Genocide

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Genocide

• The ultimate humanitarian challenge

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What is meant by genocide?

• It is the systematic attempt by a government to
  destroy a specific group of people who live
  within its countrys borders.

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Descent into Genocide (stained glass church
window, Kigali, Rwanda)
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What is meant by genocide?

• UN Definition (1948)
• Any of the following acts committed with the
  intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
  national, ethnic, racial or religious group

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• 1) killing members of the group
• 2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to
  members of the group
• 3) deliberately inflicting on the group
  conditions of life calculated to bring about its
  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

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Why does genocide happen?

• Why is it happening with more frequency in recent
  decades?

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Bosnia 1991-95

• policy of ethnic cleansing by Serbians against
  Muslims (majority population at the time) and
  some Catholic Croats (expulsion, killing, rape

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How big of a problem is it?
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Cambodia 1975-79
Political purge by militant Khmer Rouge
government (led by Pol Pot) Over 1 million
killed
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Why should we study something so depressing?
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Rwanda 1994
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Is it an aberration, or is it a function of human
social dynamics?
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The Nazi Holocaust 1936-44
Over 6 million Jews exterminated
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What makes people hate another group of people?
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Armenia 1915-22

• northeast region of Turkey
• mostly Christian, different language and
  heritage than Muslim Turk majority
• massacres, large scale refugee flight
• 1.5 million killed

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Kosovo 1998-99

• A province of Yugoslovia
• ethnic Albanians expelled, massacred in by
  Serbian militia

Ended by NATO air strikes UN Peacekeeping force
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Is it preventable?
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Can it be stopped, once it is under way?
Darfur region of Sudan 2003-present Systematic
attacks on population villages over 300,000
killed so far
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Can it be stopped, once it is under way?
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Should outside nations intervene when genocide
occurs?
How should that decision be made? Whose
responsibility is it to act?
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Does the US have a moral obligation to intervene,
even if it does not serve the economic,
strategic, or security interests of the United
States? Is it ever in the interests of our nation
to stop genocide? What is the history of our
response?
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Sources for images

• Journey for Humanity
• Kigali Museum
• Wikipedia
• United Human Rights Council
• Beyond Intractability
• Save Darfur
• Andra Halter Art
• Art.com
• US Embassies