Genocides in history

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Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) article 2 as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, 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; and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Determining what historical events constitute a genocide and which are merely criminal or inhuman behavior is not a clearcut matter. In nearly every case where accusations of genocide have circulated, partisans of various sides have fiercely disputed the interpretation and details of the event, often to the point of promoting wildly different versions of the facts. An accusation of genocide is certainly not taken lightly and will almost always be controversial. The following list of alleged genocides should be understood in this context and not regarded as the final word on these subjects.

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[edit] Alternative meanings of genocide

Much debate about genocides revolves around the proper definition of the word "genocide." The exclusion of social and political groups as targets of genocide in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide legal definition has been criticized by some historians and sociologists, for example M. Hassan Kakar in his book The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982[1] argues that the international definition of genocide is too restricted [2], and that it should include political groups or any group so defined by the perpetrator and quotes Chalk and Jonassohn: "Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator."[3]

According to R. J. Rummel, genocide has 3 different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by government of people due to their national, ethnic, racial, or religious group membership. The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This also includes nonkillings that in the end eliminate the group, such as preventing births or forcibly transferring children out of the group to another group. A generalized meaning of genocide is similar to the ordinary meaning but also includes government killings of political opponents or otherwise intentional murder. It is to avoid confusion regarding what meaning is intended that Rummel created the term democide for the third meaning.[4]

[edit] Alleged genocides from 1500 to 1914

In a wider historical perspective, genocide has been common throughout history, such as the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and Patagonia, by Europeans, either directly or indirectly by making survival or procreation impossible, is usually considered to be genocide.

[edit] The Americas

See also: Population history of American indigenous peoples

The indigenous populations of the Americas sharply plummeted following the arrival of Europeans from 1492 onward. Not all the mortality was consciously inflicted: disease, hardship, and the severing of social ties all took their toll, although diseases were also sometimes introduced for the purpose, amounting to biological warfare. The native tribes of the Caribbean were eliminated like the Guanches in the Canary Islands the previous century (Crosby 1986). Central Mexico, with an estimated pre-Conquest population of 25 million, was reduced to a residual population of a million in the 17th century. In 1790, when the first U.S. census was executed, there were 300 Native Americans left in Pennsylvania, 1500 each in New York and Massachusetts, and still some 10,000 in the Carolinas (Braudel 1984 p 393). See cultural genocide.

The long-term decimation, sometimes by government policy and sometimes not, of the Natives of South and North America by Europeans is estimated to be one of the largest and longest in history.[5]

Various estimates of the pre-contact Native population of the continental U.S. and Canada range from 1.8 to over 12 million. Over the next four centuries, their numbers were reduced to a low of 237,000 by 1900. It has been estimated that the Native population of what is now Mexico was reduced from 30 million to only 3 million over the first four decades of Spanish rule.

European persecution of Natives started with Christopher Columbus' arrival in San Salvador Island in 1492. Native population dropped dramatically over the next few decades. Some were directly exterminated by Europeans. Others died indirectly as a result of contact with introduced diseases for which they had no resistance.

Over the next four centuries, European settlers would systematically displace Native American peoples, from the Arctic to South America. This was accomplished through varying combinations of warfare, the signing of treaties (of which the Natives may not have fully understood the consequences at times), forced relocations to barren lands, destruction of their main food supply — such as the bison (also the central element of many native religions) — and the spread of European disease, notably smallpox.

[edit] Argentina

In the 1880s Argentine President Julio Roca launched a campaign to exterminate the native population of the Pampas and the Patagonia regions, leading to the deaths of some 20,000 indigenous people.

See Conquest of the Desert

[edit] Canada

The Beothuk people, an aboriginal group, native to the province of Newfoundland, are now completely extinct as a result of extended low intensity conflict with European colonists (mostly fishermen who regarded them as thieves), loss of habitat and importation of diseases such as tuberculosis. As European settlement grew, the Beothuks withdrew into the interior of the island and starved.

Activities of European colonists and importation of previously-unseen diseases caused many deaths in other Canadian native communities; the Beothuk are unique in Canadian history as having suffered not only genocide but outright extinction. Tragically, their "genocide" is unique in the sense that it appears to have been a drawn out and unintentional exercise founded in mutual distrust and ignorance. It was not a modern "genocide" in the sense there was no intention or even conscious effort to drive them to extinction. The process was the result of complex relationship dynamics and the peculiarly tenuous ecological nature of the island.

