Suchergebnisse

There are few parallels to the human holocaust that took place in Burundi in
1972 in the wake of a tortuous competitive struggle between the country's two
major ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. Scarcely noticed (let alone
understood) by public opinion anywhere, the killings are conservatively estimated
to have caused between 80,000 and 100,000 deaths. Approximately 3.5 percent of the
country's total population (3.5 million) were physically wiped out in a period of
a few weeks. In comparative terms this is as if England had suffered a loss of 2
million or the United States about 8 million people. To speak of "selective
genocide" in describing the outcome of such large-scale political violence seems
scarcely an exaggeration.

There are few parallels to the human holocaust that took place in Burundi in 1972 in the wake of a tortuous competitive struggle between the country's two major ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. Scarcely noticed (let alone understood) by public opinion anywhere, the killings are conservatively estimated to have caused between 80,000 and 100,000 deaths. Approximately 3.5 percent of the country's total population (3.5 million) were physically wiped out in a period of a few weeks. In comparative terms this is as if England had suffered a loss of 2 million or the United States about 8 million people. To speak of "selective genocide" in describing the outcome of such large-scale political violence seems scarcely an exaggeration.

AbstractNow is the time to consider how we will react to the next genocide. Although the hope that the judgments at Nuremberg would deter genocide and similar crimes against humanity in the postwar world, genocides have occurred without sanction since 1945. The best-documented cases I have studied include the attempted annihilation of Buddhism in Tibet by China (1950-59), the selective genocide of the Hutus in Burundi by the Government of Burundi (1972), the genocidal slaughter of Hindus in East Pakistan by the Government of Pakistan (1971), and the extermination of the Ache Indians of Paraguay from 1971 onward with the toleration or complicity of the Government of Paraguay.Under the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia it has been estimated that about 2 million, or three out of ten Cambodians, were killed or died due to the regime's policies. Whether these murders, termed "auto-genocide" by Anthony Paul, fit the definition of genocide under the Genocide Convention is open to question.

We are beginning to be inundated with media reports on the genocidal war in Darfur, the Sudan' s westernmost province, an area approximately the size of France. Much is being written on what is happening on the ground (see NYT 4 and 8 May), much less about the causes. I write here as an historian of Darfur.