Genocide

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The origin of the word genocide
Skeletal remains of the Armenian Genocide (1915).
Skulls at a memorial site about the Rwandan genocide

Genocide is the crime of trying to destroy an ethnic, racial, national or religious group. Genocides are done by killing and harming the group, preventing them from being able to live (like starving them), or by assimilating them, stopping them from having kids and destroying their identity.

Genocide is usually done by governments and large armies or paramilitaries. Genocide is often motivated by hatred or fear of the group, and for political reasons.

The word genocide was made up by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, in 1944, from the words "genos" (Greek for family, tribe or race) and "-cide" (from the Latin "occidere", to kill). It was first used to the Nazi Holocaust, when many groups, including Jews and others, were killed.

Ustashe of Croatia are another example of genocidial horror. About a million of Serbs were killed during WWII in Ustashe death camps especially in Jasenovac. Another example of genocide was when about a million of the Tutsi group of people of Rwanda were killed along with Hutus who were against the genocide in 1994.

In 1933 Lemkin made a speech to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. The purpose of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based mostly on the experience of Assyrians[1] massacred in Iraq on 11 August 1933. The event in Iraq reminded him of earlier similar events of the Armenian Genocide during World War I.[1]

Today, any genocide is prohibited by the Genocide Convention and actor or inciter of genocide is judged by the International Criminal Court.

Examples[change | change source]

Today most people see the following events as genocide. Note that the events listed are just examples.

References[change | change source]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Raphael Lemkin - EuropeWorld, 22/6/2001