A crime without a name…
•
“The aggressor ... retaliates by the most frightful cruelties. As
his Armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated. Scores
of thousands - literally scores of thousands - of executions in cold
blood are being perpetrated by the German Police-troops upon the
Russian patriots who defend their native soil. Since the Mongol
invasions of Europe in the Sixteenth Century, there has never been
methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching
such a scale.
•
“And this is but the beginning. Famine and pestilence have yet
to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks.
•
“We are in the presence of a crime without a name.”
- Winston Churchill describing the brutality of the German
forces occupying Russia, 1941.
The definition and characteristics of
genocide are very clear, but politics
play a large role….
“All
that is needed
for the triumph of evil
is that good men do nothing.”
~Edmund Burke
Genocide
geno – meaning race
cide – meaning killing
The word genocide was coined in
the midst of the Holocaust by a
Polish scholar by the name Lemkin.
Where does the Word Genocide Come
From?
Geno- cide
Geno- from the
Greek word Genos,
which means birth,
race of a similar
kind, tribe, family
Cide- From the
Latin word Cida,
which means to
kill.
History of the word “Genocide”
• In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael
Lemkin coined the term genocide.
• On December 9th, 1948, the United Nations
approved the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
• The UN made it an international crime to commit
genocide, with all of its member nations agreeing
to “undertake to prevent and punish” the crime.
Shocking Quotes
• “More than 50 million people were
systematically murdered in the past 100 yearsthe century of mass murder.”
• “In sheer numbers, these and other killings
make the 20th century the bloodiest period in
human history.”
National Geo. 2006
What is Genocide??
“Any of the following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic,
racial or religious group, as such:
1. Killing members of the group.
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm.
3. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life for physical
destruction in whole or in part.
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births
within the group
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to
another group."
GENOCIDE
• Genocide: An attempt to eliminate, in whole or in large part,
a particular group of people (such as national, ethnic, racial,
religious, social, or political groups).
• Mass Murder: The intentional killing of a large number of
people who are either unwilling or unable to defend
themselves.
• Ethnic Cleansing: The attempt to remove a particular group of
people from a particular geographic area through the use of
terror.
• Discrimination: Positive or negative behavior toward a
particular group
• rules or laws directed against a group or its members;
• or practices that subordinate people of a particular group.
• positive behaviors, policies and practices that systematically
advantage one group over another.
10
examples of genocide, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and discrimination
GENOCIDE
Nazis: (19331945)
Jews,
Gypsies,
gays &
lesbians,
communists,
mentally ill
KILLED: @11
MILLION
Turks:
Armenians
in WWI
(1914-1918)
KILLED:@2
MILLION
ETHNIC CLEANSING
MASS
MURDER U.S. & Native Americans
Slave Trade Pop. of NAs reduced
from about 2million to
(U.S. &
500,000 over 300 years.
many W. -mass murder
European - -- starvation
countries): -- war
--- forced removals
@1600- -- disease
1850
Yugoslavia
KILLED:@20 Serbs in Bosnia
MILLION (1980s,1990s)
-- terror, expulsion, and
Turks
Armenians, thousands found in mass
graves
1890s
KILLED
300400,000
DISCRIMINATION
History of many
non-Northern
European groups
in U.S.
-- Irish, Italians,
eastern
Europeans, Jews,
AfricanAmericans,
Latinos, Asians,
etc.
Women around
the world
Hindu Caste
system
11
Major genocides of the 20th century
•
The Herero Genocide, Namibia, 1904-05
Death toll: 60,000 (3/4 of the population)
•
The Armenian Genocide, Ottoman Empire,
1915-23
Death toll: Up to 1.5 million
•
•
•
•
The Ukrainian Famine, 1932-1933
Death toll: 7 million
The Nanking Massacre, 1937-1938
Death toll: 300,000 (50% of the pop)
The World War II Holocaust, Europe, 194245
Death toll: 6 million Jews, and millions of
others, including Poles, Roma, homosexuals,
and the physically and mentally
handicapped,
The Cambodian Genocide, 1975-79
Death toll: 2 million
• The East Timor Genocide, 19751999
Death toll: 120,000 (20% of the
population)
• The Mayan Genocide, Guatemala,
1981-83
Death toll: Tens of thousands
• Iraq, 1988
Death toll: 50-100,000
• The Bosnian Genocide, 1991-1995
Death toll: 200,000
• The Rwandan Genocide, 1994
Death toll: 800,000
• The Darfur Genocide, Sudan ,
2003-present
Death toll: debated. 100,000?
