The History of Genocide

The two world wars were about fighting the Nazi genocidal agenda. The term “genocide" came from Raphael Lemkin in 1948 after he fled the Nazi occupation of Poland, arriving in the United States. Lemkin had been horrified the Turks slaughtered the Armenians in World War 1. Lemkin felt he had to come up with a term to describe what the Nazis had done. The term “genocide” comes from “combining genos, the Greek word for race or tribe, with the Latin suffix cide, “to kill.” During the Nuremberg trials, the term “genocide” first began to be used in the charter of the International Military Tribunal set up by the Allies in Nuremberg, Germany.

The term “crimes against humanity” began to be used at this time. Crimes against humanity include persecution because of race, religion, or politics. In 1946, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution that made genocide a crime. But in modern times, genocide still happens, such as the gay concentration camps in Chechnya, the Bosnian war, and what is going on in Iraq to this day that the United States perpetuates. Genocide, implies an “intent to destroy.” The United States has killed many civilians during the Iraq war, and so has Islamic State.

Ethnic cleansing involves expelling a group of people from one area such as to the Yazidi of Iraq by Islamic State. Islamic State wanted to rid Iraq of non-Islamic influences. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), was ratified in 1951 by 130 countries since then but the United States didn’t sign until 1988 under Ronald Reagan who signed under duress and opposition because there were those that felt it would influence U.S. sovereignty in a negative way by limiting it.

The CPPCG has not been invoked much over the years since 1951 however, as nobody bothered during 1975-1979 with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia which killed 1.7 million people despite Cambodia ratifying the CPPCG in 1950. In 1992, who could forget the Bosnia-Herzegovina war when the country declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Bosnian Muslims were targeted (Bosniak), and Croatian civilians, which created the Bosnian Genocide and the deaths of 100,000 individuals. This planet is so full of chaos because of these events. When are we going to stop killing each other? The rise of the Nazis has been unmitigated in recent times, with membership growing.

Mass killings of the different never solved any problem between peoples. Genocide happens because the elite feel it is good for population control. The more people die, the better they feel as they want to control the population on this planet from getting worse. They fear a lack of sustainability. To fight the people who want to eliminate 80 percent of the world’s population, we have to decide not to participate in their genocidal campaigns. There is always a war on this planet or tension between countries. Look at what Russia is doing to the United States.

In American history, the United States did perform genocide on Native American tribes, who today are displaced. The Spanish colonials destroyed native populations in South America through illness as well as outright murder. To stop the wars, we need to set up dialog between peoples in the world. Differences need to be ironed out. This would go a long way to stopping school shootings as this is also a genocidal act. Having a conversation with somebody different from you is partly something that needs to be worked on by all peoples around the world. This is how to build a time of peace and prosperity for this planet.