Genocides in history

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."

Genocide appears to be a regular and widespread feature of the history of civilization. The phrase "never again" often used in relation to genocide has been contradicted up to the present day.

Determining what historical events constitute a genocide and which are merely criminal or inhuman behavior is not a clearcut matter. Furthermore, 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.

Alternative meanings of genocide

According to R. J. Rummel, genocide has 3 different meanings. The ordinary meaning is mass murder by government of people due to their national, ethnical, 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 third generalized meaning of genocide is similar to the ordinary meaning but also includes government killings of political opponents or otherwise intentional mass murder. It is to avoid confusion regarding what meaning is intended that Rummel created the term democide for the third meaning.Democide Versus Genocide: Which is What? - by R.J. Rummel

Ancient/medieval genocides

Biblical genocides

A record of several alleged genocides is found in the Bible, although the perceived accuracy and import of these accounts is related to the reader's opinion of the Bible as a whole. To name a few:

The sexual abuse and killing of the Israelites by the Egyptians.

The war and ensuing genocide waged against the Canaanites by the Israelites, in which God gives a commandment to never allow any Canaanite to remain alive.

The extermination of the Amalekites at the hands of King Saul of Israel at the behest of Samuel.

The conquest and massacre of various Middle Eastern peoples, by the empires of Assyria and Babylon.

Scythian slaughter of Cimmerians

Very little information is available on the matter at this time, but the Scythians are believed to have massacred the majority of the Cimmerian population as they swept westward on both sides of the Black Sea in the 7th century BC. The range of this bloodshed extended from the Caspian Sea as far west as Romania and central Turkey. Since both tribal groups are believed to have been illiterate at the time, if not for the accounts of Greek historian Herodotus, this course of genocide would have likely been deeply buried away from memory.

Roman Empire

Many campaigns of the Roman Empire can by modern standards be rated as genocide:

Julius Caesar's campaign against the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland): approximately 60% of the tribe was destroyed, and another 20% ran up high deficits.

Julius Caesar's campaign against the Gauls (present-day France) under Vercingetorix: over 1 million (probably 1 in 4 of the Gauls) were killed, another million were enslaved and 800 cities were destroyed. The entire population of city of Avaricum (Bourges) (40,000 in all) was slaughtered.

Carthage: the city was completely destroyed in the Third Punic War, and its people killed or enslaved. Almost a century later, Caesar ordered the city rebuilt.

Jerusalem: the city was burned in the Destruction of Jerusalem and its people killed or enslaved. The Emperor Hadrian rebuilt and repopulated the city, then named it Aelia Capitolina.

France

The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) in France can be considered as a case of genocide. It was carried out against the Cathar people, militarily and by use of the Inquisition.

Genghis Khan and his sons

One of the greatest alleged genocides in terms of raw numbers is the killings that occurred during the formation of the empire of Genghis Khan and his sons. It is estimated that millions of civilians were ruthlessly and systematically killed throughout many parts of Eurasia in the 13th Century. The reliability of the data in these instances is often thrown into question and the exact or even relative number of deaths at the hands of the mongols may never be known. It is also important to note that Genghis Khan almost always gave his enemies a chance to surrender and submit to him, only when they refused did he exterminate them.

Baghdad in the 13th century had become the cultural center of Islam and is believed to have been the world's largest city at the time. It was the seat of the Caliphate from its founding in 766 by Abbasid caliph Jaffar al-Mansour until its sack by Mongol and Turkic armies under Hulagu Khan in 1258. Around two-thirds of its 1.5 million inhabitants were slaughtered without regard to religion, ethnicity, gender, or age. Hulagu intended this act to be a message to the remainder of Islamic Asia to submit or face the same fate.

Islamic conquest of South Asia

Many Hindus, Buddhists and Jains were killed during the Islamic conquest of South Asia. Sometimes this was on the basis of their religion depending on who reigned. The worst killings were committed during the reign of Mahmud of Ghazni, Mohammed Ghori and later the Delhi Sultanate.

Genocides from 1500 to 1950

In the past century, more or less systematic sprees of deliberate large-scale killings of entire groups of people have occurred in what is now the countries of Turkey, Namibia, Congo, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, China, Cambodia, Rwanda and Sudan.

In a wider historical perspective, genocide, has been common throughout history, the annihilation of entire peoples, 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.

The Americas

The indigenous populations of the Americas sharply plummetted 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 Indians 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.Mass Crimes against Humanity and Genocides: Past Genocide of Natives in North America

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 -- and the spread of European disease, notably smallpox.

Argentina

In the 1880s Argentine President Julio Roca launched a campaign to exterminate the Indian population of the Pampas and the Patagonia regions. The offensive led to the death of some 20,000 Indian.

See Conquest of the Desert

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.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.

Paraguay

The War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) almost totally destroyed Paraguay and ended the relative development that took place during its first decades of existence. 300,000 Paraguayans—including a very high proportion of men of military age—were killed.

