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Genocide
in the Twentieth Century
・Cases and Key Issues Compared
・Criteria, Common Elements, and
Patterns
・Approaches for Remedies
By Christian P. Scherrer
Professor at HPI-HCU
Documenting genocide in the
modern age is one of the most delicate and sensitive matters. Those who work on
projects such as documenting modern genocides are aware of the fact that they
are dealing with one of the most important and contentious themes of our times.
Unfortunately, genocide is not something of the past. Today gross human rights
violations, atrocities, and several cases of outright genocide cause havoc in
many regions of the world and result (e.g. Central Africa and Southeast Asia) in whole populations being petrified in fear and
traumatization. Violence kills not only humans but also life chances for those
who survive.
The worst kind of destructive
interactions between different ethnic or national groups (one of them in
control of state machinery) is genocide and mass murder. Genocide is the most
barbaric crime and has long-term effects.
Definition of genocide in the Convention as a starting point
Scholars do not have to define
genocide. This worst possible crime is defined and codified in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948, which entered into force on 12
January 1951. The
definition in Article 2 reads as follows:
..."genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily
or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on
the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction
in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within
the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
In Article 1 the convention declares that "The Contracting Parties
confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of
war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent
and to punish." In Article 3 the punishable acts are listed: "The
following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit
genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt
to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide.
The Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court in its Articles 5, 6 and 7 further defines genocide
and crimes against humanity.
Cold-blooded state-organized mass murder: minor frequency but huge magnitude
Cold-blooded state-organized
mass murder is not an exceptional crime. According to the ECOR conflict index
1985-2004, genocides and mass murders of defenceless victims account for two
percent of all conflicts. Despite the low number, this is an alarming sign and
a matter of most serious concern. The number of victims of genocide and mass
violence is much higher than the statistics suggests; the small number of
genocidal mass violence belies a higher mortality than that of all other
conflicts combined.
An example to illustrate the
magnitude of the crime in cases of genocide-in-whole (a term used in the
Anti-Genocide Convention): the state-organised genocide in Rwanda 1994 alone
took one million lives in a period of 99 days; this incredible number of
victims is more than three times the number of victims produced by all violent
conflicts in the former Soviet Union and in former Yugoslavia 1989-2000 combined.
Earlier, Rummel argued that the death toll of what he called democide
was several times higher than that of wars in the 20th century up to the time
of his writing.
Genocide is the most severe
type of violent conflict and must be clearly distinguished from warfare; its
victims are civilians, including old people, children, and even babies.
Contemporary mass violence is intrinsically linked with the
ethnicization-from-above and the ongoing wave of ethnic
nationalism-from-below. Unlike most new types of warfare, such as gang wars,
wars caused by warlordism, organized crime and international terrorism,
communal strife and most interethnic conflicts, genocide is always a
state-organized crime.
Genocide has a long and dreadful history
One of the most important
observations for the period of 1500 to 1910 is that genocide and colonization
were closely linked. The largest ever genocide in modern history was committed
by half a dozen European states in what was later called the Third World. Large-scale genocides were committed against
American Indians, Africans and Afro-Americans, the Australian Aborigines and a
large number of subjugated peoples in European colonies. According to Darcy
Ribero, Indians of the Americas were reduced by the Spaniards in the South and
European settlers in the North from 80 million in 1492 to 3.5 million in 1750.
Genocide against Indians has continued until today, e.g. in Paraguay, Guatemala, and Brazil. Since 1500 Africa has lost one hundred million people to European
slavery. Most enslaved Africans died under genocidal conditions during mass
transport from Africa to the Americas. Genocide against Africans was continued by the
infamous lynching campaigns in Southern USA. It is important to understand that genocide was an
inherent part of the general practice employed by virtually all European powers
throughout the colonial period, with Belgium, Germany and Britain ranking after Spain. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the
largest genocide went on for decades in the Congo Free State; heinous techniques used by the Germans against the
Herero and Nama in Southwest
Africa and against the
peoples of South
Tanganyika
became part of the sad chronicle of the modern genocides.
Paradigmatic change and domestic
genocide-in-whole in the 20th century
From 1910 onwards genocide
underwent a paradigmatic change from foreign colonial genocide to
state-organized domestic genocide. The type of total domestic genocide involved
aggression of the state, in the hands of a dominant ethnic or political group, against
one or more minorities on the territory of the state. The worst cases were the
genocides-in-whole (the Aghet, Khmer Rouge genocide 1975-1979, and Hutu power
genocide in Rwanda 1994).
