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A genocide is the physical, intentional, systematic and programmed extermination of a group or part of an ethnic group, Nation Al, religious or racial.

Etymology

The genocide term is a Néologisme formed in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, law professor American of Polish Jewish origin, starting from the Greek root genos , “birth”, “kind”, “species”, and of the suffix “cide”, which comes from the Latin term caedere , “to kill”, “to massacre”. Defining this hybrid word in a study published by the Carnegie Foundation for international peace (“Rule Axis in Occupied Europe”) the crime against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis against the people Jew and gypsy lasting the Second world war, it writes: “New concepts require new words. By genocide, we understand the destruction of a nation or an ethnicity. ”

Strictly speaking , the concept of race is in the mankind a sociological concept rather that Génétique. However, founded or not, it exists in the spirit of the genocidary ones. Their crime is articulated around the notion of a differentiation, a nature or another, a population considered by them as “undesirable” and of the membership by the birth with the population of the people concerned, unlike the ideological wars where the people are aimed only like supposed vectors their ideas.

According to the historical Dictionary of the French language of Alain Rey, the word appears in French at the same time as his English appearance. Initially employed in connection with the Nazis and of their “final solution” of the Jewish problem, he says methodical destruction of an ethnicity, and by extension, about 1970, of the extermination of a group in little time.

Definition

Article 2 of the Convention for the prevention and the repression of the crime of genocide , adopted by the general meeting of the United Nations, the December 9th 1948, affirms: In present Convention, the genocide means any of the acts hereafter made in the intention to destroy, or all or partly, a group national, ethnic, racial or religious, like such:
a) Murder of members of the group;
b) Gravely hurt with the physical integrity or mental members of the group;
c) Intentional tender of the group in conditions of existence having to involve its total or partial physical destruction;
d) Measurements aiming at blocking the births within the group;
e) Transfer forced children of the group to another group.

This definition was included in article 6 of the Statut of Rome (July 17th 1998), the founding document of the International penal court.

Use familiar of the word genocide

The root genos implies that one is killed for what one is by the birth. The genocide term passed in the usual vocabulary knows a broader meaning representing the ultimate gradation in the scale of gravity. It is thus sometimes used to qualify events which strike by their width and their horror, without consideration of their adequacy to the legal criteria defining the crime of genocide.

This broader definition is used by the media and of the historians. In this definition, a genocide is the will to exterminate the totality of a group of individuals, without specifying the qualification of this group. This definition confuses Massacre of mass and genocide. It thus qualifies massacres such as for example those perpetrated during the Kampuchean Révolution of the time of the Khmer Rouge.

One speaks (wrongly) about “cultural Génocide” (i.e Ethnocide). This expression is an abuse, or a confusion, of language. It is the case:

in the remarks of Ettore Scola, in an interview published in Release the January 14th 2006, speaking about the film Dreadful, dirty and malicious and of Pasolini: The scenario corresponded so that he had written on the “cultural genocide” perpetrated by the capitalist company .
in the same way in the use as made of it Patrick Le Lay in an interview with the magazine Bretons concerning the Politique French linguistics of eradication of the Breton Langue.

Many generalized uses of the word genocide are regarded as a scandalous vulgarizing, sometimes of inspiration negationnist, this crime extreme by associations of victims of genocide, Armenians, Jews, or Rwandan.

The political genocide?

A preceding definition of the genocide, decided at the time of the first general meeting of UNO on December 11th, 1946, integrated the destruction of a political group, beside the racial groups, religious and different. But in 1948, the political group disappears from the definition.

According to Bernard Bruneteau, professor of modern history, it is the the USSR which made withdraw the reference to the policy because of what it could reproach. By doing this the genocide leaves the category of the Crimes against humanity.

History

The term appeared for the first time in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe in 1944 (the word is introduced in the chapter IX heading " Génocide") of the American lawyer of Polish origin Raphaël Lemkin to try to define the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi S against the people Jewish, Slavic and gypsy during the Second world war, like those made by the government of the Young person-Turks of the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians during the First World War, and the massacres of Assyrians in Iraq in 1933. He testifies to a double will on behalf of the international community:

that to punish a crime up to that point unknown in the penal legal vocabulary;
that to qualify the systematic destruction of the Jewish people by the German State hitlérien.

Legal recognition

The genocide was juridically redefined in the Convention for the prevention and the repression of the crime of genocide , adopted by the general meeting of the United Nations on December 9th, 1948. This document defines a genocide as a whole of acts clerk in the intention to destroy, all or partly, a group national, ethnic, racial or religious like such .

The Charter of UNO and article 8 of the Geneva Convention oblige the international community to intervene for to prevent or stop acts of genocide .

Today article 6 of the statute of the International penal court defines the crime of genocide.

It specifies that it is about a crime being distingant by:

the intention of total extermination of a population;
implementation the systematic (thus planned) of this will.

It is often the dispute of the one of these elements which makes debate for the official recognition of a crime as a genocide.

