Genocide

A crime without a name

“The aggressor ... retaliates by the most frightful cruelties. As his Armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated.
Scores of thousands - literally scores of thousands - of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German
Police-troops upon the Russian patriots who defend their native soil. Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the
Sixteenth Century, there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale.

“And this is but the beginning. Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks. “We are in
the
presence of a crime without a name.” Winston Churchill describing the brutality of the German forces occupying Russia,
1941.

Genocide
The word geno means race and cide means killing. The word genocide was coined in the midst of the Holocaust. The
1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) defined
genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Prosecutor v. Kayishema and Ruzindana

“[T]he crime of genocide is considered part of international customary law and, moreover, a norm of jus cogens.”

Article II of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as any acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental
harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring
children of the group to another group.

Article II gives a definition that clearly differentiates genocide from ‘simple’ mass murder. Genocide is something more
than that. For instance, mass murder generally requires the commission of violent acts causing the death of a substantial
number of individuals. Conversely, the requirements of genocide can be met even if the incriminated conduct does not
involve a lethal act.

General Elements: Intent,Group, Conduct

1. Intent
(Kayishema and Ruzindana, (Trial Chamber): “[T]he mens rea must be formed prior to the commission of the genocidal
acts.”)

2. Group
(Bagilishema, (Trial Chamber): The Chamber agreed “with the statement of the International Law Commission, that ‘the
intention must be to destroy the group as such, meaning as a separate and distinct entity, and not merely some individuals
because of their membership in particular group.’  Although the destruction sought need not be directed at every member
of the targeted group, the Chamber considers that the intention to destroy must target at least a substantial part of the
group.)

Akayesu, (Trial Chamber): The Chamber relied on the travaux preparatoires of the Genocide Convention, which indicate
that “the crime of genocide was allegedly perceived as targeting only ‘stable’ groups, constituted in a permanent fashion

 national group
Akayesu, (Trial Chamber): “[A] national group is defined as a collection of people who are perceived to share a legal
bond based on common citizenship, coupled with reciprocity of rights and duties.”

 Racial group
Akayesu, (Trial Chamber): “The conventional definition of racial group is based on the hereditary physical traits often
identified with a geographical region, irrespective of linguistic, cultural, national or religious factors.”
Kayishema and Ruzindana (Trial Chamber): “A racial group is based on hereditary physical traits often identified with
geography.”

 religious group

Akayesu, (Trial Chamber), September 2, 1998, para. 515: “The religious group is one whose members share the same
religion, denomination or mode of worship.”

Kayishema and Ruzindana, (Trial Chamber), May 21, 1999, para. 98: “A religious group includes denomination or mode
of worship or a group sharing common beliefs.”

Mistreatment of persons not enumerated under the definition of group will not be considered as genocide.

Conduct
Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on
the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

 Article 6 (a)- Genocide by killing

Elements
The perpetrator killed one or more persons. Such person or persons belonged to a particular national, ethnical, racial or
religious group. The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnical, racial or religious group,
as such. The conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group or was
conduct that could itself effect such destruction.

 Article 6 (b)-Genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm

Elements
The perpetrator caused serious bodily or mental harm to one or more persons. Such person or persons belonged to a
particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. The conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar
conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could itself effect such destruction.

 Article 6 (c)-Genocide by deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical
destruction
Elements
The perpetrator inflicted certain conditions of life upon one or more persons. Such person or persons belonged to a
particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. The conditions of life were calculated to bring about the physical
destruction of that group, in whole or in part. The conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar
conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could itself effect such destruction.

 Article 6 (d)-Genocide by imposing measures intended to prevent births

Elements
The perpetrator imposed certain measures upon one or more persons. Such person or persons belonged to a particular
national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnical,
racial or religious group, as such. The measures imposed were intended to prevent births within that group. The conduct
took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could
itself effect such destruction.