The Holocaust, another of the
20th century's four 'Genocides-in-whole' (according to the UN Convention),
is often seen as the prototype or model genocide in modern times. This
view is deeply erroneous, as explained briefly hereafter.
When Nazi rule started in 1933 it was immediately accompanied by domestic
political mass murder. Before the start of the aggression wars the Nazis
committed mass murder of their archenemies, the German communists, trade
unionists and socialists and a few others from among the political opposition.
They also began the 'euthanasia' programme: the first people to be gazed
and cremated were domestic disabled people.
As mentioned, the domestic
opposition, the communists and trade unionists, were the first to be assaulted
and killed, more than six years before the Nazis started mass executions of
Jews, Romas and others in the East (in 1939) and long before the death camps
were operating (from 1942). This has been well-hidden in West Germany (as opposed to the former German Democratic
Republic or East Germany). In Germany and beyond it is almost unknown by most of the post-war generation and
rarely publicly admitted that the communists were the strongest resistors
against the Nazis and hence their first victims. Communists were the very
first inmates of the jails and later of the so-called 'concentration camps'.
It is also quite unknown that the first victims to be gazed in Auschwitz and in other death camps were hundred thousands of Soviet POWs; millions
more were starved or worked to death. The highest numbers of Nazi victims-more
than thirty million-were from among Slavic nations and peoples all over
Eastern
Europe, with Russians,
Poles and Serbs being the most severely and foremost targeted groups.
Though some domestic genocides
had considerable or even vast spill-over effects on neighbouring states or
entire regions, in terms of large refugee flights, infiltration of genocidal
elements and disruption of security, as the worst contemporary example, the
dire situation in the Central African Great Lakes region, put into turmoil by
the export of the Rwandan genocide (with no end in sight), shows with
devastating clarity, in the case of the Holocaust the outreach of the genocide
plan and the factual execution of it was going far beyond a single country or
even a region.
The singularity of the Holocaust
Compared to its key features
the Holocaust represents a different type and a singular case rather than a
prototype for other genocides: neither a colonial nor a domestic
genocide-in-whole. This genocide-in-whole represents a truly new form of genocide,
different from the colonial precedents as well as going far beyond domestic
genocide.
Nazi Germany, the country of origin of the Holocaust, extended into some
20 countries and territories of Eurasia, which can be subdivided into several
types-again with very different treatments applied: the allies of Germany
(the Axis powers), other fascist or authoritarian vassal states such as
Croatia or Hungary, territories with large numbers of collaborators such
as Austria, the Baltic states, half of White Russia, the Western Ukraine,
parts of the Caucasus and Rumania, many Belgians, many Dutch and some French,
as well as the states and territories with less enthusiastic support and
underground resistance all over Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, which
were all invaded and subdued by the German armies, their allies and local
collaborators.
Only a few of these countries and territories were occupied as long and
ravaged as devastating as Poland, Raphael Lemkin's homeland, the country
that once had one of the largest populations of Jews in the world, almost
as many as in the former USSR and in the USA. After more than five years
of Nazi occupation and genocide, early in 1945, only a few thousand humans
looking like skeletons were liberated by the Red Army in Auschwitz and other death camps.
In many ways the Holocaust is
a reminder of the Mongolian storm across Eurasia, and it may have been as destructive and could prove
as lasting in its consequences. This includes its ongoing aftermath in the Middle East with the foundation of Israel carved out of Palestine as one of the Holocaust's most disturbing and enduring consequences. The
Nazis singled out even a higher number of targeted victim groups then the
Mongols. In the death camps the victims were separated into many different
groups, with different treatments applied to them; they had to wear over
20 different sign marks to be easily recognizable to their tormentors.
Comparative genocide research at its beginning
Comparative genocide research is still at its beginning and suffers from
a number of deficiencies, which concern many other destructive forms of
interaction between states and nations/nationalities. Destructive interactions
take the form of forced assimilation of non-dominant groups; territorial
invasion of minority areas by state actors; settlement policy enforced
in indigenous territories; infiltration of homelands of minorities or indigenous
groups; forced and massive transfers of populations and forced resettlement;
"ethnic cleansing"; expulsion; and deportation.
Mass murder of members of
non-dominant domestic groups (with the state conferring impunity on the
killers/executioners) is the worst form of destructive interaction between
states and nations/nationalities. Especially, state-organized mass murders and
crimes against humanity in general, such as ethnocides, democides,
politicides, and genocides (as the worst possible crimes) have great
impacts on international relations. They cause enormous human suffering and
affect the stability of entire world regions -as recent cases in Southeast-Asia
and Central Africa have graphically shown. Nonetheless, there are
still only a few large-scale research projects that attempt to develop
theoretical findings anchored in empirical studies.