300,000? 500,000?
th
20
&
st
21
Century Genocides
• Armenian (1915-1918): by Ottoman
Turks 1.5 mil Armenians, over 800,000
others
• Jewish (1939-1945): by Nazi Germany 
6 mil Jews, 3 mil Poles, 1.25 mil others
• Cambodian (1975-1979): by Khmer
Rouge 1.2 million to 2 million
Cambodians
20th & 21st Century Genocides
• Bosnia (1992-1995): by Serbs  200,000
Bosnian Muslims
• Rwanda (1994): by Hutu militias  800,000
Tutsis
• Darfur (2003*- ): by Arab govn’t backed
militia  ? Of up to 500,000 , 1.3 mil
displaced non-Arabs (Fur, Zaghawa, Masalit)
(There are more, esp. by forced famines!!)
BOSNIA
The 8 Stages of
Genocide
According to Gregory H. Stanton
with Genocide Watch (Originally written in 1996 at the
Department of State; presented at the Yale University
Center for International and Area Studies in 1998)
The 8 Stages of Genocide
• Understanding the genocidal process is one of the
most important steps in preventing future
genocides.
• The Eight Stages of Genocide were first outlined
by Dr. Greg Stanton, Department of State: 1996.
• The first six stages are Early Warnings:
• Classification
• Symbolization
• Dehumanization
• Organization
• Polarization
• Preparation
1. Classification
• Distinguish b/w “us & them”
–Ethnicity, race, religion, nationality
–Occurs in all cultures
• Societies w/ no mixed categories have greater
chance of genocide
Prevention Must actively endorse
understanding & tolerance, search for a
common ground
Stage 1: Classification
• “Us versus them”
• Distinguish by nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion.
• Bipolar societies (Rwanda) most likely to have genocide
because no way for classifications to fade away through
inter-marriage.
• Classification is a primary method of dividing society and
creating a power struggle between groups.
1. CLASSIFICATION:
• All cultures have categories to distinguish
people into "us and them" by ethnicity, race,
religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu
and Tutsi.
• Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories,
such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most
likely to have genocide.
Classification (Rwanda)
Belgian colonialists believed Tutsis were a naturally superior nobility,
descended from the Israelite tribe of Ham. The Rwandan royalty was Tutsi.
Belgians distinguished between Hutus and Tutsis by nose size, height & eye
type. Another indicator to distinguish Hutu farmers from Tutsi pastoralists
was the number of cattle owned.
Prevention: Classification
– Promote common identities (national,
religious, human.)
– Use common languages (Swahili in
Tanzania, science, music.)
– Actively oppose racist and divisive
politicians and parties.
2. Symbolization
• Applying names/symbols/colors/dress to
members of grps.
–Yellow star for Jews
–Blue scarf for Eastern Cambodians
• Stages 1 & 2 are almost natural problem
comes when combined w/ hatred
Stage 2: Symbolization

Names: “Jew”, “German”, “Hutu”, “Tutsi”.
 Languages.
 Types
of dress.
Group uniforms: Nazi Swastika armbands
Colors and religious symbols:
•Yellow star for Jews
•Blue checked scarf Eastern Zone in Cambodia
2SYMBOLIZATION
• We give names or other symbols to the
classifications.
• We name people "Jews" or "Gypsies", or
distinguish them by colors or dress; and apply
them to members of groups.
• Classification and symbolization are universally
human and do not necessarily result in
genocide unless they lead to the next stage,
dehumanization.
• When combined with hatred, symbols may be
forced upon unwilling members of pariah
groups: the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule,
the blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone
in Khmer Rouge Cambodia.
Stage 2: Symbolization (Rwanda)
“Ethnicity” was first noted on cards by Belgian Colonial Authorities in 1933.
Tutsis were given access to limited education programs and Catholic
priesthood. Hutus were given less assistance by colonial auhorities.
At independence, these preferences were reversed. Hutus were favored.
These ID cards were later used to distinguish Tutsis from Hutus in the 1994
massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus that resulted in 800,000+ deaths.
