An Overview Paper On Genocide

Genocide

Genocide is an intentional action to destroy people of a particular ethnic, national racial or religious group in whole or in part. The word ‘Genocide’ is a combination of Greek word Genos which means ‘race or people’ and the Latin suffix -caedo means act of killing. The term Genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 book Axis rule in occupied Europe. According to the United Nations Genocide convention, 1948 Genocide means act intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part. It includes the killing of the members, causing seriously bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately imposing living conditions that seek to “bring about its physical distraction in whole or in part”, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children out of the group to another group.

According to Lemkin, Genocide was “a co-ordinate strategy to destroy a group of people, a process that could be accomplished through total annihilation as well as strategies that eliminates key elements of the group’s basic existence, including language, culture and economic infrastructure. It does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass of killing of all the members of nation. It is intended rather to satisfy a co-ordinate plan of different actions with the aim of annihilating the group themselves. The main objective of such plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

Genocidial acts or types of genocides

The Genocidal convention establishes five prohibited acts that, when committed with the requise intent.

• Killing members of the group:

At present mass killing the most recognized way to commit genocide. In the genocide of the yacidis by daesh, ottoman Turks attack on the Ameriacans, and the Burmese security forces attacks on the Rohingya a near similar pattern has emerged throughout the history in which men and teenage boys are singled out for murder on the early stages. Men on boys are subjected to “fast” killing, e. g. by gunshot. Women and girls are more likely to die slower death slashing, burning of as a result of sexual violence.

Legal scholars have put forward that the death resulting from other genocidal acts including causing serious bodily injury or mental harm or the successful deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction should be considered genocidal killings. For example the deaths from the deliberate infection of Tutsi women with HIV/AIDS through rape in the Rwandan Genocick or from the abuse and denial of food the Daesh inflicted on yacdis held in sexual slavery.

• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group:

This second prohibited act can hold within a wide range of non-lethal genocide acts. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslovia has held that rape and sexual violence may constitute the act of genocide by causing both physical and mental harm. Sexual violence is a hallmark of genocidal violence, with most genocidal campaigns explicitly or implicitly sanctionary it. It is estimated that 2, 50, 000 to 5, 00, 000 women were raped and gang raped in the three months of Rwandan genocide. In darfar a systematic campaign of rape and often sexual disfigure was carried out in 2004. In Burma, public mass rapes and gang rapes were inflicted on the rohingya by Burmese security forces.

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when committed with the requiste intent are also genocide by causing serious bodily or mental harm to member of the group. The Syrian commission of inquiry also found that enslavement, removal of one’s children into sexual slavery and acts of physical and sexual violence rise to the level of torture as well.

• Deliberately inflicting on the group condition of the life calculated to bring about its physical destruction:

This act is different from genocidal act of killing because the deaths are not immediate, but rather it creates circumstances that donot support extended life. The ICTR held that the courts must consider the duration of time the conditions are imposed, because it is the major element of the act. The drafters incorporated the act to account for the horrors of Nazi concentration camp, the armenican death marches, the siege of mount sinjar by Daesh, the deprivation of water and forcible extradiction against the ethnic groups in Darfur and the destruction of razing communities in Burma.

In the case of prosecutor v. akayesu the ICTR identified that “subjecting a group of people to a substance diet, systematic expulsion from homes and reduction of essential medical services below minimum requirement” as rising to genocide. Futher it includes lack of proper housing, clothing, hygiene and medical care, excessive work or physical exertion in the trial chambaer of kayisham and ruzindana.

• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group:

This act mainly aims at preventing the protected group from regenerating through reproduction. It includes acts with the single intent of affecting reproduction and intimate relationships such as coerud sterilization, forced abortion; prohibition of marriage and long term separation of men and women intended to prevent reproduction.

Rape has been found to violate this act on two grounds which are as follows:

• Where the rape was committed with the intent to impregnate here and thereby force her to carry a child to another group.
• Where the person raped subsequently refuses to reproduce as a result of the trauma.

Therefore, it can take into account both physical and mental measures imposed by the perpetrators.

• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group:

This act does not lesad to any physical or biological destruction, but rather to destruction of group as a cultural and social unit. Boys are typically taken into the group changing their names to those common of the perpetrator group, converting their religion and using them as labour or as soldiers.

Girls who are transferred are not generally converted to the perpetrator group are treated as chattel, which was seen in yacidi genocide and American genocide.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide

This convention came into force as international law on 12 January 1951 after the minimum 20 countries become parties. In the beginning France and Republic of China from the permanent members of UN Security Council were the members of this convention. After that in 1954 The Soviet Union, in 1970 the United Kingdom and in 1988 the United States of America has signed the convention.

Article II of this convention defines genocide as “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 condition of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the groups
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

And it also includes another element which is the mental element i. e. the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical racial or religious group as such”. The article 1 of the convention establishes the elements of crime and obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide. The intention is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be person intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural is neither enough nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. Also the victims of genocide should be targeted deliberated rather than randomly. Therefore the target of genocide must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals.