 Article 6 (e)-Genocide by forcibly transferring children

Elements
The perpetrator forcibly transferred one or more persons. Such person or persons belonged to a particular national,
ethnical, racial or religious group. The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnical, racial or
religious group, as such. The transfer was from that group to another group. The person or persons were under the age of
18 years. The perpetrator knew, or should have known, that the person or persons were under the age of 18 years. The
conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group or was conduct that
could itself effect such destruction.

20th Century Genocides

 Major genocides of the 20th century
1. The Herero Genocide, Namibia, 1904-05
Death toll: 60,000 (3/4 of the population)

2. The Armenian Genocide, Ottoman Empire, 1915-23

Death toll: Up to 1.5 million

3. The Ukrainian Famine, 1932-1933

Death toll: 7 million

4. The Nanking Massacre, 1937-1938

Death toll: 300,000 (50% of the pop)

5. The World War II Holocaust, Europe, 1942-45

Death toll: 6 million Jews, and millions of others, including Poles, Roma, homosexuals, and the physically and
mentally handicapped,

6. The Cambodian Genocide, 1975-79

Death toll: 2 million

7. The East Timor Genocide, 1975- 1999

Death toll: 120,000 (20% of the population)

8. The Mayan Genocide, Guatemala,

1981-83
Death toll: Tens of thousands

9. Iraq, 1988
10. Death toll: 50-100,000

11. The Bosnian Genocide, 1991-1995

Death toll: 8,000

12. The Rwandan Genocide, 1994

Death toll: 800,000

13. The Darfur Genocide, Sudan, 2003-present

Death toll: debated. 100,000? 300,000? 500,000?

Namibia, 1904-1905
Under German colonial rule, German Southwest Africa is modern day Namibia. German Lieutenant-General Lothar von
Trotha said, 'I wipe out rebellious tribes with streams of blood and streams of money. Only following this cleansing can
something new emerge'.

On October 2, 1904, von Trotha issued his order to exterminate the Herero from the region. 'All the Herero must leave the
land. If they refuse, then I will force them to do it with the big guns. Any Herero found within German borders, with or
without a gun, will be shot. No prisoners will be taken. This is my decision for the Herero people'.

The Armenian Genocide, 1915

U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr., concluded a “race murder” was occurring. He cabled
Washington and described the Turkish campaign: ”Persecution of Armenians assuming unprecedented proportions.
Reports from widely scattered districts indicate systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and through
arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, whose-sale expulsions and deportations from one end of the Empire to the other
accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder turning into massacre, to bring destruction and destitution
on them.

These measures are not in response to popular or fanatical demand but are purely arbitrary and directed from
Constantinople in the name of military necessity, often in districts where no military operations are likely to take place…
there seems to be a systematic plan to crush the Armenian race.”

The Armenian Controversy

To this day, the Turks deny that the Genocide occurred. This is a VERY controversial issue to the Turks. Turkey
suspended its military ties with France in 2006 after the French parliament's lower house adopted a bill that that would
have made it a crime to deny that the Armenian killings constituted a genocide.
23 countries acknowledge the event was genocide. In early October 2007, the U.S. Congress opened debate on whether or
not to declare the Armenian event a genocide much to the dismay of the Turkish government.

The Ukrainian Famine 1932-1933

Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the
people there seeking independence from his rule. As a result, an estimated 7,000,000 persons perished in this farming
area, known as the breadbasket of Europe, with the people deprived of the food they had grown with their own hands.

Nanking Massacre, 1937-1938

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanking and proceeded to murder
300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks of carnage would become known as the Rape of
Nanking and represented the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of
war.

The Holocaust, 1939-1945

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million
Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire“. The
Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews,
deemed "inferior, were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

Cambodia, 1975-1979
The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the
Communist regime Khmer Rouge, which ruled the country from 1975-1979. One Khmer slogan ran: 'To spare you is no
profit, to destroy you is no loss.' The massacres ended in 1979, when Communist Vietnam invaded the country and
toppled the Khmer Rouge regime.

The East Timor Genocide, 1975-1999

The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975 set the stage for the long, bloody, and disastrous occupation of
the territory that ended only after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999.

