With the name of genocide actions that involve the systematic extermination of a social group, which occurs motivated by a question of race, politics, religion or any group belonging. For example: Ukrainian genocide, Rwandan genocide, Nazi Holocaust.
genocides are international crimes that were classified as crimes against humanity, and once the most important genocide of the 20th century (the Nazi holocaust) was finished, it was regulated by the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in 1948.
Formal definition and legal scope
Among the contributions of this Convention was the formal demarcation of the scope of the concept of genocide: the killing of the members of the group in question reaches the term but also the serious injury to their physical or mental integrity, as well as the submission to laws or regulations that aim at their total or partial physical destruction.
The moment a crime becomes categorized as genocide, its responsible They can be tried in their competent territory but also in courts of any State, or according to the International Criminal Court. Because it is a crime against humanity, it is agreed in the law that it is a crime that does not prescribe.
genocidal states
Throughout history, and especially in the twentieth century (the so-called ‘century of genocides’ due to the large number that existed) it was common for these practices to be carried out by the States themselves.
It became frequent that one’s own political management of a country has the intention of exterminating a part of its population, which explains one of the keys to genocide: due to the level of damage it poses, it is necessary for it to have a structure behind it that will be, at least endorsed and how much maximum sustained and sustained by the State itself.
Hence the importance of the fact that genocides may have the intervention of judicial forces outside the State itself, since these may also be at the service of the genocide.
A series of genocides in the history of humanity will be listed below, according to the formal definition of the term.
Examples of genocides
- Armenian Genocide. Forced deportation and extermination of around 2 million people, by the government of the Turks in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923.
- Ukrainian genocide. Famine caused by the Stalinist regime that occurred in the Ukrainian territory between 1932 and 1933.
- nazi holocaust. Measure known as ‘final solution’, attempt to totally annihilate the Jewish population of Europe that claimed 6 million lives, between 1933 and 1945.
- Rwandan Genocide. Massacre committed by the Hutus ethnic group against the Tutsis, executing close to 1 million people.
- Cambodian Genocide. Execution of around 2 million people between 1975 and 1979 by the communist regime.
Characteristics of genocides
Many social science theorists noticed the generalization of genocides in the last century, and set out to find the commonalities that they had. One of them is that everyone has, at some point, the support of an important part of the society in which it is produced, mindful that it takes place under a series of steps:
- The first thing that happens is that the State proposes a progressive demarcation of the affected group. It may encourage division and fragmentation of society.
- The group is identified and symbolized, generating strong hatred and contempt in the factions of society outside of it.
- They begin to take measures of a humiliating nature for this group, despite the fact that they are not physical violence. The symbolization turns the sector in question into an enemy.
- State militias become supporters of the slogan, or paramilitary groups are created.
- The next step is the preparation for action, in which there is usually an organization in the form of lists or even with transportation, in the so-called ‘ghettos’ or ‘concentration camps’.
- The extermination occurs then, in a justified way in the face of an important part of the same society.
It is important to note that there is a large series of events, most of them called ‘massacres’ or political actions that left a huge death toll, but that do not formally comply with the definition of genocide: most of these are more typical of war or war, an issue that has no relation to genocide because it is a battle and not from the search for a elimination of a group.
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