Genocide against Aboriginal peoples of Canada (during the conquest of "turtle island" or the North American continent) has received international attention from reputable human rights organizations associated with aboriginal rights. Principle testimonials from thousands of Aboriginals compiled by former United Church Reverend Kevin Annett and his Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada has gained considerable merit to this revisionist, Genocide in Canada revelation.[6]

[edit] The United States

Throughout the 19th century, Native Americans were driven off their traditional lands to facilitate the installation of settlers (colonists). The explicit US policy of Indian Removal forced or coerced the relocation of major Native American groups in both the Southeast and the Northeast United States, resulting directly and indirectly in the deaths of tens of thousands. The subsequent process of assimilations, though a less active means of a ethnic cleansing, was no less devastating to Native American peoples. Tribes were generally located to reservations on which they could more easily be separated from traditional life and pushed into US society. Some Southern states additionally enacted laws in the 19th century forbidding non-Indian settlement on Indian lands, intending to prevent sympathetic white missionaries from aiding the scattered Indian resistance.

On some occasions during the Indian Wars, which decimated the Native American population in the United States and are often collectively referred to as genocide[citation needed], entire villages were massacred by the U.S. Army (see for example Sand Creek Massacre and massacre at Wounded Knee).

The Conestoga (Susquehanna) tribe of the lower Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania was completely annihilated by the "Paxton Boys," Scotch-Irish militias at the end of the French And Indian War in 1763. The last survivors of the tribe sought and were granted refuge in the Lancaster County jail. The Paxton Boys forced their way in and massacred them. The liquidation of the Conestogas is documented by Benjamin Franklin and in "The Light in The Forest" by Conrad Richter.[7]

[edit] Australia

The Black War refers to a period of conflict between the British colonists and Tasmanian Aborigines in Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) in the early years of the 1800s. The conflict has gained a notorious reputation as a genocide resulting in the almost complete obliteration of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population, though there are presently many thousands of individuals descended of Tasmanian Aborigines.

The "war" was never officially declared and this has led to variations in its dating. Some date the conflict to the very beginning of European settlement on the island in 1803. The conflict was most intense during the 1820s, which is the period most commonly referred to as the Black War. The conflict is generally seen to have ended in the 1830s, after the unsuccessful Black Line and the subsequent relocation of Aborigines to Flinders Island.

This conflict is a subject of the Australian history wars, the 2002 publication of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847 by Keith Windschuttle,[8] questioned the historical evidence used to identify the actual number of Aborigines killed stating that it was exaggerated and challenged what is labelled the "Black armband view of history" of Tasmanian colonisation. His argument has been challenged by a number of authors, for example see "Contra Windschuttle" by S.G. Foster in Quadrant, March 2003, 47:3.[9]

[edit] Congo

Prior to its being taken over by Belgium to form the Belgian Congo, under the rule of King Léopold II, the Congo Free State suffered a great loss of life due to criminal indifference by Europeans to its native inhabitants in the pursuit of increased rubber production.

From 1880 to 1920, the population of the Congo fell precipitously; murder, starvation, exhaustion (due to over-work), and disease were the culprits. Estimates vary on how many died and in what timeframe the deaths occurred. A 1904 report cites 3 million dead between 1888 and 1904; Fredric Wertham's 1966 book "A Sign For Cain: A Exploration of Human Violence" estimates that the population of the Congo dropped from 30 million to 8.5 million in that period.[10]

King Léopold II (of Belgium) was a famed misanthropist, abolitionist, and self-appointed sovereign of the Congo Free State, 76 times larger geographically than Belgium itself. His fortunes, and those of the multinational concessionary companies under his auspices, were built mainly on the proceeds of Congolese rubber, of which there had never been an exploitable surplus.

The mass-deaths in the Congo Free State became a cause celèbre in the last years of the 19th century and a great embarrassment not only to the King but to Belgium, which had portrayed itself as progressive and attentive to human rights. The Congo Reform Movement, which included among its members Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Booker T. Washington, and Bertrand Russell, led a vigorous international movement against the mistreatment of the indigenous population of the Congo.[11][10]

In 1999 Adam Hochschild published a book called "King Leopold's Ghost". It catalogued a series of crimes committed by King Leopold's regime; made the allegation that 10 million had died; and compared Leopold's misrule to the Nazi Holocaust and Stalin's purges. He does not, however, characterize the deaths as the result of a deliberate policy of genocide, but rather as the result of a brutal system of forced labor. The Guardian reported in July 2002 that, after initial outrage by Belgian historians, the state-funded Museum of the Belgian Congo would finance an investigation into Hochschild's allegations. The investigatory panel, likely to be headed by Professor Jean-Luc Vellut, was scheduled to report its findings in 2004.[11]

[edit] Ireland

James Mullin reports in an article entitled "Irish Famine Education and the Holocaust 'Straw Man'" in the American Chronicle that Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois wrote to the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on May 2, 1996, that "Clearly, during [the Irish Potato Famine] years [of] 1845 to 1850 the British government pursued a policy of mass starvation in Ireland with intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnical, and racial group commonly known as the Irish People." Vote IRA, Mullin continues that in Boyle's legal opinion the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland actions violated sections (a), (b), and (c) of Article 2 of the CPPCG, and therefore "constituted acts of genocide against the Irish People".[12][13]