Objectives of the proposed international research project
The particular character of
any situation of violent conflict is best assessed and analyzed in the
well-defined historical and regional contexts of individual case
studies/monographs. This international research project aims at comparing case
studies on genocides and other instances of mass violence, elaborate criteria
and elements of comparison, investigate common patterns and draw conclusions
for future comparative studies to follow up.
So far, there have been limited
systematic efforts in this field. One reason is the difficult relationship
between theory and empirical studies. Theorists often talk about genocide and
mass murder committed somewhere and wars fought in faraway places without ever
gaining a sufficient amount of practical knowledge about any given violent
conflict, thus without truly knowing the horrors of mass violence. On the other
hand, empiricists tend to extrapolate too much from a particular experience.
An appropriate approach should
try to realize a genuine combination of these two types of research. However,
there are only very few research projects that achieve such a combination, not
to mention taking a step beyond toward practical action of peace-building.
There has been no systematic
research conducted on the prevention of genocide nor is there a comprehensive
and accountable policy of the international community to prevent all-out mass
violence against non-dominant groups.
The task of genocide prevention
Genocide prevention and elimination is a humanitarian imperative after
a century of genocides, marked by the most disturbing negative "dialectics"
of modernity and barbarism. On the 50th anniversary of the Anti-Genocide
Convention (December, 1998), the United Nations was called upon to amend
the Convention comprehensively. The Convention itself had not been applied,
either by the parties involved or by the United Nations. In Rwanda in 1994
one of four total genocides of the 20th century (after the Aghet, Holocaust
and Cambodian genocide) was committed, with the United Nations (Security
Council) paralyzed, the U.S. denying the reality and France in complicity
with its Rwandan client regime.
Genocide prevention ought to
become a policy applied by all states and its methods should be standardized internationally.
Mass murder as a possible option for failed or aggressive states to deal with
minorities must be outlawed once and for all. If attempts to prevent mass
violence and genocide are to be successful, then comparative research must
contribute to that effort. Certainly, there is no simple cure-all.
A tentative list of issues and cases
The project will investigate
the four cases of total domestic genocide in the 20th century
(Aghet, Holocaust, Cambodia and Rwanda) and a number of genocides-in-part. Case
studies and their comparison will be combined with studies on legal and other
thematic issues, methodological issues of comparative approaches as well as a
discussion on ways to prevent and eliminate genocide.
The tentative list of almost
fifty issues and cases is divided in five section: (A) Basic thematic topics,
(B) Case studies and their comparison, (C) Comparative studies, (D) Further
thematic and comparative issues, and (E) Remedies: Approaches, means, ways,
initiatives and actors.
(A) Basic thematic topics:
1. Definitions, criteria of comparison and fine-tuning of legal, sociological and historic concepts such as genocide, crimes against humanity, nuclear extermination, mass violence, mass murder, indiscriminate bombing, massacres and "ethnic cleansing"
2. Elaboration of analytical categories of
comparison (framework, context and general conditions; key elements and core
issues; the aftermath: accountability for crimes, denial, and memory of the
victims) and other comparative elements
3. Stages of genocide
4. Raphael Lemkin's work, the definition of genocide and the UN convention
5. Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and war crimes in international law
(B) Case studies
and their comparison
6. Colonial genocides against indigenous peoples:
in the Americas, Australia, the Belgian Congo, German Southwest Africa (against the Herero and Nama), other cases
7. Continuation of colonial genocide by regimes and/or
settlers in former colonies (e.g., in Burma/Myanmar, Sudan, India, CHT, Amazonia, etc.)
