Collective punishment

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Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people for the crime(s) of a few or even of one. It is a violation of the rules of war and the Geneva Conventions.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] 19th century

The principle of collective punishment was laid out by U.S General William Tecumseh Sherman in his Special Field Order 120, November 9, 1864, which laid out the rules for his ""March to the sea" in the American Civil War:

V. To army corps commanders alone is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton-gins, &c., and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and neighborhoods where the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should be permitted; but should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.[1]


[edit] 20th century

British in the Boer War and Germans in the Franco-Prussian War and World War I justified such actions as being in accord with the laws of war then in force [2].

During WWII, in 1942 the Germans destroyed the village of Lidice Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) killing 340 inhabitants as collective punishment or reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by commandos nearby the village. In the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane 642 of its inhabitants — men, women, and children — were slaughtered by the German Waffen-SS in 1944.[3] In the Dutch village of Putten[4] and the Italian villages of Sant'Anna di Stazzema[5] and Marzabotto[6], as well as in the Soviet village of Kortelisy[7] (in what is now Ukraine), large scale reprisal killings were carried out by the Germans. There have been claims that the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a form of collective punishment against the Japanese in WWII.[citation needed]

The British used collective punishment against villages which concealed Communist rebels in Malaya in 1951[8]. The British used collective punishment as an official policy to suppress the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in 1952[9]. In 1956, Britain officially used collective punishment in Cyprus in the form of evicting families from their homes and closing shops anywhere British soldiers and police had been murdered, to obtain information about the identity (ies) of the attackers[10] Today, it is considered by most nations contradictory to the modern concept of due process, where each individual receives separate treatment based on his or her role in the crime in question. Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically forbids collective punishment.

Joseph Stalin's mass deportations of several nations of the USSR to remote regions (including the Chechens, Crimean Tatars) is an example of officially-orchestrated collective punishment. Pogroms may be considered examples of unofficial collective punishment which resemble rioting.

There have been claims that certain CIA and U.S. military programs such as Operation Phoenix were a form of collective punishment of Vietnamese civilians to terrorize them into submission. There have also been claims that special US Army units such as Tiger Force were involved in civilians massacres also designed to collectively punish Vietnamese civilians who supported the Viet Cong [1] [2].

[edit] Israel and Middle East

In recent history, supporters of the Palestinians use the term to refer to certain Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They have used the term to describe the Israeli policy of destroying the homes of alleged terrorists. [3].[4] [5]. Israel's extensive system of internal roadblocks and checkpoints in Palestinian land has been condemned as a form of economic collective punishment. Possibly the most serious charge of collective punishment pertains to Israel's systematic destruction of roads, bridges, power and water plants, ports, airports, and the civilian economy inflicted upon Palestinians and Lebanese, which may constitute a war crime.

The term "collective punishment" was freely used by the British government to refer to measures they took against Arabs when unknown Arabs attacked Jews, or against Jews when unknown Jews attacked Arabs during the British mandate over Palestine after 1919.[11][12][13][14][15]. In that era, it meant closure of shops, restriction of movement, and taxes or fines levied on towns as punishment. Supporters of Israel charge that Palestinians and their supporters use the term "collective punishment" as an unjustified anti-Israel code word and/or power word, citing [6] the use of the term to describe even conventional methods of warfare[7] [8] [9]. In addition, some Israelis argue that Palestinian targeting of Israeli civilians to address Palestinian complaints with the Israeli government constitutes an Palestinian policy of collective punishment of Israelis.[16]

[edit] Recent

The term is also used to describe confiscation of assets connected with drug use and trafficking in the United States[citation needed]. More recently the U.S. Army has been accused of practicing collective punishment in Iraq [10].

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sherman, William T., Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman, 2nd ed., D. Appleton & Co., 1913 (1889), Chapter XXI. Reprinted by the Library of America, 1990, ISBN 0-9404-5065-8.
  2. ^ "The laws of war as to conquered territory" by William Miller Collier, New York Times, November 29, 1914, p SM6
  3. ^ http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9057248/Oradour-sur-Glane
  4. ^ *Official Website
  5. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/18/international/europe/18TUSC.html
  6. ^ http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html#Italy
  7. ^ World War II in Ukraine: Kortelisy (Ukraine), Lidice (Czechoslovakia) & Oradour-sur-Glane (France): Razed Villages.
  8. ^ "British to step up Malaya campaign; 1951 plans include 'collective punishment' for aiding Reds, rewards and more troops" New York Times, Dec. 17, 1950, p 12
  9. ^ "Labor's censure over Kenya fails" New York Times, Dec 17, 1952, p16
  10. ^ Britain punishes Cypriote balking in informer role" New York Times,Mar. 17, 1956, p1
  11. ^ "Arab overtures to Jews Reported; Shieks of fined villages ask Palestine refugees to return to plow. Promise to protect them" New York Times, Dec. 19, 1929, p6
  12. ^ "Riot compensation fixed. Nothing to be paid in Palestine for deaths of those under 14" New York Times, March 27, 1930, p 21
  13. ^ "Britain will protect her hold in near east" New York Times, May 24, 1936, p E5
  14. ^ "Britain justifies acts in Palestine" New York Times, Jan. 10, 1939, p9
  15. ^ "Attack on an Arab shuts Jews' shops" New York Times, June 29, 1939, p 10
  16. ^ Anonymous Internet poster identified as "V. H. (Theoretical Zionist)" (March 4, 2002). How to solve "Palestinian problem".. www.netanyahu.org. Retrieved on 2006-07-05.

[edit] External links

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