It comes out from this definition that, contrary to the generally accepted ideas, a genocide does not imply necessarily a quantitative criterion. Thus one estimates at approximately sixty million the number of died during the second world war. Among those only the six million Jews, the Gypsies and other minorities is regarded as victims of a genocide perpetrated by the Nazis. Contrary, massacres of mass do not constitute a genocide inevitably. In practice however, it appears that the quantitative criterion is a crucial factor to confirm the will of extermination, all or partly .

Internationally recognized genocides

Only three genocides were recognized in the plan juric by international authorities depending on UNO:

the Armenian genocide made by the Ottoman Empire. Genocidary character of the massacres of the Armenian people in 1915 - 1916 was recognized in a report/ratio of UNO on the question of the prevention and the repression of the crime of genocide established by the Commission of the Human rights - Sub-commission of the fight against discriminatory measurements and the protection of the minorities - at the time of the 38e session of the Economic and Social Council of UNO. This report/ratio, known of the name of its rapporteur Benjamin Whitaker, was approved by the Commission of the Human rights of UNO the August 29th 1985
the genocide of the Jews and the Tzigane S made by the Nazis in Germany, Poland and France (in Alsace with Schirmeck). This genocide was recognized by the court of Nuremberg created by the the United Kingdom, the France, the the USSR and the the United States in 1945, at the same time as one created UNO. One can say that the genocide of the Juifs was used as reference to define what is a crime of genocide.
the genocide of the Tutsi S with the Rwanda, made by the militia Hutu be extremists created by the mode Habyarimana, was recognized by UNO, in the report/ratio of its Commission of the Human rights on June 28th, 1994, then during the creation of the International penal court for Rwanda (resolution 955 adopted by the Safety advice on November 8th 1994. This resolution confirms resolution 935 of the same year).

That does not mean however that other massacres of the History will not be a day officially not described as genocide.

The term of genocide applies only to crimes ordered by a government or a capacity in fact. This capacity in general has the means necessary to legalize its acts afterwards, which justifies the recourse to an international legislation of exception. The massacres made by bands or illegal organizations raise of ordinary national justice, except if it is proven that these bands were organized and supported by the capacity in place.

In addition a problem of principle is raised out of legal matter: in theory, null law should not have of retroactive range (because it would be a precedent opening the door with Arbitraire S futures): one could not classify a Crime in a category which at the time when it was perpetrated did not exist. That does not imply that these crimes must remain unpunished, but it is in theory within the framework existing at their time (thus Homicide) that it would be advisable to consider those former to the creation of the term. In order to circumvent this theoretical problem, the Court of Nuremberg considered that the prohibition of the crime of genocide was of a usual nature, and that it was thus preexistent with the legal definition of the crime of genocide.

With the genocides recognized by UNO is added that of the deportation of the people Tchétchènes in 1944 ordered by Joseph Stalin and recognized like such by the the European Parliament the February 26th 2004.

Courts of competent jurisdiction

Since the Second world war, several courts were created in order to judge the genocides. Some were created of all parts (like the Tribunal of Nuremberg and the Tribunal of Tokyo), whereas others are competent for all the genocides being able to be perpetrated in the world.

The courts ad hoc

It is at the end of the Second world war, time to which the legal concept of genocide was defined that courts started to judge the crimes of genocide and the other serious crimes committed during armed conflicts.

There were several courts which were created of all parts to judge certain crimes of genocides:

the Court of Nuremberg, for the Shoah and crimes of the Nazis.
the International penal court for ex-Yugoslavia (TPIY), for the crimes committed at the time of the Wars of Yugoslavia, in particular the Massacre of Srebrenica
the International penal court for Rwanda (TPIR), for the Genocide in Rwanda

National courts and concept of “universal competence”

The national legislative powers adapt in their own legislations the provisions of the International law.

Lawsuits, concerned with this competence known as “universal” took place in Belgium, Suisse and with the Canada for crimes concerned with the Génocide in Rwanda.

In France these provisions concerning the genocide are treated in the article Génocide (French right). Laws, called “not codified provisions relating to the serious violations of the humane international law”, give competence to the French courts to also judge crimes of genocide made in other countries in certain circumstances. Instructions are in hand against Rwandan nationals accommodated in France, and lodged complaints against X (of the French soldiers) by the Rwandan alive ones with the Rwanda are being studied with the Tribunal at the armies in Paris following two decisions of the Court of Appeal of Paris in May and July 2006.

International penal court

The massacres of which the genocidary character is discussed

Several massacres ou/et deportations are currently regarded by some as genocides:

the Colonization of the Americas by the European populations involved the quasi-total destruction several people of South America and reduced approximately to 35 million to less than 2 million people the Amerindian population of North America between 1500 and today.

