Genocide What is it What are the eight stages of genocide by yurtgc548


             What is it?
What are the eight stages of genocide?

                                  Mrs. Mitchell
                          What is it?
   UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
                   Crime of Genocide
Article 1
• The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in
   which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article 2
• In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts
   ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
• (a) Killing members of the group;
   bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
What Are The Eight Stages of
 By Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch

All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us
and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality:
German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. Bipolar societies that
lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are
the most likely to have genocide. The main preventive
measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic
institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that
actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that
promote classifications that transcend the divisions.
We give names or other symbols to the classifications. We
colors or dress; and apply the symbols to members of
groups. Classification and symbolization are universally
human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they
lead to the next stage, dehumanization. When combined
with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members
the blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone in Khmer
Rouge Cambodia. To combat symbolization, hate symbols
can be legally forbidden (swastikas) as can hate speech.
One group denies the humanity of the other group.
Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or
diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human
revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in
combating this dehumanization, incitement to genocide
should not be confused with protected speech. Genocidal
societies lack constitutional protection for countervailing
speech, and should be treated differently than democracies.
Local and international leaders should condemn the use of
hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable.
Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often
using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility (the
Janjaweed in Darfur.) Sometimes organization is informal
(Hindu mobs led by local RSS militants) or decentralized
(terrorist groups.) Special army units or militias are often
trained and armed. Plans are made for genocidal killings. To
combat this stage, membership in these militias should be
outlawed. Their leaders should be denied visas for foreign
travel. The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on
governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal
massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations,
as was done in post-genocide Rwanda.
Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast
polarizing propaganda. Laws may forbid intermarriage or
social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates,
intimidating and silencing the center. Moderates from the
perpetrators’ own group are most able to stop genocide,
so are the first to be arrested and killed. Prevention may
mean security protection for moderate leaders or
assistance to human rights groups.
Victims are identified and separated out because of their
ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up.
Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying
symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often
segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration
camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and
starved. At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be
declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional
alliances, or the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized,
armed international intervention should be prepared, or
heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare
for its self-defense.
This stage begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing
legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers
because they do not believe their victims to be fully human.
When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often
work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide
results in revenge killings by groups against each other,
creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral
genocide (as in Burundi). At this stage, only rapid and
overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real
safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be
established with heavily armed international protection. (An
unsafe “safe” area is worse than none at all.)
This is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is
among the surest indicators of further genocidal
massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass
intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed
any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims.
They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to
govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into
exile. There they remain with impunity, unless they are
captured and a tribunal is established to try them. The
response to denial is punishment by an international
tribunal or national courts.

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