Guatemala, The Mayan Genocide, 1981-83

In the words of the 1999 UN-sponsored report on the civil war: 'The Army's perception of Mayan communities as natural
allies of the guerrillas contributed to increasing and aggravating the human rights violations perpetrated against them,
demonstrating an aggressive racist component of extreme cruelty that led to extermination en masse of defenseless Mayan
communities, including children, women and the elderly, through methods whose cruelty has outraged the moral
conscience of the civilized world.'

Iraq, 1988
The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds was a systematic and deliberate murder of at least 50,000 and possibly as many as
100,000 Kurds. It was the culmination of a long-term strategy to solve what the government saw as its “Kurdish
problem”. Halabja (March ’88) was one chapter of this campaign in which chemical weapons were used against this
Kurdish village.
Bosnia, 1991-1995
Bosnia was part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire until 1878 and then of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the First
World War. After the war it was united with other Slav territories to form Yugoslavia, essentially ruled and run by Serbs
from the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
Yugoslavia disintegrated in June 1991. In 1992 in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, conflict between the three main
ethnic groups, the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, resulted in genocide committed by the Serbs against the Muslims in
Bosnia.

The Legacy of Mogadishu, 1993

The most violent U.S. combat firefight since Vietnam. Started out as an operation to capture warlord Mohammed Farah
Aidid--turned into a firefight that lasted seventeen hours, left eighteen Americans dead, eighty-four wounded and
continues to haunt the U.S. military and American foreign policy. Its legacy, say many experts, was a continuing U.S.
reluctance to be drawn into other trouble spots such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Haiti during the 1990s.

Rwanda, 1994
800,000 Tutsis were murdered by Hutus in a 3-month period. The international community watched the event unfold and
did nothing.

 Rwandan Women Change Their World

Before the 1994 Rwandan genocide boys outnumbered girls in school by 9 to 1. Today boys and girls attend school in
equal numbers. Before the genocide fewer than 6 percent of college graduates were female. Today women make up as
much as 50 percent of the student body on Rwandan college campuses.

Before the genocide the government was just over 5 percent female. Today, women make up 30 percent of Rwanda’s
local leadership and almost a quarter of national leadership. The Rwandan Lower House of Parliament is 49 percent
women – the highest percentage of women in any parliament in the world.

The 8 Stages of Genocide

Understanding the genocidal process is one of the most important steps in preventing future genocides. The Eight Stages
of Genocide were first outlined by Dr. Greg Stanton, Department of State: 1996. The first six stages of Early Warnings are
classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation.

 Stage 1: Classification
The mindset of “Us versus them”. It is distinguished by nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. Bipolar societies (Rwanda)
most likely to have genocide because no way for classifications to fade away through inter-marriage. Classification is a
primary method of dividing society and creating a power struggle between groups.

Rwanda
Belgian colonialists believed Tutsis were a naturally superior nobility, descended from the Israelite tribe of Ham. The
Rwandan royalty was Tutsi. Belgians distinguished between Hutus and Tutsis by nose size, height & eye type. Another
indicator to distinguish Hutu farmers from Tutsi pastoralists was the number of cattle owned.

 Prevention: Classification

Promote common identities (national, religious, human.) Use common languages (Swahili in Tanzania, science, music.)
Actively oppose racist and divisive politicians and parties.

 Stage 2: Symbolization
1. Names: “Jew”, “German”, “Hutu”, “Tutsi”
2. Languages
3. Types of dress: group uniforms: Nazi Swastika armbands
4. Colors and religious symbols: Yellow star for Jews, Blue checked scarf Eastern Zone in Cambodia

Rwanda
“Ethnicity” was first noted on cards by Belgian Colonial Authorities in [Link] were given access to limited education
programs and Catholic priesthood. Hutus were given less assistance by colonial authorities. At independence, these
preferences were reversed. Hutus were favored. These ID cards were later used to distinguish Tutsis from Hutus in the
1994 massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus that resulted in 800,000+ deaths.