Symbolization (Nazi Germany)
Jewish Passport: “Reisepäss”
Required to be carried by all Jews by 1938. Preceded the yellow star.
Symbolization (Cambodia)
• People in the Eastern
Zone, near Vietnam,
were accused of having
“Khmer bodies, but
Vietnamese heads.”
• They were deported to
other areas to be
worked to death.
• They were marked with
a blue and white
checked scarf (Kroma)
2. Symbolism cont’d
Prevention Make hate symbols/speech
illegal
–Bulgaria refused the yellow star 80%
of Jews went w/o it lost its
significance
**BUT…the ban has to be widely
supported
–“Hutu” & “Tutsi” were banned in
Burundi, but code words just replaced
them
Prevention: Symbolization
• Get ethnic, religious, racial, and national
identities removed from ID cards, passports.
• Protest imposition of marking symbols on
targeted groups (yellow cloth on Hindus in
Taliban Afghanistan).
• Protest negative or racist words for groups
(“niggers, kaffirs,” etc.) Work to make them
culturally unacceptable.
Stage 3: Dehumanization
• One group denies the humanity of another group, and makes the
victim group seem subhuman.
• Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against
murder.
.
Der Stürmer Nazi Newspaper:
“The Blood Flows; The Jew Grins”
Kangura Newspaper, Rwanda: “The
Solution for Tutsi Cockroaches”
3. Dehumanization
• Members of grp. are not seen as human
(rather animals, insects, disease)
–Tutsis were referred to as cockroaches
• Hate propaganda takes over (radios, posters,
news)
–Not protected as free speech under true
democratic constitutions
Prevention Must be put down promptly!
(shut down radio signals)
3.
DEHUMANIZATION:
• One group denies the humanity of the
other group.
• Members of it are equated with animals,
vermin, insects or diseases.
• Dehumanization overcomes the normal
human revulsion against murder.
Dehumanization
From a Nazi SS Propaganda Pamphlet:
Caption: Does the same soul dwell in these bodies?
Dehumanization
• Hate propaganda in speeches, print and on hate radios vilify
the victim group.
• Members of the victim group are described as animals,
vermin, and diseases. Hate radio, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille
Collines, during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, broadcast anti-Tutsi
messages like “kill the cockroaches” and “If this disease is not treated
immediately, it will destroy all the Hutu.”
• Dehumanization invokes superiority of one group and
inferiority of the “other.”
• Dehumanization justifies murder by calling it “ethnic cleansing,” or
“purification.” Such euphemisms hide the horror of mass murder.
Prevention: Dehumanization
• Provide programs for tolerance to radio, TV,
and newspapers.
• Enlist religious and political leaders to speak
out and educate for tolerance.
• Organize inter-ethnic, interfaith, and interracial groups to work against hate and
genocide.
Stage 4: Organization
• Genocide is a group crime, so must be organized.
• The state usually organizes, arms and financially supports the groups
that conduct the genocidal massacres. (State organization is not a legal
requirement --Indian partition.)
• Plans are made by elites for a “final solution” of genocidal killings.
4. ORGANIZATION:
• Genocide is always organized, usually by
the state, though sometimes informally
• Examples: Hindu mobs led by local RSS
militants or by terrorist groups.
• Special army units or militias are often
trained and armed.
• Plans are made for genocidal killings.
4. Organization
• ALWAYS organized
– State often uses militias (Janjaweed in Sudan)
• Used as scapegoats (deny responsibility)
– Well-trained militants can also form mobs or
terrorist grps.
Prevention Militias must be forbidden, leaders
denied rights, arms embargoes enacted
Prevention: Organization
• Treat genocidal groups as the organized crime
groups they are. Make membership in them illegal
and demand that their leaders be arrested.
• Deny visas to leaders of hate groups and freeze
their foreign assets.
• Impose arms embargoes on hate groups and
governments supporting ethnic or religious hatred.
• Create UN commissions to enforce such arms
embargoes and call on UN members to arrest arms
merchants who violate them.
Stage 5: Polarization
•
•
•
•
Extremists drive the groups apart.
Hate groups broadcast and print polarizing propaganda.
Laws are passed that forbid intermarriage or social interaction.
Political moderates are silenced, threatened and intimidated, and
killed.