Other academics take a different view for example the Belfast-born and Cambridge-educated historian Peter Gray concludes that UK government policy "was not a policy of deliberate genocide", but a dogmatic refusal to admit the policy was wrong and "amounted to a sentence of death to many thousands."; and Professor James S. Donnelly Jr., a historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has written that "... it is also my contention that while genocide was not in fact committed, what happened during and as a result of the clearances had the look of genocide to a great many Irish..."[14]

[edit] Philippines

Main article: Philippine-American War

The American sugar planters instigated the Spanish-American War for new lands and cheap labor to exploit. One of the spoils won was the Philippines, which declared its independence under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo on June 12, 1898. The McKinley administration declared Aguinaldo an outlaw and claimed to be putting down an insurrection during the Philippine-American War. At least one million civilians perished from outright slaughter, disease, and famine between 1899 and 1913, and American forces burnt large areas of crops and placed many Filipinos in internment camps. Such a massacre happened in the town of Balangiga, where they killed males from ages 8 to 60. This was called the "Kill and Burn" method. General Arthur MacArthur, Jr. boasted that 15 Filipinos were killed for every one wounded.

[edit] The Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania

The Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania experienced a rarely-mentioned genocide[dubious — see talk page] campaign at the time of Ukrainian Cossack uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, who told his people that the Poles had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews." With this as their battle-cry, the Cossacks killed a large number of Jews and Poles during the years 1648–1649. The precise number of dead may never be known, but the decrease of the Jewish population during that period is estimated at 50,000 to 200,000, which also includes deaths from diseases and Tatar imprisonment.[15] As a result of events during the Swedish occupation of Poland (1655-1660) known as "The Deluge", population of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth dropped by one-third.

[edit] Russian Empire

Main articles: Circassian ethnic cleansing and Caucasian War

Antero Leitzinger wrote in an article called "The Circassian Genocide", initally published in the Turkistan News, that a genocide committed against the Circassian nation by Czarist Russia in the 1800s has been almost entirely forgotten, and that it was the largest genocide of the nineteenth century. [16]

[edit] Alleged genocides from 1915 to 1950

In 1915, during World War I, the concept of Crimes against humanity was introduced into international relations for the first time when the Allied Powers sent a correspondence to the government of the Ottoman Empire, a member of the Central Powers, over massacres the Allies alleged were taking place within the Empire.[17] (For more details see the section Ottoman Empire (Turkey)).


[edit] Croatia

Main article: Serbian Genocide

(1941 - 1945) Genocide against Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia . The Croatian Ustasha regime committed genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma (Gypsies) during World War II. They also mass murdered other political opponents.

After the invasion and destruction of the Yugoslav army by the Axis Powers in 1941, they supported the creation of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) which was run by the Croatian fascist group the Ustaše. The leader of this state Ante Pavelić put into effect a campaign of persecution and genocide against the Serbs, Jews and Roma.

This policy was set out by Mile Budak, the Minister for Education & Culture who in his speech of 22nd July 1941, said that:

The basis for the Ustashe movement is religion. For minorities such as the Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, we have three million bullets. We will kill a part of the Serbs. Others we will deport, and the rest we will force to accept the Roman Catholic Religion. Thus the new Croatia will be rid of all Serbs in its midst in order to be 100% Catholic within 10 years.

The Independent State of Croatia was the only state created by the Axis Powers that ran its own concentration camps independently of Nazi direction, the largest being the Jasenovac concentration camp.

The number of Serbian people killed, deported and converted by the Croat Ustashe between 1941-1945 is more than 1 000 000 and has been debated. Please see Ustaše#Victims and Jasenovac concentration camp for details. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center (citing the Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust): "Ustasa terrorists killed 500,000 Serbs, expelled 250,000 and forced 250,000 to convert to Catholicism. They murdered thousands of Jews and Gypsies." Ustashe [1] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Ustashe"

This Serbian Genocide resulted in elimination of the presence of Serbian people in a large section of Croatia and Bosnia. Independent State of Croatia]] (NDH) occupied a large section of Bosnia and Hercegovina and Serbia/Srem and massacred hundreds of thousands of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

[edit] Nazi Germany and occupied Europe

Main articles: The Holocaust and Racial policy of Nazi Germany
Major deportation routes to the extermination camps in Europe.The image above is believed to be a replaceable fair use image. It will be deleted on 2006-12-14 if not determined to be irreplaceable. If you believe this image is not replaceable, follow the instructions on the image page to dispute this assertion.  It should be possible to replace this fair use image with a freely licensed one. If you can, please do so as soon as is practical.
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Major deportation routes to the extermination camps in Europe.
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The main targets of the Holocaust were the Jews of Europe, of whom between five and seven million were killed,[18] including 1.5 million children, in what was called by the Nazis the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". In all, upwards of 11 million people were systematically "exterminated" (a Nazi term) by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Other targets of the Holocaust included Roma, (see Porajmos), homosexuals, mentally ill (see T-4 Euthanasia Program), Slavs, and political opponents such as Communists.

