Genocide, Essay Example

The term “genocide” did not exist before 1944. It is a very specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Human rights, as laid out in the US Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals. The phrase genocide existed in 1944. It refers to violent crimes against human beings with the intention of destroying the being of those individuals or groups. There is a concern for human rights in the US Bill of Rights and in the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration. After the holocaust on 9 December, the UN approved the prevention and conservation and punishment of genocide as a crime as championed by Lemkin. The Conservation declares genocide a global crime, which must be punished and prevented. It is defined as acts done with the intention of destroying, in part or in whole, ethnic, religion, national, or any other group through mass killing of members, causing physical or mental harm, having measure to prevent births, or transferring children to another area of group by force. The paper will outline the similarities and differences between genocides in Cambodia and Kosovo by looking at the causes, the way people’s lives were ended, the killing fields, and the reactions from the international bodies.

Similarities

Both the Kosovo and the Cambodian genocides were horrible and involved, mass killings, rotting bodies, and strange empty graves. Many witnesses and evidence were hidden through intimidation and killings (Jones 2006).

The Khmer Rouge began their killings campaign immediately they took authority of Cambodia in 1975. The targets were all intellectuals who included religious leaders, doctors, attorneys, and military leaders. The genocide is estimated to have killed more than 1.7 million individuals during that campaign (Jones 2006). It is noted as one of the greatest tragedies involving humans in the 20^th century. The oppressive, ultra-communist Khmer Rouge rule that was led by Pol Pot, wanted to convert the country to agrarian utopia and this led to mass killing of the people in Cambodia.

In 1998 and 1999, more than 12,000 Kosovan men, children, and women were killed by the Serbian forces. Another eight hundred thousand were deported by force, while others fled in fear of being murdered (Hughes 2009). The act was referred as to ethnic cleansing, cleansing the elements or the people who were undesirable and unwanted. These people were discriminated against and were seen as unclean and unnecessary, the Albanians. There was a mass act of rape of women, torture and brutality, and sadism (Quigley 2006). The overall results were extreme dehumanization. This violence and murder lasted 78 days only after the NATO was involved and hence forced Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his men from Kosovo permanently. However, thousands of Albanians kept missing and never returned home even after Slobodan in 2001, released thousands of Albanian prisoners from jails.

With reference to the US bombings, for in both instances there is a debatable case for a link to subsequent killing committed by the rule of Slobodan Milosevic and Pol Pot. In the Cambodian situation, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge was greeted as they rallied into Phnom Penh in 1975. Most of the people who would be its prospect victims supposed that Pot’s army would defend them from US attack. Certainly, the disreputable emptying of Cambodian cities that describes the beginning of the country’s odd social revolution was consummate peacefully (Hughes 2009). Most urban inhabitants believed that the momentary mass departure was required because of the risk of renewed harassment from the US air force.

In Kosovo, assaults on Kosovar Albanians that were modest in scale only became full-sized tribal cleansing after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing battle had begun. However, to an onlooker it seems grotesquely one-sided to examine only the slaughter of the Khmer Rouge and Serbian armed forces and mercenaries. To the sufferers, individuals whose bodies are maimed and whose houses are destroyed by napalm and cluster bombs, terms like collateral damage are little more than literalism (Simon 2007).

Differences

The Kosovan genocide was largely aimed at killing of the Albanian by the Serbian forces as directed by the Serbian leader Slobodan after the declaration that Kosovo was still and would remain part of Serbia. The violent response by the Albanians is what led to the mastermind of the genocide by the Serbian leader (Quigley 2006). In contrast, the Cambodian genocide was planned when Pol Pot and his group took power in Cambodia and was target at mass killing of all intellectuals in the country for the interest of the party. Therefore, it is clearly noted that the two events are different as Kosovan genocide was what can be termed as ethnic or national genocide as it was one nation killing the other nation, while that of Cambodia is a group genocide as it involved killing of a certain targeted group of people, the intellectuals in the country (Simon 2007).

Conclusion

In summary, having seen the effects of the crime of genocide in these two cases, genocide must be prevented with all measures as it leads to both mental and physical harm to the victims, and mass murder with the intention of whipping out the target group by the dominant group. It is an international crime and, therefore, must be punished as it is against human rights.

References

Hughes, J. (2009). Colonial genocide and reparations claims in the 21st century the socio-legal context of claims under international law by the Herero against Germany for genocide in Namibia, 1904-1908. Westport, Conn: Praeger Security International.

Jones, A. (2006). Genocide a comprehensive introduction. London New York: Routledge.

Quigley, J. (2006). The Genocide Convention an international law analysis. Aldershot, England Burlington, VT: Ashgate Pub.

Simon, T. (2007). The laws of genocide: prescriptions for a just world. Westport, Conn: Praeger Security International.