Genocide: Violent Crimes Against Humanity

Sources disagree on the definition of genocide. According to American Heritage 4th edition “Genocide is the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.” The definition of genocide proves how genocide happened in Rwanda because Hutus and Tutsis were deliberately killed based on their ethnicity. Genocide not only happened in

The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass slaughter in Rwanda of the ethnic Tutsi and Hutu peoples. The Rwandan Genocide left 70% of total ethnic Tutsi dead and a total of 20% of the entire country 's population dead. Today, more than twenty years later, Rwanda is a growing society with an ever expanding skyline.

In the past 150 years, tens of millions of men, women and children have lost their lives to ethnic cleansing or genocide. Although the definition is often scrutinized, according to Merriam Webster, "Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group". The most notable event associated with the term is the Holocaust. Stated by Judah Gribets, Edward Greenstein and Regina Stein, "nearly six million Jews fell victim to genocide during the years of the Holocaust". Of This number, one million were children who were unable to take care of themselves. People's hopes and dreams for the future were stripped from them, and many families were ripped apart. Many of these people were tortured or raped

Steven Pinker implied that, “As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to the mass murder of people” (1). Steven Pinker revealed an interesting side to the controversial topic of mass murders and the causes of them. He revealed that as long as people in this world believe that they are better than other due to their race, religion, and everything else that defines a group of people as different from another group of people. People are and have been wrongfully treated differently due to the incompetence of some to realize that everyone is equal. They often believe that they were superior to others because of their physical attributes and beliefs that they had. The Holocaust is a major example of the ignorance of some in history. This ignorance often resulted in the murders and mistreatment of many. Elie Wiesel was one of the six million plus people who were wrongfully mistreated during the Holocaust. Many believe that this sort of event could not occur in the current time period because people have become more civilized and tolerable to the differences of others, but sadly the world is not ready to contain a social utopia. The mass murder, and violence that is occurring in Darfur is one of the many things that shows that the world is far from achieving this social utopia. Throughout history, many occurrences of genocide have occurred due to the diversity of people and even though society has evolved

Three genocides that have taken place since the Holocaust are the Cambodian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, and The Bosnian Genocide. The term genocide was defined by the United Nations in 1948 meaning following acts such as killing, causing serious physical/mental harm, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring physical destruction, with intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Genocides do not just happen out of nowhere, often it is due to long-standing conflicts with religious or cultural groups and a desire to have power and control from either sides of conflict. Although the Holocaust is the most well known genocide, people often forget that genocides still happen and that some have ended only recently.

The state usually organizes, arms and financially supports the groups that conduct the genocidal massacres. Such plans are made by elites for a “final solution” of genocidal killings.

The atrocity of genocide can no longer coexist with humans. The United States needs to lead the charge in stopping genocide worldwide. With the support of the UN genocide on earth can completely be destroyed as a problem.

I would say that genocide is a word of perception. There isn’t one universal definition that can explain exactly what genocide is, who it effects, and how it is carried out. This would be the reason for so many uniquely different definitions of the word existing today. With genocide being such a serious and difficult issue, it is no wonder why the world can’t agree upon one perfect definition. Based on my education and what I know about the history of genocide, I have begun to develop my own opinion of what the word means. The definition of genocide that I agree with the most is Jack Nusan Porter’s on page 17.

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 is violence against a certain group; by learning more about genocide and all the times it happened, we can prevent it. For thousands of years even before we knew what a genocide was. Racial, Religious, ethnic, or national groups are normally targeted by genocides.

Genocide, a dire event, has been recurring time and time again throughout history. In the past, there was the Holocaust, where Hitler exterminated over six million Jews based on his anti-semitic views. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish author, has become a very influential man in educating the world of the true events of the Holocaust due to his involvement in the disaster. Presently, a genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, in which according to Cheryl Goldmark, “a systematic slaughter of non-Arab residents at the the hands of Arab militiamen called Janjaweed” has been taking place since 2003. (1) Not only is genocide a tragic historical event, it also continuously occurs today.

As young children in America, we obsessively study the Holocaust and the atrocities of World War II, and often wonder “how could something like this happen?” It is often assumed that there must have been something particular about the German people and culture to have permitted these atrocities. However, acts of genocide and violent ethnic conflicts share common patterns that have nothing to do with individual cultures but rather develop due to specific circumstances. Violence is a human experience that no culture is exempt from. The UN has finally, after four years of human rights violations, made a statement that Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) is carrying out “ethnic cleansing.” This essay will analyze cultural markers of

The forced removal of children, when considered as part of this extensive government policy towards Indigenous Australians, meets the definition of genocide. Notably, the removal of these children meets the legal standard of a physical act of genocide set by the United Nations. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide explicitly defines “forcibly transferring children of [a] group to another group” as genocide. Therefore, recognition of this action is enough to categorise Indigenous policy as genocidal. However, it is necessary to prove a “clear intent to cause the offence [of genocide]” under this law. Accordingly, similarities between the outcomes of similar legislation prove consistent intent to destroy

The Rwandan genocide is one of the darkest moments in human history. What sparked the violence against the Tutsi was an airplane crash that carried the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. A carefully organized genocide carried on for more than 100 days and killed about 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates (Rwanda genocide: 100 days of slaughter 2014). In just a few hours, Hutu rebels took over the streets of Kigali and eliminated Rwanda’s leadership successfully within a day. Hutu extremists took advantage of the political vacuum created and thus took control of the country. Detailed lists of Tutsi targets were prepared with names, addresses and license plates. Rwandans were soon murdering their neighbors and people were encouraged to kill those on the lists.

Genocide is a big issue that seems to occur in less developed countries. Genocide is defined as the killing of large groups of people particularly because of their ethnic background. Many groups such as Armenian, Greek, Jews, Serbian, Rwandan etc. have been affected by a genocide. In 1948, the United Nations declared genocide as an intentional crime. Since this was adopted to be an international crime, an international treaty was signed where the ICC had the right to prosecute crimes of genocide. Genocide is a worldwide issue and to this day many people are affected by the events that happened. Although there are many places who have declared some of the mass killings as a genocide there are others who have not even though the tragedy that