The resources of a major industrial power, Germany, were harnessed to industrialize mass murder. Jews and other victims were massacred in massive open air shootings by the organized killing squads called Einsatzgruppen, or confined in ghettos before being transported to extermination camps where they were killed.

[edit] German South-West Africa

Herero and Namaqua Wars: (1904–1907) in current-day Namibia

In 1985, the United Nations Whitaker Report recognized the German attempt to exterminate the Herero and Namaqua peoples in German South-West Africa as one of the earliest attempts at genocide in the twentieth century. In total, some 65,000 Herero (80 percent of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50 percent of the total Nama population) were killed or perished. Characteristics of this genocide included death by starvation and the poisoning of wells for the Herero and Nama populations that were trapped in the Namib desert. The responsible German general was Lothar von Trotha

[edit] Japan and Korea

During the Tokugawa shogunate, tens of thousands of Christians were murdered. (See Persecution of Christians)

Japanese rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945 was exceptionally brutal. At least 7,500 Koreans were slaughtered in the March 1919 repression of independence rallies in Seoul. When villagers were suspected of hiding rebels, entire villages of people are said to have been herded into public buildings (especially churches) and massacred when the buildings were set on fire. Many Korean Christians, including an entire village of Jeamri, were crucified or burnt alive in churches as they fought for Korean independence. Koreans were used as slave labor, first in Korea then in Japan. During World War II, at least 5.4 million Koreans were used as forced labor and 200,000 Korean women were used as comfort women, brothel workers for the benefit of Japanese soldiers.

The Second Sino-Japanese war began in 1937 when Japan invaded Mainland China. During the time of Japanese colonization in World War II, millions (20-30 million people) of prisoners of war and citizens were killed. However, the greatest Japanese war crime was the Nanking Massacre, in which Imperial Japanese Army soldiers engaged in an orgy of rape, torture, beheading, burning, stealing, and beating of the Chinese city-dwellers over the next couple months. Most death tolls range between 200,000 to 250,000 dead, while some go as high as 400,000.

[edit] Ottoman Empire (Turkey)

Main article: Armenian genocide

On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing "a crime against humanity". This joint statement stated:

"[i]n view of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres".[17]

On 15 September 2005 a United States Congressional resolution on the Armenian Genocide "Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes." found that:

  • "The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland."
  • "The post-World War I Ottoman Government indicted the top leaders involved" and that "officials of the Young Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as charged, for organizing and executing massacres against the Armenian people". The chief organizers were "Minister of War Enver, Minister of the Interior Talaat, and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all condemned to death for their crimes, however, the verdicts of the courts were not enforced."
  • and "The Armenian Genocide and these domestic judicial failures are documented with overwhelming evidence in the national archives of Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, the United States, the Vatican and many other countries, and this vast body of evidence attests to the same facts, the same events, and the same consequences."[19]

The Republic of Turkey government disputes this interpretation of events and maintains that crucial documents supporting the genocide thesis are actually falsifications.[20] Seen as historical revisionism by many historians, the topic is virtually taboo in Turkey. Laws like Article 301 are used to bring charges against people like the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who had stated that "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it".[21] However, Turkish authorities do acknowledge that the issue should be left to the historians[22] and in an open letter by Prime Minister Erdogan to the U.S. President dated 10 April 2005, extended an "invitation to your country to establish a joint group consisting of historians and other experts from our two countries to study the developments and events of 1915 not only in the archives of Ottoman Empire, Turkey and Armenia but also in the archives of all relevant third countries and to share their findings with the international public".[23] Furthermore, in spite of vehement resistance by nationalist groups, an academic conference was held on September 24, 2005 in Istanbul to discuss the early 20th century massacre of Armenians.[24]

The BBC reported that in on 16 December, 2003, "The Swiss lower house of parliament has voted to describe the mass killings of Armenians during the last years of the Ottoman Empire as genocide. ... Fifteen countries have now agreed to label the killings as genocide. They include France [in 2001], Argentina and Russia."[25] On 12 October, 2006, French lawmakers "approved a bill making it a crime to deny that mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during and after World War I amounted to genocide. Turkey quickly objected, with its Foreign Ministry saying that the decision "dealt a heavy blow" to Turkish-French relations and 'created great disappointment in our country.'"[26]

Other genocides allegedly committed by the Ottoman Empire include the Pontian Greek Genocide and the Assyrian Genocide.

[edit] Soviet Union

Main articles: Human rights in the Soviet Union, Population transfer in the Soviet Union, and Famines in Russia and USSR

There are several documented instances of large-scale unnatural death occurring in the Soviet Union, mostly in the 1930s. In legal terms, the word "genocide" may not be appropriate, because there was no proven intent to destroy a specific national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Nevertheless, the term genocide is used by many respected historians, especially with respect to the Holodomor[citation needed]. This usage is often motivated by the fact that, e.g., ethnicity-targeted population transfer in the Soviet Union, while arguably lacking genocidal purposes, led to millions of deaths due to inflicted hardships.

