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Topic 3:GLOBAL HUMAN

RIGHTS ISSUE

GENOCIDE

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DEFINITION

Genocide is the deliberate andsystematic destruction, in whole or in

part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or 

national group.

The term "genocide" was coined byRaphael Lemkin (1900 –1959), a

Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1943,

genos (Greek) means family, tribe or 

race - gene; cide (Latin) means to

massacre/kill.

General speaking, genocide does not

necessarily mean the immediate

destruction of a nation, except when

accomplished by mass killings of all

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It is intended rather to signify acoordinated plan of differentactions aiming at the destruction

of essential foundations of thelife of national groups, with theaim of annihilating the groupsthemselves.

The objectives of such a planwould be the disintegration of the political and socialinstitutions, of culture, language,national feelings, religion, andthe economic existence of national groups, and thedestruction of the personalsecurity, liberty, health, dignity,

and even the lives of the

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 A legal definition is

found in the 1948

United NationsConvention on thePrevention and

Punishment of theCrime of Genocide(CPPCG).

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Article 2 of CPPCG -"any of the followingacts committed with intent to destroy, inwhole or in part, a national, ethnical, racialor religious group, as such: killing members

of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;deliberately inflicting on the groupconditions of life, calculated to bring aboutits physical destruction in whole or in part;imposing measures intended to prevent

births within the group; and forciblytransferring children of the group to another group.

Article 3 of CPPCG; The following acts

shall be punishable; Genocide, conspiracyto commit genocide, direct and publicincitement to commit genocide, attempt tocommit genocide and complicity ingenocide.

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The first genocide of the 20th Century

occurred when two million Armenians living

in Turkey were eliminated from their historic

homeland through forced deportations andmassacres.

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Holocaust• Greek - means completely burnt

• The Holocaust is the term generally used todescribe the genocide of approximately sixmillion European Jews during World War II, aspart of a programme of deliberate exterminationplanned and executed by the National SocialistGerman Workers’ Party (Nazi) regime inGermany led by Adolf Hitler 

• (Other groups were persecuted and killed bythe regime, including the Gypsies; Soviets,particularly prisoners of war; Communists;ethnic Poles; other Slavic people; the disabled;homosexuals; and political and religiousdissidents.

• Many scholars do not include these groups inthe definition of the Holocaust, defining it as thegenocide of the Jews, or what the Nazis calledthe "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."Taking into account all the victims of Nazipersecution, the total number of victims isestimated to be nine to 11 million)

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Holocaust • The persecution and genocide wereaccomplished in stages.

• Legislation to remove the Jews from civilsociety was enacted years before the

outbreak of World War II.• Concentration camps were established in

which inmates were used as slave labour until they died of exhaustion or disease.

• Where the Third Reich conquered newterritory in eastern Europe, specialized units

called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews andpolitical opponents in mass shootings.

• Jews and Roma were crammed into ghettosbefore being transported hundreds of milesby freight train to extermination campswhere, if they survived the journey, themajority of them were killed in gaschambers.

• Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy wasinvolved in the logistics of the mass murder,turning the country into what one Holocaustscholar has called "a genocidal state."

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Map showing locations of Nazi CoMapshowing locations of Nazi

Concentration & Death

camps.ncentration & Death camps.

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A massshooting

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Examples of genocide around the world

1) The Rwandan Genocide was the1994 mass murder of an estimated

800,000 people.

Over the course of approximately 100

days from the assassination of 

Juvénal Habyarimana on April 6

through mid-July, at least 800,000

people were killed, according to a

Human Rights Watch estimate.

Other estimates of the death toll have

ranged between 500,000 and

1,000,000 (a commonly quoted

figure is 800,000) or as much as 20%

of the country's total population.

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The killing was well organized, and by the

time it had started, the Rwandan militianumbered around 30,000 .

Some militia members were able to acquire

 AK-47 assault rifles by completing

requisition forms. Other weapons, such asgrenades, required no paperwork and were

widely distributed.

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2)The second case is Darfur Genocide. The Darfur Conflict is an ongoing

guerrilla conflict or civil war centered on

the Darfur region of Sudan. It began in

February 2003 when the Sudan

Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and

Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)

groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing

the Sudanese government of oppressing

black Africans in favor of  Arabs.

