Despite factual evidence of these genocides and mass killings in the Sudan, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierre Leone and in other places, no Contracting Party to the Genocide Convention has called for any action under article VIII of the Convention. The need for speedy preventive measures has been repeatedly underlined by United Nations officials. And yet they have. In Cambodia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda. His words were repeated on 10 December 1998 by Mr. Vladimir Petrovsky, Director-General of the United Nations Office in Geneva at the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Genocide is the most flagrant abuse of human rights imaginable.
Genocide was vivid in the minds of those who framed the Universal Declaration, working as they did in the aftermath of the Second World War. The slogan then was 'never again'. Yet in the decades since the Holocaust, we have not been able to prevent or halt even the most brutal forms of violence against whole groups of people. Neutrality' in the face of genocide is unacceptable and must never be used to cripple or delay our collective response to genocide. The international community must respond quickly to confront genocidal actions.