Portal:Genocide

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The Genocide Portal

Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people.

Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] culture, language, national feelings, religion, and [its] economic existence". During the struggle to ratify the Genocide Convention, powerful countries restricted Lemkin's definition to exclude their own actions from being classified as genocide, ultimately limiting it to any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Genocide has occurred throughout human history, even during prehistoric times, but is particularly likely in situations of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Therefore, it is usually associated with colonial empires and settler colonies, as well as with both world wars and repressive governments in the twentieth century. The colloquial understanding of genocide is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted for their ethnic identity rather than for any political reason. Genocide is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil and often referred to as the "crime of crimes"; consequently, events are often denounced as genocide. (Full article...)

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De-Cossackization (Russian: Расказачивание, romanized: Raskazachivaniye) was the Bolshevik policy of systematic repression against the Cossacks in the former Russian Empire between 1919 and 1933, especially the Don and Kuban Cossacks in Russia, aimed at the elimination of the Cossacks as a distinct collectivity by exterminating the Cossack elite, coercing all other Cossacks into compliance, and eliminating Cossack distinctness. Several scholars have categorised this as a form of genocide, whilst other historians have highly disputed this classification due to the contentious figures which range from "a few thousand to incredible claims of hundreds of thousands".

The campaign began in March 1919 in response to growing Cossack insurgency. According to Nicolas Werth, one of the authors of The Black Book of Communism, Soviet leaders deciding to "eliminate, exterminate, and deport the population of a whole territory", which they had taken to calling the "Soviet Vendée". The process has been described by scholar Peter Holquist as part of a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups" that showed the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering". Throughout this period, the policy underwent significant modifications, which resulted in the "normalization" of Cossacks as a component part of Soviet society. (Full article...)

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Israel W. Charny (1931 – 14 December 2024) was an Israeli psychologist and genocide scholar. He is the editor of two-volume Encyclopedia of Genocide, and executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. (Full article...)

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"Over the past five years, I have often recalled that the United Nations' Charter begins with the words: "We the peoples." What is not always recognized is that "we the peoples" are made up of individuals whose claims to the most fundamental rights have too often been sacrificed in the supposed interests of the state or the nation. A genocide begins with the killing of one man – not for what he has done, but because of who he is. A campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' begins with one neighbour turning on another. Poverty begins when even one child is denied his or her fundamental right to education. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life, all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations."

— Kofi Annan, Nobel lecture, 2001

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Image 1Bones of anti-Nazi German women still are in the crematoriums in the German concentration camp at Weimar (Buchenwald), Germany, taken by the 3rd U.S. Army. Prisoners of all nationalities were tortured and killed. 04/14/1945
Image 2"A relic of the Armenian massacres at Erzingan", image taken from US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau's memoirs (1918).
Image 3Mummified victims of the Rwandan Genocide (1994) at Murambi Technical School. Photograph taken in July 2001 by Emmanuel Cattier.
Image 4Gas canisters and hair of Holocaust victims from a Nazi concentration camp.
Image 5The bodies of the dead lie awaiting burial in a mass grave at the camp. (Bergen-Belsen concentration camp)
Image 6Picture showing Armenians killed during the Armenian Genocide. Image taken from Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, written by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and published in 1918.
Image 7Rwandan refugee camp in Zaire.
Image 8Corpse of Soviet Famine victims transported to the cemetery. (Kherson)
Image 9Emaciated corpses of children in Warsaw Ghetto.
Image 10Original caption states: "Deep gashes delivered by the killers are visible in the skulls that fill one room at the Murambi School." Aftermath of Rwandan genocide.

Did you know...

... that in South Africa's genocide case against Israel, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to "punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza?
... that historian Dirk Moses argues that The Problems of Genocide include "blinding us to other types of humanly caused civilian death"?

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Genocide lists

International prosecution of genocide (ad hoc tribunals)

It is commonly accepted that, at least since World War II, genocide has been illegal under customary international law as a peremptory norm, as well as under conventional international law. Acts of genocide are generally difficult to establish, for prosecution, since intent, demonstrating a chain of accountability, has to be established. International criminal courts and tribunals function primarily because the states involved are incapable or unwilling to prosecute crimes of this magnitude themselves.

For more information see:

Genocide: International prosecution of genocide (ad hoc tribunals)

International prosecution of genocide (International Criminal Court)

To date all international prosecutions for genocide have been brought in specially convened international tribunals. Since 2002, the International Criminal Court can exercise its jurisdiction if national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute genocide, thus being a "court of last resort," leaving the primary responsibility to exercise jurisdiction over alleged criminals to individual states. Due to the United States concerns over the ICC, the United States prefers to continue to use specially convened international tribunals for such investigations and potential prosecutions.^[1]

For more information see:

Genocide: International prosecution of genocide (International Criminal Court)

References
^ "Statement by Carolyn Willson, Minister Counselor for International Legal Affairs, on the Report of the ICC, in the UN General Assembly" (PDF). (123 KiB) November 23 2005