Jacqueline Murekatete is a survivor of the genocide in Rwanda, an attorney, and an internationally recognized human rights activist. Follow Murekatete's work on Facebook and via Twitter jmurekatete. For Australians and New Zealanders, April 25, , Anzac Day, represents the most hallowed day in our shared military history. On the night of April 24, as the Anzacs approached the Dardenelles, the arrest of Armenian intellectuals began. Soon after, the massacres and mass deportations commenced. A genocide that would result in the deaths of more than 1 million Armenians was underway.
Most Turkish perpetrators escaped punishment after World War I. Impunity begat impunity. From the killing fields of Cambodia to Rwanda or Bosnia, mass atrocity crimes were generally met with international diplomatic passivity throughout the 20th century.
The barren wastelands of Darfur provided yet another stain upon our conscience. Amidst the political darkness, however, there has been some normative light. The basis of R2P is that all humans should be protected from the four mass atrocity crimes—genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.
R2P urges an end to impunity, inaction and amnesia regarding atrocities. The denial of past atrocities undermines our collective attempt to prevent similar crimes today.
One only has to be human. Simon Adams is executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a civil society organization that works with the UN Security Council on preventing mass atrocities. Yet genocides have happened over and over again—in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Guatemala, East Timor, Darfur—and volatile conditions across the world today threaten to escalate into similar horrors.
Genocide is the deliberate intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Yet national, ethnic, racial, or religious differences alone do not make people slaughter their friends, neighbors, co-workers, or even their own family members. Under what conditions, then, will state leaders direct military organizations and ordinary people to exterminate specific groups? During the Ottoman Empire, the ruling Turks lost 75 percent of their territory in a few weeks, in enormous military defeats.
Refugees returned from those lost lands starving and in crisis. The government needed a scapegoat, so they blamed everything on dangerous Christians—especially the Armenians. The result: a genocide in of 1. In Rwanda during the s, the ethnic Hutu-led government was reeling from a civil war, a devastated economy, and a rapidly-increasing population facing dire food shortages.
The minority Tutsis—despite having lived peacefully with the Hutus for generations—were blamed. The result: a genocide of more than , people in brutal days. We always portray genocide as having occurred because people hate those of a different faith or background or race. Paul, MN. The human rights organization provides education on genocides and atrocity crimes in the past and those occurring today and advocates at local, state, and national levels.
Decades of research have provided a solid understanding of the causes of genocide, broadly defined as the intentional destruction of a group in whole or in part. Although historical cases vary in numerous ways—there are crucial differences between the genocides of Rwanda, Cambodia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Holocaust—we can identify four general conditions.
Unlike the majority of the Buddhist country, the Rohingya are Muslim, and have long suffered as second-class citizens in Myanmar because most people in the country believe they are illegal immigrants and "terrorists" from Bangladesh. So far, up to 3, people have been killed in Myanmar, and at least , have been displaced.
South Sudan became the world's newest country in , but since , the country has been mired in a brutal civil war. Throughout the multifaceted conflict, South Sudan's President Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka ethnic group, has been using his army to wage a campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Dinka's main rival ethnic group, the Nuer, as well as other smaller local groups.
The Nuer have taken part in ethnic cleansing against the Dinka as well. The UK has branded these targeted killings and rapes as genocide.
Although the Dinka-Nuer conflict has taken center stage in South Sudan, many smaller ethnic groups have also been implicated in the dizzying array of ethnic violence in the country. As the terrorist group ISIS carved its caliphate out of war-torn Syria and Iraq in and , it extended its reach over various non-Muslim communities and ethnic groups, including Yazidis and Shiites Iraq, as well as Assyrian Christians living in both Syria and Iraq.
In brutal, genocidal campaigns in both countries, ISIS sought to systematically exterminate Yazidis, Shiites, and Christians and destroy their villages. They also carried out mass rapes in these communities. Although numbers remain hazy, thousands of people have been killed in these related genocides. As of this week, ISIS has officially been defeated territorially , but the effects of their genocides continue to wreak havoc on people in the region.
Khider Domle, Yazidi researcher based in Dohuk, Iraq, says the secondary effects of the genocide are still very present in Yazidi communities in Iraq. There have been no initiatives from the Iraqi government to help the displaced people return back to Sinjar; no national reconciliation process; no attempt to rebuild ruined infrastructure. While the war itself subsided in , since then, ethnic tensions have rapidly mounted, and many observers fear a genocide may be taking place between the Christian militias called the "anti-Balaka" and the Muslim coalition.
Learn more about the serious, violent crimes that do not fall under the specific definition of genocide. This timeline notes the major conceptual and legal advances in the development of the term genocide. The ceremony at the US Capitol, featuring a candle-lighting and names reading, is happening now.
Join us right now to watch a live interview with a survivor, followed by a question-and-answer session. The Museum's commemoration ceremony, including remarks by the German ambassador and a Holocaust survivor, is happening now.
What is Genocide? Key Videos Podcasts and Audio.
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