•Public demonstrations
were organized against
Jewish merchants.
• Moderate German
dissenters were the first
to be arrested and sent
to concentration camps.
5 POLARIZATION:
• Extremists drive the groups apart.
• Hate groups broadcast polarizing
propaganda.
• Laws may forbid intermarriage or social
interaction.
• Extremist terrorism targets moderates,
intimidating and silencing the center.
Polarization
• Attacks are staged
and blamed on
targeted groups.
In Germany, the Reichstag fire was
blamed on Jewish Communists in
1933.
• Cultural centers of
targeted groups are
attacked.
On Kristalnacht in 1938, hundreds
of synagogues were burned.
5. Polarization
• Grps. ripped apart by extremists
– Hate propaganda broadcasts separation;
sometimes makes interaxn illegal
– Silences/intimidates moderates
• They stand greatest chance of stopping genocide,
so killed 1st
Prevention Need security for moderates &
human rights grps.
Prevention International sanctions on
extremist coups d’états
Prevention: Polarization
• Vigorously protest laws or policies that segregate or
marginalize groups, or that deprive whole groups of
citizenship rights.
• Physically protect moderate leaders, by use of
armed guards and armored vehicles.
• Demand the release of moderate leaders if they are
arrested. Demand and conduct investigations if
they are murdered.
• Oppose coups d’état by extremists.
Stage 6: Preparation
• Members of victim
groups are forced to
wear identifying
symbols.
• Death lists are made.
• Victims are separated
because of their ethnic
or religious identity.
6. PREPARATION:
• Victims are identified and separated out
because of their ethnic or religious identity.
• Death lists are drawn up.
• Members of victim groups are forced to wear
identifying symbols.
• They are often segregated into ghettoes,
forced into concentration camps, or confined
to a famine-struck region and starved.
Preparation
• Segregation into
ghettoes is imposed,
victims are forced into
concentration camps.
• Victims are also
deported to faminestruck regions for
starvation.
Forced Resettlement into
Ghettos – Poland 1939 - 1942
6. Preparation
• Victims recognized & separated out
– Death lists, wear symbols
– Moved into certain areas (ghettoes,
camps, poverty stricken region)
Prevention Must declare a Genocide
Emergency prepare international
intervention
Prevention Prepare aid for future victims &
refugees
Prevention: Preparation
• With evidence of death lists, arms shipments,
militia training, and trial massacres, a Genocide
Alert™ should be declared.
• UN Security Council should warn it will act (but only
if it really will act.)
Diplomats must warn potential perpetrators.
• Humanitarian relief should be prepared.
• Military intervention forces should be organized,
including logistics and financing.
Stage 7: Extermination (Genocide)
• Extermination
begins, and
becomes the mass
killing legally
called "genocide."
Most genocide is
committed by
governments.
Einsatzgrupen: Nazi Killing Squads
7 EXTERMINATION:
• Extermination begins, and quickly becomes the mass
killing legally called "genocide.“
• It is "extermination" to the killers because they do not
believe their victims to be fully human.
• When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces
often work with militias to do the killing.
• Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by
groups against each other, creating the downward
whirlpool-like cycle of genocide.
Extermination (Genocide)
• Although most
genocide is
sponsored and
financed by the
state, the armed
forces often work
with local militias.
Rwandan militia killing squads
Nazi killing squad working
with local militia
7. Extermination
• Mass killings
– Often done by both armed forces & militia
– Can lead to revenge killings
Prevention Only solution is now fierce armed
intervention
– International responsibility to protect and
provide aid
• More impt. than individual national interests
Extermination: Stopping Genocide
• Regional organizations, national governments,
and the UN Security Council should impose
targeted sanctions to undermine the
economic viability of the perpetrator regime.
• Sales of oil and imports of gasoline should be
stopped by blockade of ports and land routes.
• Perpetrators should be indicted by the
International Criminal Court.
Extermination: Stopping Genocide
• The UN Security Council should authorize armed
intervention by regional military forces or by a UN force
under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.
– The Mandate must include protection of civilians and
humanitarian workers and a No Fly Zone.
– The Rules of Engagement must be robust and include aggressive
prevention of killing.
– The major military powers must provide leadership, logistics,
airlift, communications, and financing.