The 1932–1933 famine that affected peasantry living in the USSR is considered a genocide by many scholars[citation needed]. The nations disporportionally hit by the famine were the Kazakhs and the Ukrainians. See the Holodomor article for the details of the Famine in Ukraine, particularly, the section where the applicability of the term the Genocide is discussed.

[edit] Alleged genocides from 1951 to 1990

Universal acceptance of international laws, defining and forbidding genocide was achieved in 1948, with the promulgation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide(CPPCG). The CPPCG was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948 and came into effect on 12 January 1951 (Resolution 260 (III)). After the minimum 20 countries became parties to the Convention, it came into force as international law on 12 January 1951. At that time however, only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) were parties to the treaty, which caused the Convention to languish for over four decades.

[edit] Bangladesh War of 1971

Main articles: 1971 Bangladesh atrocities and Operation Searchlight

In 1997 R. J. Rummel published a book which is on the web called "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900", In Chapter 8 called "Statistics Of Pakistan's Democide Estimates, Calculations, And Sources" In it he looks at the 1971 Bangladesh War. Rummel wrote:

In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) [The President of Pakistan, General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, and his top generals] also planned to murder its Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They also planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cutthroat plan was outright genocide.[27]

Rummel goes on to collate the what considers the most credible estimates published by others into what he calls democide. He writes that "Consolidating both ranges, I give a final estimate of Pakistan's democide to be 300,000 to 3,000,000, or a prudent 1,500,000." Other authors like Anthony Mascarenhas and Donald W. Beachler have cited a figure ranging between 1 - 3 million civilians killed by Pakistan Army;[28] Bleacher states that both Pakistan and its primary ally USA have denied Genocide allegations.[29]

A case was filed in the Federal Court of Australia on 20 September, 2006 for alledged crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and its collaborators:[30]

   
Genocides in history
 We are glad to announce that a case has been filed in the Federal Magistrate's Court of Australia today under the Genocide Conventions Act 1949 and War Crimes Act. This is the first time in history that someone is attending a court proceeding in relation to the [alledged] crimes of Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during 1971 by the Pakistani Armed Forces and its collaborators. The Proceeding number is SYG 2672 of 2006. On 25 October 2006, a direction hearing will take place in the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia, Sydney registry before Federal Magistrate His Honor Nicholls.
   
Genocides in history

[edit] Burundi 1972

Main article: Burundi genocide

Between April and September 1972 between 100,000 and 150,000 Burundian Hutus were massacred. The massacres were in response to a Hutu rebellion earlier that year. At one point the rate of deaths reached 1,000 per day. Educated Hutus, specifically those with or who were achieving a high school education, were hunted down by the ruling Tutsi minority. (Power p.82-4)[31]

[edit] Cambodia

(1975–1979) Killed approximately 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975-1979. The Khmer Rouge, or more formally, the Communist Party of Kampuchea, led by Pol Pot, Ta Mok, Duch and other leaders, organized the mass killing of ideologically suspect groups, ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese or Sino-Khmers, ethnic Chams, ethnic Thais, former civil servants, demobilized soldiers, Buddhist monks, secular intellectuals and professionals, and refugees. Khmer Rouge cadres defeated in factional struggles were also liquidated in purges. The number of the victims is disputed.

See also: Democratic Kampuchea

[edit] East Timor under Indonesian occupation

Between 1975 and 1999 around 150,000 East Timorese - around a quarter of the population - were killed by the Indonesian military after Indonesia invaded and occupied East Timor. Most of these killings took place in the years 1975-1979. According to Sian Powell writing in The Australian, a UN report states that the Indonesian military used starvation as a weapon to exterminate the East Timorese, along with Napalm and chemical weapons which poisoned the food and water supply.[32] Ben Kiernan has written in War, Genocide, and Resistance in East Timor, 1975–99: Comparative Reflections on Cambodia that "the crimes committed ... in East Timor, with a toll of 150,000 in a population of 650,000, clearly meet a range of sociological definitions of genocide used by most scholars of the phenomenon, who see both political and ethnic groups as possible victims of genocide. The victims in East Timor included not only that substantial 'part' of the Timorese 'national group' targeted for destruction because of their resistance to Indonesian annexation—along with their relatives, as we shall see—but also most members of the twenty-thousand strong ethnic Chinese minority prominent in the towns of East Timor, whom Indonesian forces singled out for destruction, apparently because of their ethnicity 'as such.'" [33][34] As may be noted from the title, Bob Kiernan draws a comparisom with the Khmer Rouge Cambodian genocide, accusing the west of hypocrisy in ignoring one whilst protesting about the other.

On August 30, 1999, a United Nations-supervised popular referendum was held. The East Timorese voted for full independence from Indonesia, but violent clashes, instigated primarily by the Indonesian military (see Scorched Earth Operation) and aided by Timorese pro-Indonesia militias, led by Eurico Guiterres, broke out soon afterwards. A peacekeeping force (INTERFET, led by Australia) intervened to restore order.