UN Security Council on genocide

UN Security Council Resolution 1674 was adopted by United Nations Security Council on 28th April, 2006. It was passed after reaffirming resolutions 1265 in 1999 and resolution 1296 in 2000 which was about protection of civilians in armed conflict and resolution 1631 in 2005 for the co-operation between the united nation and regional organizations. The international targeting of civilians during armed conflict was described as a “flagrant violation” of laws of armed conflict. Provisions of 2005 world summit outcome document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity were reaffirmed. Torture sexual violence, human trafficking, forced displacement were also criticized by the council.

International prosecution of genocide

All the countries who have signed the CPPCG are bound to prevent and acts of genocide, both in peace and war time. It is commonly accepted that, since World War II, genocide has been illegal under customary international law as a peremptory norm, as well as conventional international law. It is generally difficult to establish the chain of accountability for the person prosecution for the establishment of genocide.

• Nuremberg tribunal (1945 – 1948):

After the World War II the Nazi leaders were prosecuted for taking part in Holo caust. They were charged for crimes against humanity, mass murders under existing international laws. The crime of genocide was not established formally until 1948 convention. But the recently invented term ‘genocide’ in 1944, which stated that those charged had conducted deliberate and systematic genocide such as the extermination of racial and national groups against the civilian population of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial or religious groups particularly Jews, poles, gypsies and others.

• International criminal tribunal for the former yugoslovia (1993 – 2017) (Bosnian genocide):

During 1992 – 1995 Bosnian war, the mass killing took place by Serb forces in Srebrenica. In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslovia has given judgment that the 1995 Srebrenica mass killing was an act of genocide on 26th February 2007, the international court of justice is the instant case upheld that the mass killing in Srebrenica constitute the act of genocide but the Serbian government had not participated in wider genocide on the territory of Bosnian and Herzegovina during the war.

It is indicated that about 30 people have participated in genocide or helping in genocide in Bosnia. Till now, after a number of trial, Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara, have been found guilty of committing genocide and Zdravko tolincy has been found guilty committing genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide. Along with this two others, Radislav Krstic and Drago Nikolic, have been found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide.

In 1995, the ICTY issued an arrest warrant against Radovan Karadic and Ratko Mladic who were former Bosnian serbs. On 21st July 2008, karadic was arrested in Belgrade and found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes against humanity on 24 march 2016. He was sentenced to 40 years of imprisonment. Ratko mladic was aresseted on 26th may 2011 in Serbia was sentenced to life imprisonment for the act of genocide on 22 November 2017.

• International criminal court for Rwanda (1994 to present):

The United Nations established the international criminal court for Rwanda (ITCR) for the prosecution of the offences committed in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994 by the security council of United Nations to judge the people responsible for the act of genocide and other serious violations of international law. Till now ITCR has finished 19 trials and convicted 27 accused persons. In the first trial of Jean-paul Alcayesu began in 1997 and he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998.

• Extraordinary chambers in the court of Cambodia (2003 to present):

The mass killing of ideologically suspect groups led by Pol pot and other leaders is known as Khmer Rouge. Here, the total number of victims is approx. 1. 7 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. To focus on the crimes committed by the most senior Khmer Rouge officials during the rule of Khmer Rouge rule of 1975-1979, the Cambodian govt. and United Nations reached an agreement to set up the Extraordinary Chambers in the court of Cambodia on 6th June 2003. The judges were appointed in early July 2006. The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18th July 2007.

1. Kang Kek lew was charged with war crimes and crime against humanity and convicted on 31st July 2007. On 3rd February 2012, his appeal against his conviction of war crimes was rejected and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
2. Noun chea and khieu who was a former prime minister and former head of accused on charges of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and several other crimes under Cambodian law on 15 September 2010. His trial was started on 27th June 2011 and ended on 7th August 2014 and he was sentenced to life for crimes against humanity.
3. On 15 September 2010, leng sary, or who was the former foreign minister, was accused on charges of genocide war crimes, crime against humanity and several other crimes under Cambodian law. It is trial started on 27th June 2011 and ended on 14th march 2013 because of his death, so he was never convicted.
4. Leng Thicith, the wife of Leng sary, also the former minister for social affairs, was accused for charges of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and several other crimes under Cambodian law. She was transferred into the custody of the ECCC on 12th November 2007. Proceedings against her have been suspended pending a health evaluation.

List of Genocides

The list of genocides consists of death tolls which are either directly or indirectly caused by genocide.

1. The Holocaust was occurred in Germany occupied by Europe from 1941 to 1945 due to this around 2/3rd of the Jewish population of Europe were killed.
2. The general plan was occurred in Germany occupied Europe from 1941 to 1945 due this 13. 7% of the Soviet Union’s population died during World War II. The death includes 1. 3 million Jews.
3. Holodomor was occurred in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1932 to 1933 due to this genocide of Ukrainians through artificial starvation by the soviet regime. At least 10% of Ukraine’s population perished.
4. Nazi genocide of poles was occurred in Germany occupied by Europe from 1939 to 1945 due to this 17% of Poland’s population was killed or died during World War 2.
5. Cambodian genocide was occurred in democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979 due to this 10-33% of total population of Cambodian Chinese and Cham.