Nazi Germany
Jewish Passport: “Reisepäss”. Required to be carried by all Jews by 1938. Preceded the yellow star. Nazis required the
yellow Star of David emblem to be worn by nearly all Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe by 1941.

Homosexuals people is symbolized with pink triangles. Identified homosexuals to SS guards in the camps. Caused
discrimination by fellow inmates who shunned homosexuals.
Cambodia
People in the Eastern Zone, near Vietnam, were accused of having “Khmer bodies, but Vietnamese heads.” They were
deported to other areas to be worked to death. They were marked with a blue and white checked scarf (Kroma).

 Prevention: Symbolization
Get ethnic, religious, racial, and national identities removed from ID cards, passports; Protest imposition of marking
symbols on targeted groups (yellow cloth on Hindus in Taliban Afghanistan); Protest negative or racist words for groups.
Work to make them culturally unacceptable.

 Stage 3: Dehumanization
One group denies the humanity of another group and makes the victim group seem subhuman. Dehumanization
overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder.

Hate propaganda in speeches, print and on hate radios vilify the victim group. Members of the victim group are described
as animals, vermin, and diseases. Hate radio, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, during the Rwandan genocide in
1994, broadcast anti-Tutsi messages like “kill the cockroaches” and “If this disease is not treated immediately, it will
destroy all the Hutu.”

Dehumanization invokes superiority of one group and inferiority of the “other.” Dehumanization justifies murder by
calling it “ethnic cleansing,” or “purification.” Such euphemisms hide the horror of mass murder.

 Prevention: Dehumanization
Vigorously protest use of dehumanizing words that refer to people as “filth,” “vermin,” animals or diseases. Deny people
using such words visas and freeze their foreign assets and contributions. Prosecute hate crimes and incitements to commit
genocide. Jam or shut down hate radio and television stations where there is danger of genocide.

Provide programs for tolerance to radio, TV, and newspapers. Enlist religious and political leaders to speak out and
educate for tolerance. Organize inter-ethnic, interfaith, and inter-racial groups to work against hate and genocide.

 Stage 4: Organization
Genocide is a group crime, so must be organized. The state usually organizes, arms and financially supports the groups
that conduct the genocidal massacres. (State organization is not a legal requirement --Indian partition.) Plans are made by
elites for a “final solution” of genocidal killings.

Rwanda
“Hutu Power” elites armed youth militias called Interahamwe ("Those Who Stand Together”). The government and Hutu
Power businessmen provided the militias with over 500,000 machetes and other arms and set up camps to train them to
“protect their villages” by exterminating every Tutsi.

 Prevention: Organization
Treat genocidal groups as the organized crime groups they are. Make membership in them illegal and demand that their
leaders be arrested. Deny visas to leaders of hate groups and freeze their foreign assets. Impose arms embargoes on hate
groups and governments supporting ethnic or religious hatred. Create UN commissions to enforce such arms embargoes
and call on UN members to arrest arms merchants who violate them.
  Stage 5: Polarization
Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast and print polarizing propaganda. Laws are passed that forbid
intermarriage or social interaction. Political moderates are silenced, threatened and intimidated, and killed.

Attacks are staged and blamed on targeted groups. In Germany, the Reichstag fire was blamed on Jewish Communists in
1933. Cultural centers of targeted groups are attacked. On Kristalnacht in 1938, hundreds of synagogues were burned.

 Prevention: Polarization
Vigorously protest laws or policies that segregate or marginalize groups, or that deprive whole groups of citizenship
rights. Physically protect moderate leaders, by use of armed guards and armored vehicles. Demand the release of
moderate leaders if they are arrested. Demand and conduct investigations if they are murdered. Oppose coups d’état by
extremists.

 Stage 6: Preparation
Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Death lists are made. Victims are separated because of
their ethnic or religious identity. Segregation into ghettoes is imposed, victims are forced into concentration camps.
Victims are also deported to famine-struck regions for starvation. Weapons for killing are stock piled. Extermination
camps are even built. This build- up of killing capacity is a major step towards actual genocide.

