The word genocide (from the Greek genos – tribe, race; and from the Latin cide – to kill ) is used to refer to the act of systematic extermination of an ethnic group or to any deliberate act that aims to exterminate a fundamental cultural aspect of a people. The term was first used in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish jurist who contributed during and after the Second World War to the construction of international laws on this crime. Lemkim was one of the main participants in the 1948 UN Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Although it is not a new phenomenon, since there are records of genocide throughout human history, it was only after the appalling events that took place during World War II, perpetrated by Nazism , that the International Community came together to try to curb this type of crime. In 1946, the UN Assembly defined Genocide as “ the refusal of the right to the existence of entire human groups (…) an offense of the rights of peoples, in contrast to the spirit and objectives of the United Nations, an offense that the world civil condemns “, and determined a draft Convention to address the matter. The bill was approved by the General Assembly on December 9, 1948, and defined the crime of Genocide in its Article 2 as follows:
Article II – In this Convention, genocide is understood to mean any of the following acts, committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) murder of members of the group;
- b) serious damage to the physical or mental integrity of group members;
(c) intentional subjection of the group to living conditions designed to cause its total or partial physical destruction;
(d measures to prevent births within the group;
(e) forcibly transferring children from the group to another group.
The motivations for acts of genocide can be numerous: xenophobia, feelings of hatred, fear or deep dislike for people belonging to a different nationality, ethnic and even religious disputes. The Convention, however, established the principle of individual accountability for all acts related to the crime of genocide and also determined punishment for those who commit them.
Don’t stop now … There’s more after the publicity;)
Genocides in recent times
The best-known genocide in history occurred during World War II. It is estimated that more than six million Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, blacks, “communists” and Slavs have been systematically murdered in concentration camps. However, he was not the first. The Armenian genocide is considered by the vast majority of the International Community to be the first systematic extermination of an ethnic group in recent history. The events leading up to this tragedy took place during the First World War, when the then Ottoman Empire embarked on a mass murder attempt against the population of Armenia, killing 1.8 million people.
Another well-known case that is still a source of great controversy is the so-called Holodomor or the Ukrainian genocide, which occurred between the years 1932 and 1933. The actions that led to the death of 3 to 3.5 million people due to starvation (hunger ), according to recent estimates by historian Stanislav Kulchytsky, are attributed to the Soviet government of Josef Stalin .
The changes implemented by the Soviet government in an attempt to industrialize the Soviet economy and production, a deep period of drought that the region faced and strong measures implemented by the Stalinist government, such as the “compulsory requisition”, which determined that agricultural producers should sell the production surplus for the State at very low prices, are part of the reasons pointed out as responsible for the tragedy. However, although the reason for the large number of deaths in such a short period is still open to debate in academic circles today, it is widely accepted by the International Community that the responsibility of the then USSR on deaths is a fact.