Conquest of Algeria: According to Olivier the Court Grandmaison, the Conquête of Algeria resulted in the extermination of the third of the population, that is to say nearly 1 million deaths, whose causes are multiple, massacres, deportations, famines or epidemics, but closely dependant between them. What prohibits to hold the two last for natural phenomena without relationship with the fatal pacification of this territory and testifies to the exterminating dimension of the company.

the Traite blacks is recognized like a Crime against humanity by the majority of the countries. In France, a law of the May 21st 2001 affirms that the draft négrière and the slavery constituted crimes against humanity. In spite of the number of victims, which is the subject in the state of very varied evaluations (from 60 to 600 million victims, according to certain historians) and which makes the most important draft of the blacks Déportation of the history of humanity, the character of genocide is disputed taking into consideration legal criterion of this qualification. The recognition by UNO of the genocidary qualification is required by the majority of the African countries , like by many governmental organizations “of North”. For example, the World council of the Panafrican diaspora (CMDP) and the Learned society of the African encyclopedists. On the other hand, of the historians, although not denying that a Crime against humanity was perpetrated, affirm that “extermination of the blacks not being the goal of the draft”, but one of its consequence, that cannot be regarded as a genocide.

Under the Terror, the massacres made by the republicans, in particular the infernal Columns, during the War of the Vendée in France, in 1793 and 1794, led Gracchus Babeuf to speak about Populicide. In the years 1980, this term was assimilated by the historian Reynald Secher to that of genocide. In February 2007, a private bill aiming to the “recognition of the Vendean genocide” was deposited with the National Assembly by nine deputies of right-hand side; it is based on work of this historian and those of the writer Michel Ragon. However, the character " génocidaire" of these massacres remains discussed and did not gain the adhesion of the French members of Parliament.

the Genocide of Hereros by the German in 1904, recognized in 2004 by a German minister with the commemorations of the centenary of this event.

Holodomor : several million Soviets, in particular Ukrainian, died at the time of a terrible famine in the area of the Black cotton soils (with horse on the Ukraine and the current Russia). The Ukrainian Parliament voted the qualification of genocide for this great famine on November 28th, 2006.

Tibet : the International commission of the lawyers qualified in a report/ratio of 1959 the massacres perpetrated in Tibet by the Chinese authorities of genocide. The assessment of the Chinese invasion is considered at 1,2 million died between 1959 and 1970 according to the Gouvernement Tibetan in exile, like recalled it Samdhong Rinpoché during its hearing to the Senate in 2000. The January 11th 2006, the Supreme court of Spain announced that it was going to inform an investigation concerning the implication of seven former leaders Chinese, inter alia the former president Jiang Zemin and the former Prime Minister Li Peng, in a genocide in Tibet. This instruction is the consequence of a decree of the Spanish Constitutional court of the December 26th 2005 which authorizes the treatment of the complaints for genocides, even if they does not imply Spanish nationals.

the Large Step ahead (1959 - 1962): 30 million people famished by the consequences of the policy of Mao Zedong. The will to exterminate people is discussed.

the Cultural revolution (1966 - 1968) This toughening of Communism (or resumption in hands of the capacity by Mao) made at least a million deaths.

the massacres of the '' democratic Kampuchea '' (Kampuchea): between 1975 and 1979 Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge order the massacre of their own people with an acknowledged aim “of ethnic, religious and ideological standardization”. 1,7 million Kampuchean are killed. Although these massacres have all the aspects of a genocide, UNO officially did not recognize it like tel. Of the extraordinary rooms currently in exercise, which are directed by Kampuchean justice and in which take part of the international experts, will be able to establish the genocidary character of these massacres.

Massacre of Plan of Sánchez to the Guatemala in 1982, where more 100 000 Indians Maya S were massacred by the Guatemalan national army.

massacres of the Kurdish S by the dictator Saddam Hussein between 1988 and 1989 during the operation “Anfal”. 182 000 people perished during this operation. In December 2005, a court of $the Hague qualified this countryside of “genocide”. June 24th, 2007, the Iraqi penal Court condemned Ali Hassan Al Madjid, called “Ali the chemical one”, and two other old dignitaries of the mode of Saddam Hussein, with the death penalty by hanging for the genocide made against the Kurds during this Anfal operation.

the Massacre of Khodjaly, perpetrated by the Armenian army. In 1993, four resolutions (822, 853,874 and 884) were taken by the Safety advice of the United Nations. Only one, resolution 874 in its item 9, referred to violations of the humanitarian right international with warning statement “to all the parts”, without any other precision. The existence of a genocide is thus not considered.

the massacre of the Darfur to the Sudan. Where in July 2004, the Congrès of the United States unanimously voted for a resolution qualifying the massacres of the black populations of the Darfur (Sudan) of genocide. In September 2004, the American Secretary of State took again this mot. In a press release of the February 23rd 2005 the Safety advice of the United Nations declares: “The Sudanese government was not capable to put an end to the attacks militia against the civilians nor to disarm them”. The sentence falls the September 2nd from the mouth of the Special representative of the General secretary for the Sudan which, named one month earlier, is allocated from a mission to Darfur. The Council reacts. It adopts, by 11 votes for and 4 abstentions, the resolution 1564 in which it threatens to take measures, such as those contained in article 41 of the Charter of UNO, in the opposition in particular to the oil sector, the Government of Sudan or some of its members. In this resolution, the Council charges also the General secretary with creating an international commission to determine acts of genocide so took place and to identify the authors of them. .

Massacres as a Democratic republic of Congo: 4,5 million famished and massacred since 1997 during the First war of Congo and the Second war of Congo.