By Desmond Fernandes.[i]
Presented at the ‘Holocaust Commemoration and Genocide Awareness’ meeting, the House of Commons, Committee Room 16, Westminster, 4th February 2014. Organised by the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) and hosted by Mr Virendra Sharma, MP.
Desmond Fernandes, in his presentation, highlighted some of the key perspectives of Raphael Lemkin (who coined the neologism genocide), Khatchatur Pilikian, Gregory Stanton and John Docker on genocide. Pilikian, on the occasion of Hrant Dink Day on 19th January 2010, had observed that:
Our turbulent times … will soon teach us new lessons, granted we are willing to learn and act upon it. As the Preamble of the Verdict of the prestigious Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal of April 16th 1984 concludes: ‘Indeed, acknowledging genocide itself is a fundamental means of struggling against genocide. The acknowledgement is itself an affirmation of the right of a people under international law to a safeguarded existence’.