[edit] Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

M. Hassan Kakar presents an argument in a chapter called Genocide Throughout the Country[1] in his book The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982[2] that the international definition of genocide is too restricted, and that it should include political groups or any group so defined by the perpetrator as described by Chalk and Jonassohn: “Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator.”[3]

Having established a broader definition of Genocide Kakar goes on to claim that during the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), "The Afghans are among the latest victims of genocide by a superpower. Large numbers of Afghans were killed to suppress resistance to the army of the Soviet Union, which wished to vindicate its client regime and realize its goal in Afghanistan. Thus, the mass killing was political."


[edit] Iraq

See also 1988 Anfal campaign

On December 23, 2005 a Dutch court ruled in a case brought against Frans van Anraat for supplying chemicals to Iraq, that "[it] thinks and considers legally and convincingly proven that the Kurdish population meets the requirement under the genocide conventions as an ethnic group. The court has no other conclusion that these attacks were committed with the intent to destroy the Kurdish population of Iraq." and because he supplied the chemicals before 16 March 1988, the date of the Halabja poison gas attack he is guilty of a war crime but not guilty of complicity in genocide.[35][36]

[edit] Tibet

In 2004 an American human rights lawyer, Reed Brody, persuaded the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to re-examine the Tibet question in light of alleged continuing persecution. The 370-page report documents the 1995 incarceration of the Panchen Lama, an 8-year-old child; the 1997 extension of martial law under the "Spiritual Civilization Campaign," which labels Buddhism a "foreign culture" to be eradicated; intensive "reeducation" of the Buddhist clergy; population transfer; widespread torture and detention; extrajudicial and arbitrary executions. The report calls for a "referendum to be held in Tibet under United Nations supervision to ascertain the wishes of the Tibetan people."[citation needed]

On 11 January 2006 it was reported that the Spanish High Court will investigate whether seven former Chinese officials, including the former President of China Jiang Zemin and former Prime Minister Li Peng participated in a genocide in Tibet. This investigation follows a Spanish Constitutional Court (26 September 2005) ruling that Spanish courts could try genocide cases even if they did not involve Spanish nationals.[37] The court proceedings in the case brought by the Madrid-based Committee to Support Tibet against several former Chinese officials was opened by the Judge on 6 June, 2006, and on the same day China denounced the Spanish court's investigation into claims of genocide in Tibet as an interference in its internal affairs and dismissed the allegations as "sheer fabrication".[38][39]

[edit] Genocides since 1991

In 1951 only two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) were parties to the CPPCG: France and the Republic of China. The CPPCG was ratified by the Soviet Union in 1954, the United Kingdom in 1970, the People's Republic of China in 1983 (having replaced the Taiwan-based Republic of China on the UNSC in 1971), and the United States in 1988. So it was only in the 1990s that the international law on the crime of genocide began to be enforced.

[edit] Bosnia

Main article Bosnian Genocide

(1992–1995) The Bosnian Genocide or Bosnia Genocide was an organized killing of Bosnians, predominantly Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) during the war between 1992 and 1995 by authorities of Republika Srpska and its Army.

The Bosnian Genocide has been proven at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) through the court case entitled Prosecutor vs Krstic (see Srebrenica Massacre). Thus far the Srebrenica massacre has been the only case which the UN Hague tribunal has officially defined as genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The presentation of evidence implicating the killing of at least 8,000 persons, predominantly Bosniaks, has been made. The government of Republika Srpska has admitted to 7,779 deaths at Srebrenica in July 1995. Bosnian-Herzegovinian Commission for Missing Persons claims that the number of killings is much greater than has been currently represented at the tribunal. Statement by Radovan Karadžić co-founder of Republika Srpska and its first president, alluded to the origins of this ideology on March 4, 1992 to the Bosnian Parliament:

..."the road to which you want to take Bosnia and Herzegovina is the same highway of hell which Slovenia and Croatia took. Don't think you won't take Bosnia and Herzegovina to hell and the Muslims into annihilation... Muslims can't defend themselves if there is war here"...

It also included organized ethnic cleansing carried out by Republika Srpska against Croats and Bosniaks over the wider region controlled by Republika Srpska displacing nearly a 1 million people.

Some claim that masacre in Srebrenica is a revenge for killing of Serbian people in villages around Srebrenica led by Naser Oric (Muslim military leader). Same sources claim that Serbs were also killed by Muslim Mujahedins who have come to Bosnia from Arab countries and they worked as paramilitary Muslim formations in Bosnia. It is doubtfull however that those crimes could be characterized in the line with genocide as there are no indictments of genocide over Serbs raised at the ICTY or any other Legal institution. This again however raises the question of the impartiality of the ICTY.

