Genocides
Background Information
Ukraine 1932-1933
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Aka – Stalin’s Forced Famine
Lives Lost: 7 million
Leader: Joseph Stalin
Why? Stalin wanted to crush the growing
numbers of people who supported a national
revival movement. Kulaks (people who owned
land) became “enemies of the people.” Forced
collectivism. Give grain to government quota
first.
Joseph Stalin
• Dec. 1879 – March 1953
• Good Biography
China 1937-1938
• Aka – Rape of Nanking
• Lives Lost: 300,000
• Leader: Japanese Imperial Army vs. Chinese
People
• Why? Japan was at war with China. They
invaded and were provoked by a fierce
opposition. Thus when they took Nanking,
they murdered all captives.
Nanking
Japanese Army Occupies Nanking
Cambodia 1975-1979
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Aka the Khmer Rouge (Cambodian Communist Party)
Lives Lost: 2 million
Leader: Pol Pot
Why? Pol Pot wanted to establish a
Communist peasant farming society – an
“agrarian utopia”. The Khmer Rouge was
comprised of “teenage peasant guerillas.”
• Year Zero – A Cleansed Society
Khmer Rouge & Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Khmer Rouge rebels
Rwanda 1994
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Africa
Lives Lost: 800,000
Leader: Hutus (90%) vs. Tutsis (10%)
Why? Ethnic tensions caused Hutus to revolt
against the aristocratic Tutsis. U.N. forces were
overwhelmed and left Rwanda leaving the
Hutus to massacre innocent people.
Hutus & Tutsis
Hutu Rebels
Tutsi Refugees
Sierra Leone 1991-2002
• Africa
• Lives Lost: 50,000
• Leader: Foday Sankoh, leader of the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
• Why? Internal civil war. The RUF wanted
control of the government funded by
diamonds and gold. 18 different ethnicities did
not contribute to the war.
Foday Sankoh & RUF
Child Soldiers
• “. . . Child soldiers are forced to give violent
expressions to the hatreds of adults” (Olara
Otunnu).
Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1995
• Bosnia – formerly part of Yugoslavia
• Lives Lost: 200,000
• Leader(s): Slobodan Milosevic (former Communist –
now Serbian nationalist) and Radovan Karadzic
(President Bosnian Serb Republic)
• Why? Ethnic tensions between: Serbs (32%
Orthodox Christians) and Muslims. Serbs
attacked Muslims in city of Sarajevo in Bosnia.
Ethnic cleansing.
Slobodan Milosevic
• Jailed in The Hague – U.N. Detention Center.
• On trial for war crimes
• Committed suicide (2006)