– If the state where the genocide is underway will not permit
entry, its UN membership should be suspended.
Stage 8: Denial
• Denial is always found in genocide, both
during it and after it.
• Continuing denial is among the surest
indicators of further genocidal massacres.
• Denial extends the crime of genocide to future
generations of the victims. It is a continuation
of the intent to destroy the group.
• The tactics of denial are predictable.
Denial: Deny the Evidence.
•
Deny that there was any mass killing at all.
•
Question and minimize the statistics.
•
Block access to archives and witnesses.
•
Intimidate or kill eye-witnesses.
8. DENIAL:
• It is among the surest indicators of further
genocidal massacres.
• The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass
graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the
evidence and intimidate the witnesses.
• They deny that they committed any crimes, and
often blame what happened on the victims.
• They block investigations of the crimes, and
continue to govern until driven from power by
force, when they flee into exile.
• There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot.
Denial: Deny the Evidence
• Destroy the evidence. (Burn the bodies and
the archives, dig up and burn the mass
graves, throw bodies in rivers or seas.)
Holocaust Death-Camp Crematoria
Denial: Attack the truth-tellers.
•
Attack the motives of the truth-tellers. Say
they are opposed to the religion, ethnicity,
or nationality of the deniers.
•
Point out atrocities committed by people
from the truth-tellers’ group. Imply they
are morally disqualified to accuse the
perpetrators.
Denial: Blame the Victims.
•
•
•
•
Emphasize the strangeness of the victims.
They are not like us. (savages, infidels)
Claim they were disloyal insurgents in a
war.
Call it a “civil war,” not genocide.
Claim that the deniers’ group also suffered
huge losses in the “war.” The killings were
in self-defense.
Denial: Deny for current interests.
•
•
•
Avoid upsetting “the peace process.” “Look
to the future, not to the past.”
Deny to assure benefits of relations with
the perpetrators or their descendents. (oil,
arms sales, alliances, military bases)
Don’t threaten humanitarian assistance to
the victims, who are receiving good
treatment. (Show the model Thereisenstadt
IDP camp.)
Denial: Deny facts fit legal definition of genocide.
– They’re crimes against humanity, not genocide.
– They’re “ethnic cleansing”, not genocide.
– There’s not enough proof of specific intent to
destroy a group, “as such.” (“Many survived!”UN Commission of Inquiry on Darfur.)
– Claim the only “real” genocides are like the
Holocaust: “in whole.”
(Ignore the “in part” in the Genocide
Convention.)
– Claim declaring genocide would legally obligate
us to intervene. (We don’t want to intervene.)
8. Denial
• Perpetrators cover up graves/evidence and
coerce witnesses
• Deny any crimes took place, blame victims,
hamper investigations
–Sure sign of future genocidal acts
Prevention (for future) Must capture and
take to national or internat’l court
(Nuremberg, Rwanda)
Why has the UN not stopped genocide ?
• Genocide succeeds when state sovereignty
blocks international responsibility to protect.
• The UN represents states, not peoples.
• Since founding of UN:
–Over 45 genocides and politicides
–Over 70 million dead
• Genocide prevention ≠ conflict resolution
Prevention requires:
1. Early
warning
2. Rapid
response
3. Courts for
accountability
Genocide continues due to:
•Lack of authoritative international
institutions to predict it
•Lack of ready rapid response forces to stop it
UNAMIR peacekeeper in Rwanda, April 1994
Genocide continues due to:
•Lack of political will to peacefully prevent it
and to forcefully intervene to stop it
UN Security Council votes to withdraw
UNAMIR troops from Rwanda, April 1994
Prevention: Political Will
• Build an international mass movement to
end genocide in this century.
– Organize civil society and human rights groups.
– Mobilize religious leaders of churches, mosques,
synagogues, and temples.
– Put genocide education in curricula of every
secondary school and university in the world.
– Hold political leaders accountable. If they fail to
act to stop genocide, vote them out of office.
Never Again? Or Again and Again?
• How can we use the 8 Stages of
Genocide to develop more
effective ways to prevent
genocide in the future?
• Would it be useful for the UN to
establish a Genocide Prevention
Center to work with the Special
Adviser for Genocide
Prevention?
• Even with Early Warning, how
can we achieve effective Early
Response to prevent and stop
genocide?