Ethnic cleansing

Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.

[1][2][3][4][5] Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group.

However, states in a similar strategic situation can have widely varying policies towards minority ethnic groups perceived as a security threat.

[12] Ethnic cleansing has no legal definition under international criminal law, but the methods by which it is carried out are considered crimes against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention.

[18] Others, like historian Gary Anderson, contend that genocide does not accurately characterize any aspect of American history, suggesting instead that ethnic cleansing is a more appropriate term.

[19] Circassian genocide, also known as "Tsitsekun", is often regarded by various historians as the first large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign launched by a state during the 19th century industrial era.

[22] In the early 1900s, regional variants of the term could be found among the Czechs (očista), the Poles (czystki etniczne), the French (épuration) and the Germans (Säuberung).

[23][page needed] A 1913 Carnegie Endowment report condemning the actions of all participants in the Balkan Wars contained various new terms to describe brutalities committed toward ethnic groups.

[24] During the Holocaust in World War II, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of ensuring that Europe was "cleaned of Jews" (judenrein).

[25] The Nazi Generalplan Ost called for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of most Slavic people in central and eastern Europe for the purpose of providing more living space for the Germans.

[26] During the Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, the euphemism čišćenje terena ("cleansing the terrain") was used by the Croatian Ustaše to describe military actions in which non-Croats were purposely systematically killed or otherwise uprooted from their homes.

[citation needed] This process of the population transfer in the Soviet Union was repeated on an even larger scale in 1939–1941, involving many other groups suspected of disloyalty.

[30] In its complete form, the term appeared for the first time in the Romanian language (purificare etnică) in an address by Vice Prime Minister Mihai Antonescu to cabinet members in July 1941.

"[32] In the 1980s, the Soviets used the term "etnicheskoye chishcheniye" which literally translates to "ethnic cleansing" to describe Azerbaijani efforts to drive Armenians away from Nagorno-Karabakh.

[44] There are also situations, such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II, where ethnic cleansing has taken place without legal redress (see Preussische Treuhand v. Poland).

[55] Norman Naimark writes that these concepts are different but related, for "literally and figuratively, ethnic cleansing bleeds into genocide, as mass murder is committed in order to rid the land of a people.

During that time, the Syrian backed, mostly Druze dominated People's Liberation Army used a policy they called "territorial cleansing" to "drain" the Chouf of Maronite Christians in order to deny them of resisting the advance of the PSP.

Expulsions of Jews in Europe from 1100 to 1600
Refugees at Taurus Pass during the Armenian genocide . The Young Turk triumvirate aimed to reduce the number of Armenians to below 5–10% of the population in any part of the Ottoman empire , which resulted in the elimination of a million Armenians. [ 15 ]
Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia following the end of World War II
Between 1947 and 1949, in an event called the Nakba , at least 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes or forced to flee from what is now Israel. [ 31 ]
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943. Most Poles of Volhynia had either been murdered or had fled the area.
Photo taken after the burning of Smyrna . From 1914 until 1923, Ottoman Greeks in Thrace and Asia Minor were subject to a campaign including massacres and deportations. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recognizes it as genocide and refers to the campaign as the Greek Genocide . [ 52 ]
Expulsion of Poles by Nazi Germany . Poles are led to trains under German army escort, as part of the ethnic cleansing of western Poland annexed to the German Reich following the invasion .
A group of Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley close by Travnik , Bosnia and Herzegovina that were forced out of their homes and villages by Croat forces in 1993
Exhumed victims of the Srebrenica massacre carried out by Serb forces, part of the ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War
Russian Count Nikolay Yevdokimov , who organized the extermination campaigns of " Tsitsekun ", designated Russian military operations targeting Circassian natives by the term " ochishchenie " (cleansing). [ 22 ] [ 58 ]
Portrait of Circassian refugees evicting their towns and villages after the Russian invasion of Circassia . According to some authors, Russian military forces massacred and forcibly deported between 95 and 97% of all native Circassians during the Circassian genocide . [ 59 ] [ 60 ]