[edit] Rwanda

Main article Rwandan Genocide

During a period of 100 days in 1994, officially 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutus in Rwanda. The rate at which people were killed far exceeded any other genocide in history. Bodies were left wherever they were slain, mostly in the streets and their homes. The method of killing was done mostly with machetes. See also History of Rwanda.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is a court under the auspices of the United Nations for the prosecution of offenses committed in Rwanda during the genocide which occurred there during April and May, 1994, commencing on April 6. The ICTR was created on November 8, 1994 by the Security Council of the United Nations in order to judge those people responsible for the acts of genocide and other serious violations of the international law performed in the territory of Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between January 1 and December 31, 1994.

So far, the ICTR has finished nineteen trials and convicted twenty five accused persons. Another twenty five persons are still on trial. Nineteen are awaiting trial in detention. Ten are still at large. The first trial, of Jean-Paul Akayesu, began in 1997. Jean Kambanda, interim Prime Minister, plead guilty.[40]

[edit] Sudan

See also Darfur conflict

The United States government's Sudan Peace Act of October 21, 2002 accused Sudan of genocide in an ongoing civil war which has cost more than 2,000,000 lives and has displaced more than 4,000,000 people since the war started in 1983.[41]

In 2004 it became widely known that there was an organised campaign by Janjaweed militias (nomadic Arab shepherds with the support of Sudanese government and troops) to get rid of 80 black African groups from the Darfur region of western Sudan. These peoples include the Fur, Zaghawa and Massalit.[42][43]

Mukesh Kapila (United Nations humanitarian coordinator) is quoted as saying: "This is more than just a conflict. It is an organised attempt [by Khartoum] to do away with a group of people. The only difference between Rwanda [in 1994] and Darfur now is the numbers of dead, murdered, tortured and raped involved"[44][45]

On September 9, 2004 United States Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that the actions of the armed Muslim Arab Janjaweed organization in Darfur, conducted with the tacit approval, if not active support, of the Government of Sudan, constitute genocide. Powell stated before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility."[46]

A number of articles are available on the website of the Embassy of the Republic of Sudan in Washington D.C. including one by Jonathan Steele originally published in The Guardian on 7 October, 2005 in which he says that Colin Powell's decleration that the conflict in the western region of Darfur was as "genocide" was "a sop to the Christian right and anti-Islamist neocons" in the USA, as having made the claim the U.S. administration did "nothing, or at least no more than many other states, including Britain, which did not want the genocide label to be lightly used, and so devalued." The article concludes "Grim though it has been, this was not genocide or classic ethnic cleansing. Many of the displaced moved to camps a few kilometres from their homes. Professionals and intellectuals were not targeted, as in Rwanda. Darfur was, and is, the outgrowth of a struggle between farmers and nomads rather than a Balkan-style fight for the same piece of land."

Western countries are as yet undecided on whether to intervene directly, while at present millions of people are displaced, had their family separated and property destroyed. There is a risk of famine and epidemic because of overcrowding in camps, the destruction of agriculture, and poor supplies of medicine and food. To support the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed by the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement on January 9, 2005, to perform certain functions relating to humanitarian assistance, protection, promotion of human rights, and to support AMIS, the UN Security Council established the United Nations Mission In Sudan (UNMIS) under Resolution 1590 on March 24, 2005 because the Security Council deemed the situation in Darfur to be a "threat to peace and international security.".[47] The UN investigation found the Muslim-controlled Sudanese government had committed mass murder, rape and other human rights violations against approximately 100,000 non-Muslim civilians. In addition vast numbers of villages were burnt and pillaged resulting in a total of about 1.85 million displaced non-Muslim African tribespeople.[48] .

[edit] References

  • Pfitzner, Wolfgang, The Unknown Famine Holocaust - About the Causes of Mass Starvation in Britain's Colony of India 1942-1945, The Revisionist 1(1) (2003).
  • Braudel, Fernand, The Perspective of the World, vol. III of Civilization and Capitalism 1984 (in French 1979).
  • Cronon, William, Changes in the Land : Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England 1983 ISBN 0-8090-1634-6
  • Crosby, Alfred W., Ecological Imperialism : The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Cambridge University Press, 1986 ISBN 0-521-45690-8
  • Elst, Koenraad, [http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/negaind/ch2.htm Negationism
  • McCarthy, Justin., Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, (Darwin Press, 1995)

