UN genocide exhibit dismantled after Turkey complains
UNITED NATIONS, New York: The United Nations dismantled an exhibit on the Rwandan genocide and postponed its scheduled opening by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon, after the Turkish mission objected to references to the Armenian genocide in Turkey at the time of World War I.
The panels of graphics, photos and statements had been installed in the visitors lobby Thursday by the Aegis Trust, of Britain.
The trust campaigns for the prevention of genocide and runs a center in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, memorializing the 500,000 victims of the massacres there 13 years ago.
Hours after the show was assembled, however, a Turkish diplomat spotted offending words in a section entitled "What is genocide?" and raised objections.
The passage said that "following World War I, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey," Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer credited with coining the word genocide, "urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes."
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