegate: Thomas Meyer
School: Williamston High School
After the atrocities of World War II the United Nations was created. One of they’re main issues that they were concerned with was Genocide, and more specifically how to define and prevent it. Back then, there was no way to describe what genocide was. In a Radio Broadcast made by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II, he talked about the extermination Jewish communities faced at the hands of German police, and the lack of definition for such a heinous crime. After hearing of the similar destruction the Armenians faced as a result of the Ottomans during World War I, Jewish Lawyer Raphael Lemkin sought to create a term to describe similar atrocities. He came up with the word Genocide,consists of the ancient Greek root word Genos, which means tribe or family, and -cide, which means killing. The United Nations accepted the term in 1948 at the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. During this convention, along with many countries vowing for Genocide to never happen again, the UN delegates defined genocide as “a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.”
There is no substantial evidence of Ghana ever being involved with Genocide. Ghana has repeatedly spoken out against Genocide. For example, the Ghanaian Minister of Foreign Affairs said that Ghana fully supports the responsibility of nations to prevent atrocities such as Genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and, ethnic cleansing. Ghana also sent unarmed soldiers during the Rwandan Genocide, who under the command of Colonel Clayton Yaache helped to save the lives of over 30,000 refugees.
Ghana strongly supports the idea of stopping modern genocides. In Ghana, we believe that if one person or group in the government gets too much power, Genocides are more likely to happen. Ghana also believes all countries must detect and stop genocides in their neighboring countries.