One side of the conflict is composed

mainly of the official Sudanese military

and police, and the Janjaweed, a

Sudanese militia group recruited mostly

from the Afro-Arab  Abbala tribes of the

northern Rizeigat region in Sudan.

Although the Sudanese government

publicly denies that it supports the

Janjaweed, it has been accused of 

providing financial assistance to the

militia and of participating in joint attackstar etin civilians.

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There are various estimates on the number 

of human casualties, ranging from under twenty thousand to several hundred

thousand dead, from either direct combat or 

starvation and disease engendered by the

conflict.There have also been mass displacements

and coercive migrations, forcing millions

into refugee camps or over the border and

creating a large crisis.

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The Sudanese government and the JEM signed a

ceasefire agreement in February, 2010, with a

tentative agreement to pursue further peace. TheJEM has the most to gain from the talks, and could

see semi-autonomy much like South Sudan.

However, talks have been disrupted by accusations

that the Sudanese army launched raids and air 

strikes against a village, violating the February

agreement.

The JEM, the largest rebel group in Darfur, has

said they will boycott further negotiations.

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3)The third case is Bosnian Genocide.

The term Bosnian Genocide is used to

refer either to the genocide committed by

Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in

1995, or to ethnic cleansing that tookplace during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War .

In the 1990s, several authorities, in line

with a minority of legal scholars, asserted

that ethnic cleansing as carried out by

elements of the Bosnian Serb army wasgenocide. These included a resolution by

the United Nations General Assembly and

four convictions for genocide in German

courts, (the convictions were based upon

a wider interpretation of genocide thanthat used by international courts).

In 2005, the United States Congress

passed a resolution declaring that "the

Serbian policies of aggression and ethnic

cleansing meet the terms defininggenocide".

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However, in line with a majority of legal scholars,

the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of 

Justice (ICJ) have ruled that, in order for actions to

be deemed genocide, there must be physical or 

biological destruction of a protected group and a

specific intent to commit such destruction.

To date, only the Srebrenica massacre has been

found to be genocide by the ICTY, a finding upheld

by the ICJ.

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4)The fourth case is the Gaza

genocide.

The Gaza War was a three-

week armed conflict that tookplace in the Gaza Strip during

the winter of 2008 –2009.

It was codenamed OperationCast Lead) by the Israeli

government. 

The conflict has been called

the Gaza Massacre in the

 Arab world.

It was referred to as the War inthe South in Israeli media

coverage while Al Jazeera 

called it the war on Gaza.

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On 19 December 2008 a fragile six-month Israel-

Hamas ceasefire was set to expire.

Following Israel's violation of the ceasefire on

November 4, there were sporadic violent clashesalong the Israeli-Gaza border for the following two

months until on 27 December Israel launched a

wave of airstrikes against targets within the Gaza

Strip with the stated aim of stopping rocket fire from

and arms import into the territory Israeli forces

attacked military targets, police stations and

government buildings.

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Hamas intensified its rocket and mortar attacksagainst Southern Israel, reaching the major cities of 

Beersheba and Ashdod for the first time. Israeli

ground invasion began on January 3, 2009. The

war ended on January 18, when Israel firstdeclared a unilateral ceasefire, followed by Hamas'

announcing a one-week ceasefire twelve hours

later.

Israel completed its withdrawal on January 21. Theconflict left between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinians

and 13 Israelis killed.

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The United Nations Conventionon the Prevention and

Punishment of the Crime ofGenocide (CPPCG) and itseffectiveness in preventing

genocide 

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Conclusion

Genocide is very inhumanity crime. As we attemptto learn the lessons of the genocide in Rwanda,

two messages should be paramount. First, never 

forget. Second, never stop working to prevent

genocide. However, we can see that the convention create by

united nation is ineffectiven as the Israel(in Gaza

genocide case) was not receive a punishment for 

their crime. So,United Nations Convention onthe Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

Genocide should be enforce strictly 

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Past year exam questions….. 

Question 2008 Explain the United Nations Convention on the Prevention

and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) andits effectiveness in preventing genocide

(20 marks)

Question 2010

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention andPunishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) has

effectively exercised its functions to preventgenocide.Do you agree to the above statement? Discuss.

(20 marks)