[edit] Further reading

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ a b M. Hassan Kakar Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 University of California press © 1995 The Regents of the University of California.
  2. ^ a b M. Hassan Kakar 4. The Story of Genocide in Afghanistan: 13. Genocide Throughout the Country
  3. ^ a b Frank Chalk, Kurt Jonassohn The History and Sociology of Genocide : Analyses and Case Studies, Yale University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-300-04446-1
  4. ^ Domocide versus genocide; which is what?
  5. ^ Mass Crimes against Humanity and Genocides: Past Genocide of Natives in North America
  6. ^ Hidden From History: The Canadian Holocaust: The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and State in Canada by (Rev.) Kevin Annett. �UNIQ34ef57b05403861-HTMLCommentStrip155667b64a71dc2000000001.
  7. ^ [http://www.mbamericana.com/Paxton%20Boys.htm Coultas, James Pair of Manuscripts 1764 Concerning the Paxton Boys
  8. ^ The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Volume One: Van Diemen's Land 1803-1847, Keith Windschuttle, 2002, ISBN 1-876492-05-8
  9. ^ "Contra Windschuttle", S.G. Foster Quadrant, March 2003, 47:3 [1]
  10. ^ a b R. J. Rummel Exemplifying the Horror of European Colonization:Leopold's Congo"
  11. ^ a b Andrew Osborn Belgium exhumes its colonial demons The Guardian July 13, 2002
  12. ^ James Mullin Irish Famine Education and the Holocaust 'Straw Man', Website American Chronicle, April 28, 2006.
  13. ^ The Great Irish Famine Approved by the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on September 10th, 1996, for inclusion in the Holocaust and Genocide Curriculum at the secondary level. Revision submitted 11/26/98.
  14. ^ Irish Famine Unit VI Genocide of the The Great Irish Famine Approved by the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education on September 10th, 1996
  15. ^ JewishEncyclopedia.com - "Cossacks' Uprising", by Herman Rosenthal
  16. ^ Antero Leitzinger The Circassian Genocide in The Eurasian Politician - Issue 2, October 2000, in the article it states that it was originally published in Turkistan News
  17. ^ a b 1915 declaration
  18. ^ Yadvashem - Shoah Resource Centre
  19. ^ 1915 Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution (Introduced in House of Representatives) 109th Congress, 1st Session, H.RES.316, June 14, 2005. 15 September 2005 House Committee/Subcommittee:International Relations actions. Status: Ordered to be Reported by the Yeas and Nays: 40 - 7.
  20. ^ Armenian issue allegations-facts
  21. ^ Sarah Rainsford Author's trial set to test Turkey BBC 14 December 2005.
  22. ^ Chris Morris Bitter history of Armenian genocide row BBC 23 January, 2001
  23. ^ Prime Minister Erdogan's letter dated 10 April 2005 on the website of the Turkish Embassy in Washington
  24. ^ Robert Mahoney Turkey: Nationalism and the Press CPJ 16 March 2006.
  25. ^ Swiss accept Armenia 'genocide', BBC 16 December, 2003
  26. ^ Associated Press report French lawmakers approve bill on Armenian genocide in the International Herald Tribune October 12, 2006
  27. ^ Rummel, Rudolph J., "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900", ISBN 3-8258-4010-7, Chapter 8, table 8.1
  28. ^ Anthony Mascarenhas (1986). Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood. Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-39420-X.
  29. ^ Genocide Denial; The Case of Bangladesh by Donald W. Beachler - Online summary hosted at Institute for the Study of Genocide
  30. ^ Raymond Faisal Solaiman v People's Republic of Bangladesh & Ors In The Federal Magistrates Court of Australia at Sydney
  31. ^ Power, Samantha, ISBN 0-06-054164-4,
  32. ^ Sian Powell UN verdict on East Timor, Jakarta correspondent, The Australian, January 19, 2006
  33. ^ Ben Kiernam War, Genocide, and Resistance in East Timor, 1975–99: Comparative Reflections on Cambodia (PDF), Chapter 9 page 202
  34. ^ Ben Kiernam footnotes "clearly meet a range of sociological definitions of genocide ..." with [13] – Lou Kuper, Genocide (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), pages 174-175
  35. ^ Anne Penketh and Robert Verkaik Dutch court says gassing of Iraqi Kurds was 'genocide' in The Independent 24 December 2005
  36. ^ Dutch man sentenced for role in gassing death of Kurds CBC News 23 December 2005
  37. ^ Spanish courts to investigate if a genocide took place in Tibet.
  38. ^ World in Brief: Lawyers take China to court in The Times, 7 June, 2006
  39. ^ Alexa Olesen China rejects Spain's 'genocide' claims in The Independent 7 June, 2006
  40. ^ These figures need revising they are from the ICTR page which says see www.ictr.org
  41. ^ U.S. Department of State: Sudan Peace Act October 21, 2002
  42. ^ Jonathan Clayton Desert hides world's worst humanitarian crisis in The Times May 13, 2004, Page 2
  43. ^ Hilary AnderssonGenocide lays waste Darfur’s land of no men in Sunday Times November 14, 2004
  44. ^ Fred Bridgland Darfur: Africa’s hidden holocaust? in Sunday Herald April 11, 2004
  45. ^ Darfur, Sudan: Crisis, response and lessons UK Parliament Press Notice 14, Session 2004-05
  46. ^ Powell calls Sudan killings genocide CNN September 9, 2004
  47. ^ UN keeps international focus on peace and humanitarian aid UN news centre
  48. ^ Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General,International Commission of Inquiry, 18 September 2004
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