Genocide In Sri Lanka

History is a phenomenon that has the propensity to repeat itself. Genocides have been committed throughout history, even before the term was assembled in 1944 and accepted by the United Nations in 1946 as a crime under international law. According to the United Nations, genocide is defined as “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” A minimum of twenty-seven genocides have been documented across the world. During the 20th century, the Armenian Genocide and the Ukrainian genocide (Holodomor) transpired. Currently, in the 21st century, the world is witnessing another brutal genocide occurring in Myanmar. A kindred pattern of events is perceived throughout the duration of genocides along with

¬¬Marissa Bracey World History and Voices Ms. Phillips & Mr. Cline May 5, 2015 Holodomor: The Eight stages of Genocide Genocide is a term that was created in 1944 to describe violence against a specific ethnical, racial, national, or religious group with the intent to destroy or wipe out that entire group. This is an unfortunate event that has caused millions of casualties and left even more in grief. The famine-genocide of Ukraine took place over the span of 16 long years, killing over 7 million farmers and families, over one third of the lives lost were children. Joseph Stalin is to blame for the horrors caused in Ukraine, his communist ways and power hungry drive allowed him to force millions of farmers out of their land and into poverty.

From the dawn of time to even now, genocides have been happening throughout history. Some earlier genocides have not even been recorded or documented. Genocides happen because one group wants complete control and absolute power of another. People can be killed for having different ideals or being different. Knowing this, one could see that genocides only end with senseless and brutal discrimination and death. From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge carried out a genocide in Cambodia killing all people who seemed to oppose them and their communist government (“The Cambodian Genocide”).

A genocide that is still currently happening is the one in Laos which is the result of the Vietnam War. It was a war against the communist North and the democratic South with the help of the U.S. The U.S got involved because they want to prevent the spread of communism, which is known as the “domino theory” where if a surrounding country falls into the ideology of … then the rest will fall with it. The leader of North Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh, a strong dictator that managed to get support of his people. He states that the South was being used as a puppet state by the American. A lot of American dislikes this war and many oppose it, however many Americans don’t know that there was actually another war going on known as the Secret War.

Genocides once in a while develop full grown from the womb of insidiousness. They regularly advance in a stepwise manner after some time, as one wrongdoing prompts to another and another.

Throughout the 20th century, numerous acts of genocides have attempted to bring the complete elimination and devastation of large groups of people originating from various particular ethnicities. With these genocides occurring in many regions of the world, the perpetrators often organizing such crimes, have historically been larger and more powerful than the victims themselves. Often being the government and its military forces. However, the lack of international response associated with these genocides, further contributed to the devastating outcomes. On April 6,1994, the fastest killing spree of the century took place in Rwanda against the Tutsi minority population. With many warning signs having already been proclaimed prior to the start of the Rwandan genocide, I believe that with international interference, this bloodshed could have ultimately been prevented.

The definition of genocide, according to the United Nations, was the attempt to destroy “a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group” by killing members, causing mental or bodily harm, harsh living conditions, prevention of births, and separating children from their families. There are four patterns of genocide, which do not always occur in every genocide since they’re not all the same. The four patterns include persecution, which is hostility and ill-treatment, especially toward a specific race, political, or religious belief done by the ruler or government. Next is displacement or when a group of people is forced to leave their native country. Continuing, public humiliation is another pattern that freely shows off a group of people being tortured or persecuted in plain sight. Finally when selective groups of people face at terrible fate while another group is spared the same fate as them is selective murder. Those were the four, very cruel and unfair, patterns of genocide.

Genocide is the complete extermination a specific group. It is a significant event in History that has been repeated time and time again, from the Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Holocaust to Joseph Stalin’s Era in the USSR. These chaotic periods of mass killing are usually the result of hatred towards certain races, religions, or ethnic parties. The attackers put unnecessary blame on the other group and take action to punish them brutal instead of finding means to compromise. They fear for their potential lost of power. The victims are quickly torqued and wipe out with a little chance of protecting themselves. In this case the rapid annihilation of the Tutsi for causing the apparent social and political issues in Rwanda, Africa is a perfect example of that. This genocide became known as the “100 days of slaughter.” (BBC) In the end of this period over 800,000 (about three quarter of the entire Tutsi population) were eradicated.

“Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation” (Merriam Webster, Incorporated, 2013). Today the term varies, as different aspects of harm are included, ranging from murder, to serious mental harm.Genocide was first declared an international crime by the United Nations General Assembly in 1942. Genocides have occurred across the world, and share many common factors. Throughout the 19th century mass murder and rape swept across the world, many of which sharing common influences. The most infamous mass killing, the Holocaust is known around the world, however many fail to acknowledge similar tragedies throughout world history. Both the Rwandan Genocide and the Holocaust

The aftermath of this mass genocide made Cambodia known for its infamous “Killing Fields” during the time of Pol Pot and his men. Last but not least, the genocide nearly exterminated the population of two million Cambodians out of six millions (Yale University, 2003).

Genocide has been around for many centuries. One of the most known happened in 1915 when residents of the Ottoman Empire were told to leave upon orders from the government. Due to the long and harsh travels, there was an enormous amount of disease trapped in the concentration camps. With that alone, there was an estimated amount of one million Armenians killed. Another example of genocide is when the Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government in 1975. Citizens who were suspected of receiving an education were tortured at the Tuol Sleng prison. In four years, approximately two million Cambodians died in the “Killing Fields.” A Civil War in Rwanda aroused tension between the Tutsi minority and Hutu minority. When the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down, there was no doubt that a war was about to break out. The two minorities found themselves in the center of the conflict; in the end, the “outbreak” claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people. About a decade ago, the Sudan government showed an act of genocide when they murdered 300,000 Darfuri citizens and displacing two million. In addition to that, Native Americans died from colonial conflict, disease, and discrimination devastated their population. Within this time period, over nine million Natives died

“Why is the killing of a million a lesser crime than the killing of an individual?” -Raphael Lemkin referring to genocides. Genocides are organized exterminations committed with intent to destroy a whole group based on religion, ethnicity, and race. The Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, Darfur, and the Rwanda genocide were all terrible events in history, but why did they occur? The form of genocide had existed since the perception of superiority and inferiority was known. As a superior group gains more and more power, they make an image of their perfect society in their head and strive towards it. They would decimate those who opposed them and anyone they saw as inferior, which is an example of how a genocide can start. Hitler was the leader of the Nazis, and he pursued his plans to annihilate the entire “inferior” race of Jews, which he thought was a burden to his empire. In the Armenian genocide, the Young Turks attempted to terminate the Armenians, which they also thought were inferior and untrustworthy. Although the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide are both genocides in which a specific group of people were being targeted, they differ in terms of leaders and their purpose for starting the genocide, the races that were targeted and how they were killed, and the impact it has on people today. (history.com)

Upwards of seventy thousand Tamil civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced (United Nations, 2000). Worldwide it is known as the May massacre and black July. The systematic killings of the Tamils were considered genocide. The United Nations (2000) states, that genocide is the “ [perpetration of] violent crimes with [the] intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”(P.337). The genocide against Tamils has been going on for years and the Sri Lankan government has not been brought to justice. Till this day, the surviving Tamil civilians are kept in concentration camps where many men, women and children get tortured, kidnapped and raped. According to the Sri Lankan government, these camps were made for rehabilitation purposes. David Keen (2014) states that the use of the camp is, “a dramatic practical expression of the fact that the Tamil population as a whole was considered suspect in relation to rebellion and terrorism” (P.10). Even after the genocide and the victory of the civil war, the Sri Lankan government still has not done anything to bring equality amongst its population. Let alone any sort of independence for the Tamil civilians. The newly elected President, Mahinda Rajapaksha opted to take Sri Lanka down an authoritative road (stone, 2014). He has brought other members of his family to governmental positions creating a permanent family line of non-democratic leadership. The instability and corruption within the government will assure that the Tamils will continually be

Genocide is one of the most tragic events that can happen around the world. Identifying the stages is the most crucial part of stopping these horrible acts. The Bosnian Genocide and the Holocaust could have been prevented or stopped if the 8 stages were properly identified .

Genocide is a term that can be defined as a planned and systematic destruction of whole or parts of certain national, religious, race, ethnic, cultural or political group (Akhavan 21). Genocide is deliberated with a different set of actions for a purpose to destroy an essential foundation of life. Genocide is characterized with the massive killing of members of a group, causing mental or bodily injuries to a group of people, imposing mechanisms to prevent birth, removing particular group children and putting conditions of life in order to bring to an end existence of a particular group. Therefore, genocide is an illegal action and a crime recognized and punishable by international law (Charmy 35). For instance, Rwanda genocide is characterized by ethnic tensions within the country. Initially the definition of the term genocide as by genocide convection only comprised of racial, ethnic, national and religious groups. They argued that inclusion of other groups cannot strengthen but rather weakens it. This definition failed to recognize other groups such as political groups, economic and cultural groups that are essential elements of genocide. Genocide therefore, is generally considered the worst moral crime the ruling authority can commit against those it controls Naimark (2017).