With evidence of death lists, arms shipments, militia training, and trial massacres, a Genocide Alert™ should be declared.
UN Security Council should warn it will act (but only if it really will act.) Diplomats must warn potential perpetrators.
Humanitarian relief should be prepared. Military intervention forces should be organized, including logistics and
financing.

 Stage 7: Extermination (Genocide)

Extermination begins, and becomes the mass killing legally called "genocide." Most genocide is committed by
governments. The killing is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe the victims are fully human. They
are “cleansing” the society of impurities, disease, animals, vermin, “cockroaches,” or enemies. Although most genocide is
sponsored and financed by the state, the armed forces often work with local militias.
 Extermination: Stopping Genocide
Regional organizations, national governments, and the UN Security Council should impose targeted sanctions to
undermine the economic viability of the perpetrator regime. Sales of oil and imports of gasoline should be stopped by
blockade of ports and land routes. Perpetrators should be indicted by the International Criminal Court.

The UN Security Council should authorize armed intervention by regional military forces or by a UN force under Chapter
Seven of the UN Charter. The Mandate must include protection of civilians and humanitarian workers and a No-Fly Zone.
The Rules of Engagement must be robust and include aggressive prevention of killing. The major military powers must
provide leadership, logistics, airlift, communications, and financing. If the state where the genocide is underway will not
permit entry, its UN membership should be suspended.

 Stage 8: Denial
Denial is always found in genocide, both during it and after it. Continuing denial is among the surest indicators of further
genocidal massacres. Denial extends the crime of genocide to future generations of the victims. It is a continuation of the
intent to destroy the group. The tactics of denial are predictable.

 Denial: Deny the Evidence.

Deny that there was any mass killing at all. Question and minimize the statistics. Block access to archives and witnesses.
Intimidate or kill eyewitnesses. Destroy the evidence. (Burn the bodies and the archives, dig up and burn the mass graves,
throw bodies in rivers or seas.)

 Denial: Attack the truth-tellers.

Attack the motives of the truth-tellers. Say they are opposed to the religion, ethnicity, or nationality of the deniers.
Point out atrocities committed by people from the truth-tellers’ group. Imply they are morally disqualified to accuse the
perpetrators.

 Denial: Deny Genocidal Intent.

Claim that the deaths were inadvertent (due to famine, migration, or disease.) Blame “out of control” forces for the
killings. Blame the deaths on ancient ethnic conflicts.

 Denial: Blame the Victims.

Emphasize the strangeness of the victims. They are not like us. (savages, infidels). Claim they were disloyal insurgents in
a war. Call it a “civil war,” not genocide. Claim that the deniers’ group also suffered huge losses in the “war.” The
killings were in self-defense.

 Denial: Deny for current interests.

Avoid upsetting “the peace process.” “Look to the future, not to the past.” Deny to assure benefits of relations with the
perpetrators or their descendents. (oil, arms sales, alliances, military bases) Don’t threaten humanitarian assistance to the
victims, who are receiving good treatment. (Show the model Thereisenstadt IDP camp.)

 Denial: Deny facts fit legal definition of genocide.

They’re crimes against humanity, not genocide. They’re “ethnic cleansing”, not genocide. There’s not enough proof of
specific intent to destroy a group, “as such.” (“Many survived!”-UN Commission of Inquiry on Darfur.)
Claim the only “real” genocides are like the Holocaust: “in whole.”(Ignore the “in part” in the Genocide Convention.)
Claim declaring genocide would legally obligate us to intervene. (We don’t want to intervene.)

Prevention requires
1. Early warning
2. Rapid response
3. Courts for accountability

Genocide continues due to

Lack of authoritative international institutions to predict it; Lack of ready rapid response forces to stop it; Lack of
political will to peacefully prevent it and to forcefully intervene to stop it
Prevention: Political Will
Build an international mass movement to end genocide in this century. Organize civil society and human rights groups.
Mobilize religious leaders of churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples. Put genocide education in curricula of every
secondary school and university in the world. Hold political leaders accountable. If they fail to act to stop genocide, vote
them out of office.