Between and , during the course of its break-up into separate states, the former Yugoslavian federation saw widespread atrocities and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by all sides in a multi-sided conflict, involving Serbians, Croatians and Bosnians. A 'dance of death' occurred in which a killing frenzy spread and all sides engaged, committing atrocities against each other.
The slow and passive responses from the international community acted as a green light for Serbia in particular to continue its ethnic cleansing campaign. However, the escalation of the conflict in Bosnia, in which Bosnian Muslims were being slaughtered at the hands of Bosnian Serbs and Croatians, eventually prompted the UN to create 'safe areas' for Bosnian Muslims, for example, at Sarajevo, Gorazde and Srebrenica, but in reality, the UN peacekeepers were powerless to protect them.
Srebrenica, where some 7, people were killed in the space of two days in July , remains a symbol of a very dark moment in the history of humanity. This created an end to the violence in Bosnia, but more bloodshed was still to follow in Kosovo.
Here a violent struggle ensued from between the Serbs, who regarded Kosovo as their historical homeland, and the ethnic Albanians, who made up 90 per cent of the population of the province. After NATO forces eventually waged a war of aerial bombardment against Serbia in , Serbia withdrew its forces from Kosovo and half a million refugees returned to their homeland. If left unchallenged, the situation in Kosovo might have escalated into a similar genocide.
The recent memory of the events in Bosnia prompted action on the part of the international community. Rwanda in April witnessed the unleashing of the genocide of the Tutsi by the ruling Hutu-led government. The genocide was the culmination of the construction of differences and enmity between the Hutu and the Tutsi, which had begun in the colonial era.
The Tutsi were vilified and dehumanised. The Hutu referred to them as 'cockroaches'. This was a planned annihilation, in which the enemy was demonised and no mercy was to be shown to any Tutsi man, woman or child. The wife and closest advisers of President Habyarimana were directly responsible for planning the genocide. The interhamwe militias were in charge of the killings on the ground, mobilising the majority of the Hutu to kill the Tutsi.
Indeed, the scale of popular participation in the mass slaughter was one of the most extraordinary features of the Rwandan genocide. The Rwandan genocide claimed an estimated half a million lives. It was met with international indifference and inaction. In Britain, neither the government nor the public was interested.
Indeed, British officials played a significant part in shaping the international response to the situation in Rwanda - to get troops to leave, as well as a speedy evacuation of all westerners. The decision to abandon Rwanda was quick, with just a few volunteers staying behind. All governments and official bodies continued to recognise the government in Rwanda and none called for it to stop the genocide. The UN Security Council also failed to do anything to stop it.
Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, argues that genocide is a process that develops in eight stages. He asserts that the stages are predictable and that preventive measures can be taken at each stage. The first stage, classification, entails the distinction of people into different groups. This is a categorisation of 'them and us', based upon race, religion, nationality or ethnicity. The second stage, symbolisation, entails the naming of groups as 'other' and distinguishing them or marking them out from the rest of society.
Symbols are often forced upon 'enemy' groups, such as the Yellow Star to be worn by German Jews under Nazi rule. The third stage is dehumanisation, the denial of the humanity of the target group. Its members are vilified as vermin, pests, diseases or even inanimate objects. This process of dehumanisation makes murder somehow more acceptable, legitimate or even necessary in the eyes of the perpetrators.
The fourth stage is the organisation. Genocide is always intentional, planned and orchestrated from above, often executed by specially-trained militias. In Nazi-occupied Europe the SS-Einsatzgruppen were specially-trained killing squads who shot to death more than 1. In Rwanda, the interhamwe militias perpetrated the mass killings, and in Darfur since the Janjaweed militias have done the same. Polarisation is the fifth stage of the genocide process. Groups in society are separated, for example, by the banning of marriage or social interaction.
The enemy group is alienated and isolated. As well as targeting members of the enemy group, extremists also target moderates from their own group, who are most likely to want to avoid genocide. Moderate leaders may be among the first to be arrested and murdered. Looks at obstacles to the development of international mechanisms for such intervention. Identifies several impediments, such as historically realpolitik conceptualization of sovereignty and the international system, lack of political will both at the national and international levels, and the willful ignoring on the part of governments and international organizations of mass killings underway in different parts of the world.
In addition, other contributing factors to inaction when confronted by genocide include contending interpretations of the UN Genocide Convention, the role of the media, and the lack of sufficient information in the process of an ongoing genocide.
Totten, Samuel, and William S. Parsons, eds. Centuries of Genocide: Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. New York: Routledge, This anthology is essential reading on the genocides of the 20th century. The volume combines background information and analyses with eyewitness accounts to explore the causes and consequences of genocide. The final chapter considers the sociological and international dimensions of genocide prevention and legal, military, and humanitarian responses.
Valentino, Benjamin A. Cornell Studies in Security Affairs. Argues that although psychological and sociological factors e. Genocide is an instrument of policy, and prevention necessitates the removal from power of such leadership. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page.
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Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about About Related Articles close popup. Your current browser may not support copying via this button. Introduction The scholarship on genocide has grown exponentially since the s.
General Overviews The literature on genocide consists of general surveys; comparative analyses of two or more cases; anthologies on a specific genocide, with individual chapters analyzing various aspects of the case; and case studies that offer historical analyses with varying degrees of detail and units of analysis.
How to Subscribe Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. Cambodia and Rwanda both experienced terrible genocides in the second half of the 20th century. Historical Genocides. Causes: three main theories. The mainstream theories of the causes of can be broadly summarised as: Fractionalisation, grievance and dehumanisation : This group of theories collectively argue that genocide can be predicted by higher ethnolinguistic or religious fractionalisation within a country combined with grievances between groups.
The final important dimension is dehumanisation of the victim group. This theory is associated with the sociologist Leo Kuper, who conducted some of the earliest studies in comparative genocide. This causality is motivated by one of two theories, the scapegoat theory and the political opportunity theory. The first theory posits that a particular group is identified as the cause of the crisis and that the solution is to eliminate the group.
The second theory instead argues that the crisis creates the opportunity for a group to consolidate their power. Government power : This theory is largely due to Rudolph Rummel and is referred to as the power principle.
The more constrained the power of governments, the less it will aggress on others. The United Nations uses the following definition to classify acts of genocide: 6 any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
His definitions are listed below: 7 Genocide : among other things, the killing of people by a government because of their indelible group membership race, ethnicity, religion, language. Politicide : the murder of any person or people by a government because of their politics or for political purposes.
Mass Murder : the indiscriminate killing of any person or people by a government. Democide : The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder. Data Sources. Rudolph Rummel: 20th Century Democide. Genocide Studies Programme at Yale. Wordpress Edit Page. Our World in Data is free and accessible for everyone.
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