The United States

Throughout the 19th century, Native Americans were driven off their traditional lands to facilitate the installation of settlers (colonists). On some occasions, entire villages were massacred by the U.S. Army. Tribes were generally relocated to reservations on which they could be more readily pushed toward assimilation into mainstream U.S. society.

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.Coultas, James ^*

Australia

The Black War refers to a period of conflict between the British colonists and 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.

On a federal level, since at least 1901 it was Australian policy to remove 'half-caste' (mixed Aboriginal/European) children from their families. Defended in terms of social welfare, it is now perceived to have caused extensive emotional and cultural damage among the Aboriginal people. This practice falls neatly within the (otherwise shaky) UN definition: "forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." Australia signed the UN Convention in 1951, however the practice was continued until 1972. Individuals who were taken from their families are now said to belong to the "Stolen Generation".

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 and 1920 the population of the Congo fell precipicely due to murder, starvation, exhaustion induced by over-work, and disease. Estimates vary on how many died and over what period the deaths occurred, they range from a 1904 report that between 1888 and 1904 3 million died, to that of Fredric Wertham in his 1966 book "A Sign For Cain: A Exploration of Human Violence" in which he estimates that the population of the Congo dropped from 30 million to 8.5 million, a loss of 21.5 million. R. J. Rummel Exemplifying the Horror of European Colonization:Leopold's Congo"

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 mainly made on the proceeds of Congolese rubber, which had historically never been mass-produced in surplus quantities

The mass-deaths in the Congo Free State became a cause celèbre in the last years of the 19th century and a great embarrassment to not only to the King but also 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 headed led a vigorous international movement against the treatment of the indigenous population in the Congo. Andrew Osborn Belgium exhumes its colonial demons The Guardian July 13, 2002

In 1999 Adam Hochschild published a book called "King Leopold's Ghost". It catalogued a series of crimes committed by King Leopold's regime, and made the allegation that 10 million had died, and compared it to the Holocaust and Stalin's purges. The Guardian reported in July 2002, that after initial outrage by Belgium historians, the state funded Museum of the Belgian Congo would fund an investigation into Hochschild's allegations. The investigatory panel, that was likely to be headed by Professor Jean-Luc Vellut, was scheduled to report its findings in 2004.

Croatia

(1941 - 1945)

The 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 people killed by the Ustashe between 1941-1945 is uncertain and has been debated. Please see Ustaše#Victims and Jasenovac concentration camp for details.

"The Vatican's Holocaust" by Avro Manhattan"The Vatican's Holocaust" by Avro Manhattan

Germany

Nazi genocide before and during World War II, The Holocaust (1933–1945). Upwards of 11 million people were systematically exterminated by the Nazis and their collaborators. The main targets of the Holocaust were the Jews of Europe, of whom approximately 6 million were killed, including 1.5 million children, in what was called by the Nazis the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". Other targets of the Holocaust included Poles, Roma (see Porajmos), Slavs, homosexuals, and political opponents such as communists.

The Holocaust differed from previous genocides in several features, including its premeditation, scale, efficiency, and cruelty. 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 they were confined in ghettos before being transported to extermination camps where they were killed.

German South-West Africa

Herero Genocide: (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

Japan

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

The Second Sino-Japanese war began in 1937 when Japan invaded Mainland China. During the time of Japanese colonization in World War II, millions of prisoners of war and citizens were murdered. However the greatest Japanese war crime would be the Nanking Massacre, in which Japanese 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.

Ottoman Empire (Turkey)

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:

"^*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".1915 declaration

ffirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution 106th Congress,,2nd Session, House of Representatives
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.
Original source of the telegram sent by the Department of State, Washington containing the French, British and Russian joint declaration

On 15 September 2005 an 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 Turkish 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." 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.

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 2001, Argentina and Russia."Swiss accept Armenia 'genocide', BBC 16 December, 2003

The Turkish Government disputes this interpretation of events and maintains that crucial documents supporting the genocide thesis are actually falsifications Armenian issue allegations-facts. 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" Sarah Rainsford Author's trial set to test Turkey BBC 14 December 2005.. However, Turkish authorities do acknowledge that the issue should be left to the historiansChris Morris Bitter history of Armenian genocide row BBC 23 January, 2001 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 Turkey and Armenia but also in the archives of all relevant third countries and to share their findings with the international public" Prime Minister Erdogan's letter dated 10 April 2005 on the website of the Turkish Embassy in Washington. 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 ArmeniansRobert Mahoney Turkey: Nationalism and the Press CPJ 16 March 2006..

Philippines

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 concentration camps. Such a massacre happened in the town of Balangiga, where they killed men 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.

The Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania

The Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania experienced a rarely-mentioned genocide 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. JewishEncyclopedia.com - "Cossacks' Uprising", by Herman Rosenthal As a result of events during The Deluge, population of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth dropped by one-third.

