World community urged to examine failure to stop modern-day genocide

Published: 2004-01-28

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Vatican nuncio to the United Nations, called Jan. 27 for the international community to examine why it has failed to prevent the new acts of genocide that have occurred in recent years. Speaking in Sweden to the fourth Stockholm International Forum, he said that genocide remains "a constant menace," and the world is too interconnected to "plead ignorance" of "what is happening on the other side of the global village." The nuncio, whose statement was released by the Vatican's U.N. mission in New York, said the international community had legal instruments that could be used to "nip genocides in the bud." He said, "What we need most now is a greater and more courageous will to implement them." The archbishop said, "Among all forms of large-scale violence, genocide sets itself apart by the evil motivation behind it, namely, its specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation, a race, an ethnic or religious group, a defenseless or vulnerable group of human beings, simply for being such."

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