8. Turkish genocide of Armenians (Aghet), Ponthian Greeks and Assyrians in Turkey, 1914-23
9. Japanese atrocities in Asia-Pacific 1890 to 1945
10. The rape of Nanjing 1937-1938
11. Holocaust: aggression wars and genocide 1933-1945,
by the Nazi German state and its allies of European Jews (Shoah), Roma (Porrajmos),
Russians and other Slavic peoples, as well as mass murders of POWs, foreign
slave workers, domestic disabled people and the domestic political opposition
12. The Former Yugoslavia from the 1940-1945 Ustasha genocide of Serbs, Roma
and Jews, with Muslims and Albanians as willing executioners for the Axis
powers, and its revival 1990-2004 in Bosnia, Croatia and the Kosovo
13. The "nuclear holocaust," the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the USA, on August 6 and 9, 1945, with overwhelming
genocidal effect
14. The partition of British India in 1947 and ongoing massacres/riots mainly
targeting Muslims
15. Burma since 1948: military junta (of ethnic Burmans)
vs. its opponents among Burmans and 70 minorities
16. Sudan since 1955: Northern minority regimes and
military (based on support among Arabs and Arabized Nubians) vs. the Dinka,
Nuer, Shilluk, and other African peoples in the South, the Nuba in central
Sudan, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa in West Sudan since 2003 and the Beja in eastern
Sudan since the 1980s
17. Central Africa since 1959, as partial and total
genocide: Hutu-power genocide in Rwanda 1994 by the akazu elite in
conspiracy with France, using the state apparatus, Hutu-power factions and a
huge number of common people against the Tutsi branch of the Banyarwanda and
opponents among the Hutu; partial genocide 1959, 1961, 1063-64, 1972;
destructive interaction with Burundi and its 1972 and 1993 genocides an ongoing
massacres
18. Indonesia 1965: TNI regime and Islamic gangs
against communists and others, with most victims alleged PKI members from Java,
Bali, and other parts of Indonesia; decades of atrocities in West Papua and
Aceh: 1993 and 1998 upheavals targeting Chinese minority
19. East Timor 1975-1999: TNI invaders vs. Timorese; following Indonesia's
invasion of East Timor in Dec 1975, targeting of the Chinese minority,
along with indigenous Timorese; Portuguese ex-colony annexed by Indonesia
until late 1999, independent in May 2002
20. Genocide in East Pakistan / Bangla Desh 1972, with US complicity but saved by India
21. Khmer Rouge genocide in Kampuchea 1975-1979 of
Vietnamese, Cham Muslim and Chinese minorities as well as Khmer urban classes
and Buddhist monks (the latter genocide of a religious group under the UN
Convention)
22. Genocides against American Indians: in the 1970s
against the Ache in Paraguay, in the 1980s against Guatemala's indigenous Mayan majority by the Rios Montt regime, in the 1990s against
the Yanomami and other low-land Indian peoples in the Amazon region
23. USA-UK radiological warfare 1991 until today
with internationally banned uranium weapons and ammunitions
24. Genocide by the Anglo-American manipulation of the
most severe and comprehensive UN sanctions ever imposed in the history of the
world organization: on Iraq (1990-2003)
(C) Comparative
studies
25. Comparative findings: common elements,
similarities and patterns
26. Genocide by famine or attrition (Ukraine, Sudan, Iraq, a/o)
27. Gendercide: discussion of the concept and cases
28. Comparing genocides-in-whole in the 20th
century
29. Comparing selected total and partial genocides
30. Comparing colonial and modern genocide
31. Comparing contemporary genocide and mass
violence in South and Southeast
Asia
(D) Further
thematic and comparative issues
32. Registry of Contemporary Genocide and Mass
Violence
33. Under-researched: the constitutive role of
conspiracy to genocide (Aghet, Rwanda 1994, a/o)
34. The conspiracy of silence (Holocaust, Stalin's crimes, US crimes in Western
media, a/o)
35. Complicity to genocide-under the cover of the Cold War
36. Under-researched: Complicity to genocide by
international donors and development assistance
37. Genocide as ethnic category killing: Comparing
state responses to ethno-nationalism from below
38. The role of the mass media in inciting violence and genocide (Nazi Germany
1930s to 1945, Rwanda 1959 to 1994, Cote d'Ivoire 2004, etc.)
39. The survivors and sufferers of genocide:
analysis and comparison of their enduring psychological, social, economical and
political problems
40. Tales and testimonies conveyed by survivors of
genocide
(E) Remedies: Approaches, means, ways,
initiatives and actors
41. Approaches to remedies: causality, typology, and
prevention of genocide
42. Justice after genocide: comparison of Aghet,
Holocaust, Cambodian and Rwandan genocides
43. Reparation and rehabilitation of the victims of genocide-a dark chapter
of humanity: a comparative study
44. The role of the United Nations and of the world's civil society actors
in prevention genocide
45. Enhancing accountability and deterrence: the
role and performance of the ad-hoc international criminal courts, attempts to
universal jurisdiction (Belgium, Spain, Senegal, a/o) and the International Criminal Court, ICC
46. After the start: the promise of justice,
political realities and the ICC
47. Steps towards a policy of genocide prevention
and its elimination, taking up the open ends of Holocaust memorial conferences
and the Elmau Initiative
48. Preparing the establishment of an international task force on the prevention
of genocide and mass murder
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