A three-day international conference on genocide and mass violence began in Dhaka University (DU) aiming to set exemplary instances in preventing genocide across the globe.
Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor inaugurated the conference as chief guest at DU’s Nabab Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Bhaban on Thursday organized by Centre for Genocide Studies of the university. Speaking on the occasion, Asaduzzaman Noor said the genocide, perpetrated by the coward Pakistani occupation forces in 1971, was so brutal and shocking that the country still carry the trauma and will perhaps carry it in the distant future.
“But, it pains us to see that the world has decided to forget the genocide of 1971, and even it is not listed in many of the annals of modern genocides,” he noted.
Although the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) preamble tells us that genocides are against “international law” and the spirits and aims of United Nations (UN), he said, “the UN have done nothing to bring the genocide perpetrators to book”.
The minister said it is even more painful that a political party of the country, which was in power for quite some years, is trying to erase both the memory and the events of the genocide of 1971 from the history.
In addition the leader of the party has recently raised question about the number of martyrs in our war of liberation and this is what the Pakistanis have been doing all along to absolve themselves from the crime of genocides, he observed.
“But, we must not allow this to happen. No matter how brute the matter of the genocide of 1971 was, we must face it, research on it, record its facts and impacts so that the present and future generations can know the true history of 1971,” said the minister.
Eminent lawyer Dr Kamal Hossain made keynote presentation in the opening ceremony while Dr Imtiaz Ahmed, Professor of International Relations, University of Dhaka, gave welcome speech. DU Treasurer Professor Kamal Uddin chaired the event.
The conference has been designed with four plenary sessions – – Theories, Traumas, Trials and Testimonies.
Representatives from Serbia, Sri Lanka, Australia and India are taking part in the programme while 11 researchers from the host Bangladesh is also joining in the conference.
