Genocides in history
"[8] In literature, some scholars have popularly emphasized the role that the Soviet Union played in excluding political groups from the international definition of genocide, which is contained in the Genocide Convention of 1948,[9] and in particular they have written that Joseph Stalin may have feared greater international scrutiny of the political killings that occurred in the country, such as the Great Purge;[10] however, this claim is not supported by evidence.
[16][17] Genocide in the ancient world often consisted of the massacre of men and the enslavement or forced assimilation of women and children—often limited to a particular town or city rather than applied to a larger group.
[18] Potential medieval examples are found in Europe, even though experts caution against applying a modern term like genocide to such events.
[24][25] According to David Maybury-Lewis, imperial and colonial forms of genocide are enacted in two main ways, either through the deliberate clearing of territories of their original inhabitants to make them exploitable for purposes of resource extraction or colonial settlements, or through enlisting indigenous peoples as forced laborers in colonialist or imperialist projects of resource extraction.
[27] During the 17th century Beaver Wars, the Iroquois destroyed several large tribal confederacies—including the Mohicans, Huron, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and northern Algonquins—with extreme brutality.
The exterminatory nature of the mode of warfare practised by the Iroquois caused some historians to label these events as acts of genocide.
They described the analyses as producing "reams of paper [that] were dedicated to analyzing the past and pledging to heed warning signs and prevent genocide.
[46] African Citizens highlighted the sentences, commenting: "Indisputably, the most important truth that emerges from our investigation is that the Rwandan genocide could have been prevented by those in the international community who had the position and means to do so.
[52] Legislatures in several countries, including Canada,[53] the United Kingdom,[54] and France,[55] have passed non-binding motions describing China's actions as genocide.
[63][64] A paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions, officially a part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991, participated in the massacre,[65][66] along with several hundred Russian and Greek volunteers.
[74] In 2010, Vujadin Popović, Lieutenant Colonel and the Chief of Security of the Drina Corps of the Bosnian Serb Army, and Ljubiša Beara, Colonel and Chief of Security of the same army, were convicted of genocide, extermination, murder and persecution by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for their role in the Srebrenica massacre and were each sentenced to life in prison.
He was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment for his involvement in genocidal actions that took place in regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, other than Srebrenica.
[82] On 29 November 1999, the Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) of Düsseldorf "condemned Maksim Sokolovic to 9 years in prison for aiding and abetting the crime of genocide and for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.
The ICTR was created on 8 November 1994 by the UN Security Council to resolve claims in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994.
For approximately 100 days from the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April through mid-July, at least 800,000 people were killed according to a Human Rights Watch estimate.
[89] The Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, Ta Mok, and others, perpetrated the mass killing of ideologically suspect groups, ethnic minorities such as ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese or Sino-Khmers, Chams, and Thais, former civil servants, former government soldiers, Buddhist monks, secular intellectuals and professionals, and former city dwellers.
[94][95][96] The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18 July 2007:[97] Some of the international jurists and the Cambodian government disagreed over whether any other people should be tried by the Tribunal.
In January 2005, an International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1564 of 2004, issued a report stating that "the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide.
"[111] Nevertheless, the Commission cautioned that "The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region.
"[111] In March 2005, the Security Council formally referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC, taking into account the Commission report but without mentioning any specific crimes.
Prosecutors claimed that al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity.
It alleged that Myanmar has committed mass murder, rape, and destruction of communities against the Rohingya group in Rakhine state since about October 2016 and that those actions violated the Genocide Convention.
South Africa requested indication of provisional measures by the court, including that Israel end its military operations, to "protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention", triggering an urgent preliminary hearing.