Russian Empire

Antero Leitzinger writes in an article titled "The Circassian Genocide" that:

The genocide committed against the Circassian nation by Czarist Russia in the 1800s was the biggest genocide of the nineteenth century. Yet it has been almost entirely forgotten by later history, while everyone knows the later Jewish Holocaust and many have heard about the Armenian genocide. "Rather than of separate, selectively researched genocides, we should speak of a general genocidal tendency that affected many – both Muslim and Christian – people on a wide scene between 1856 and 1956, continuing in post-Soviet Russia until today".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

Soviet Union

(1932–1933) Holodomor : By various estimates 7,000,000 to 15,000,000 people, mostly Ukrainians, died. The proponents of the "Holodomor" term maintain that the famine was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people engineered by the Soviet government. This opinion is contested by others who state that the famine struck an area significantly larger than Ukraine alone.

In 1932, the Soviets increased the grain procurement quota for Ukraine by 44%. They were aware that this extraordinarily high quota would result in a grain shortage, therefore resulting in the inability of the Ukrainian peasants to feed themselves. Soviet law was quite clear in that no grain could be given to feed the peasants until the quota was met. Communist party officials with the aid of military troops and NKVD secret police units were used to move against peasants who may be hiding grain from the Soviet government. Even worse, an internal passport system was implemented to restrict movements of Ukrainian peasants so that they could not travel in search of food. Ukrainian grain was collected and stored in grain elevators that were guarded by military units & NKVD secret police units while Ukrainians were starving in the immediate area. The purpose of these Moscow-instigated actions was a deliberate campaign of genocide against the Ukrainian peasants.

When Winston Churchill visited Stalin at the Kremlin in August, 1942 he asked: "Have the stresses of the war been as bad to you personally as carrying through the policy of the Collective Farms?" "Oh, no," he (Stalin) said; "The Collective Farm policy was a terrible struggle...Ten millions," he said, holding up his hands. "It was fearful. Four years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary..." Stalin went on to tell the British Prime Minister that some peasants "agreed to come in with us" and were given land to cultivate in Tomsk or lrkutsk (both in Siberia). "But," Stalin added, "the great bulk (of the 10 million) were very unpopular and were wiped out by their laborers(?)." Stalin's official policy after the fact was one of official denial, and one that was honored until after the collapse of the USSR.The Artificial Famine/Genocide in Ukraine 1932-33

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.

Bangladesh War of 1971

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) 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.Rummel, Rudolph J., "Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900", ISBN 3825840107, Chapter 8, table 8.1

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."

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

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

M. Hassan Kakar presents an argument in a chapter called Genocide Throughout the CountryM. Hassan Kakar 4. The Story of Genocide in Afghanistan: 13. Genocide Throughout the Country in his book The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982M. Hassan Kakar Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 University of California press © 1995 The Regents of the University of California. 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.”Frank Chalk, Kurt Jonassohn The History and Sociology of Genocide : Analyses and Case Studies'', Yale University Press, 1990, ISBN 0300044461

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."

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 "^* 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. Anne Penketh and Robert Verkaik Dutch court says gassing of Iraqi Kurds was 'genocide' in The Independent 24 December 2005 Dutch man sentenced for role in gassing death of Kurds CBC News 23 December 2005

Tibet

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. Spanish courts to investigate if a genocide took place in Tibet.

"Spain to investigate 'genocide' in Tibet" The Independent in the section "European News in brief" on Wednesday 11 January 2006 Page 19
Spanish court to investigate Tibet massacre case Reuters report in the New Zealand Herald 12 January 2006

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.

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.

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 of those slain were left in the streets. Bodies were left wherever they were slain, mostly in the streets and thier 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 These figures need revising they are from the ICTR page which says see www.ictr.org.

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. U.S. Department of State: Sudan Peace Act October 21, 2002

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. Jonathan Clayton Desert hides world's worst humanitarian crisis in The Times May 13, 2004, Page 2 Hilary AnderssonGenocide lays waste Darfur’s land of no men in Sunday Times November 14, 2004

Mukesh Kapila (United Nations humanitarian coordinator) is quoted as saying: "This is more than just a conflict. It is an organised attempt Khartoum to do away with a group of people. The only difference between Rwanda 1994 and Darfur now is the numbers of dead, murdered, tortured and raped involved" Fred Bridgland Darfur: Africa’s hidden holocaust? in Sunday Herald'' April 11, 2004 Darfur, Sudan: Crisis, response and lessons UK Parliament Press Notice 14, Session 2004-05

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." Powell calls Sudan killings genocide CNN September 9, 2004

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." UN keeps international focus on peace and humanitarian aid UN news centre

References

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 0809016346
Crosby, Alfred W., Ecological Imperialism : The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Cambridge University Press, 1986 ISBN 0521456908
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)

Footnotes

Genocide

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