A formal U.S. follow-up accusing Russia of genocide, a campaign aimed at wiping out a targeted group, could carry obligations on the world to consider action. That's because of a genocide treaty approved by the U.N. General Assembly in the years immediately after World War II, signed by the United States and more than 150 other nations.
WASHINGTON -- When President Joe Biden declares Russia's Ukraine war "genocide," it isn't just another strong word.
Lemkin paired "geno," a Greek word meaning race, and "cide," a Latin word meaning kill. Lemkin dedicated his life to having genocide recognized and criminalized. Putin long has denied any standing for Ukraine to exist as a separate nation, or Ukrainians as a separate people, independent of Russia and Russians. He cites history, when Ukraine was part of the Russian empire, and later of the Soviet Union.
President Bill Clinton and other U.S. leaders for decades dodged or danced around using the word "genocide" to avoid increasing the pressure on them to act, as mass killings targeted classes of people or ethnic groups in Cambodia, Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda and elsewhere.
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