Ethnic cleansing

Last updated

A group of Bosniaks from the Lasva Valley close by Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina that were kicked out of their homes and villages by Croat forces in 1993 Evstafiev-bosnia-travnik-girl-doll-refugee.jpg
A group of Bosniaks from the Lašva Valley close by Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina that were kicked out of their homes and villages by Croat forces in 1993

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group. [6] [7] [8]

Contents

Although scholars do not agree on which events constitute ethnic cleansing, [7] many instances have occurred throughout history; the term was first used during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s by the perpetrators as a euphemism for genocidal practices. Since then, the term has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism. [9] Although research originally focused on deep-rooted animosities as an explanation for ethnic cleansing events, more recent studies depict ethnic cleansing as "a natural extension of the homogenizing tendencies of nation states" or emphasize security concerns and the effects of democratization, portraying ethnic tensions as a contributing factor. Research has also focused on the role of war as a causative or potentiating factor in ethnic cleansing. However, states in a similar strategic situation can have widely varying policies towards minority ethnic groups perceived as a security threat. [10]

Ethnic cleansing has no legal definition under international criminal law, but the methods by which it is carried out are considered crimes against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention. [1] [11] [12]

Etymology

Russian Count Nikolay Yevdokimov, who organized the extermination campaigns of "Tsitsekun", designated Russian military operations targeting Circassian natives by the term "ochishchenie" (cleansing). Evdokimov Nikolay Ivanovich.jpg
Russian Count Nikolay Yevdokimov, who organized the extermination campaigns of "Tsitsekun", designated Russian military operations targeting Circassian natives by the term “ochishchenie” (cleansing).
Refugees at Taurus Pass during the Armenian genocide. The Young Turk triumvirate aimed to reduce the number of Armenians to below 5-10% of the population in any part of the Ottoman empire, which resulted in the elimination of a million Armenians. Refugees at the Taurus Pass.jpg
Refugees at Taurus Pass during the Armenian genocide. The Young Turk triumvirate aimed to reduce the number of Armenians to below 5–10% of the population in any part of the Ottoman empire, which resulted in the elimination of a million Armenians.

An antecedent to the term is the Greek word andrapodismos (ἀνδραποδισμός; lit. "enslavement"), which was used in ancient texts. e.g., to describe atrocities that accompanied Alexander the Great's conquest of Thebes in 335 BCE. [16] Circassian genocide, also known as "Tsitsekun", is often regarded by various historians as the first large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign launched by a state during the 19th century industrial era. [17] [18] Imperial Russian general Nikolay Yevdakimov, who supervised the operations of Circassian genocide during 1860s, dehumanised Muslim Circassians as "a pestilence" to be expelled from their native lands. Russian objective was the annexation of land; and the Russian military operations that forcibly deported Circassians were designated by Yevdakimov as “ochishchenie” (cleansing). [13]

In the early 1900s, regional variants of the term could be found among the Czechs (očista), the Poles (czystki etniczne), the French (épuration) and the Germans (Säuberung). [19] [ page needed ] A 1913 Carnegie Endowment report condemning the actions of all participants in the Balkan Wars contained various new terms to describe brutalities committed toward ethnic groups. [20]

Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia following the end of World War II Vertreibung.jpg
Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia following the end of World War II

During World War II, the euphemism čišćenje terena ("cleansing the terrain") was used by the Croatian Ustaše to describe military actions in which non-Croats were purposely killed or otherwise uprooted from their homes. [21] Viktor Gutić, a senior Ustaše leader, was one of the first Croatian nationalists on record to use the term as a euphemism for committing atrocities against Serbs. [22] The term was later used in the internal memorandums of Serbian Chetniks in reference to a number of retaliatory massacres they committed against Bosniaks and Croats between 1941 and 1945. [23] The Russian phrase очистка границ (ochistka granits; lit. "cleansing of borders") was used in Soviet documents of the early 1930s to refer to the forced resettlement of Polish people from the 22-kilometre (14 mi) border zone in the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs.[ citation needed ] This process of the population transfer in the Soviet Union was repeated on an even larger scale in 1939–1941, involving many other groups suspected of disloyalty. [24] During the Holocaust, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of ensuring that Europe was "cleaned of Jews" ( judenrein ). [25] The Nazi Generalplan Ost called for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of most Slavic people in central and eastern Europe for the purpose of providing more living space for the Germans. [26]

In its complete form, the term appeared for the first time in the Romanian language (purificare etnică) in an address by Vice Prime Minister Mihai Antonescu to cabinet members in July 1941. After the beginning of the invasion by the Soviet Union,[ clarification needed ] he concluded: "I do not know when the Romanians will have such chance for ethnic cleansing." [27] In the 1980s, the Soviets used the term "etnicheskoye chishcheniye" which literally translates to "ethnic cleansing" to describe Azerbaijani efforts to drive Armenians away from Nagorno-Karabakh. [28] [29] [30] At around the same time, the Yugoslav media used it to describe what they alleged was an Albanian nationalist plot to force all Serbs to leave Kosovo. It was widely popularized by the Western media during the Bosnian War (1992–1995).

In 1992, the German equivalent of ethnic cleansing (German : ethnische Säuberung, pronounced [ˈʔɛtnɪʃəˈzɔɪ̯bəʁʊŋ] ) was named German Un-word of the Year by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache due to its euphemistic, inappropriate nature. [31]

Definitions

The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as:

a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas", [noting that in the former Yugoslavia] " 'ethnic cleansing' has been carried out by means of murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property. Those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention. [32] [33]

The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group." [34] As a category, ethnic cleansing encompasses a continuum or spectrum of policies. In the words of Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, "ethnic cleansing ... defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide. At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory." [35]

Terry Martin has defined ethnic cleansing as "the forcible removal of an ethnically defined population from a given territory" and as "occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end." [24]

Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, has criticised the rise of the term and its use for events that he feels should be called "genocide": because "ethnic cleansing" has no legal definition, its media use can detract attention from events that should be prosecuted as genocide. [36] [37]

As a crime under international law

There is no international treaty that specifies a specific crime of ethnic cleansing; [38] however, ethnic cleansing in the broad sense—the forcible deportation of a population—is defined as a crime against humanity under the statutes of both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). [39] The gross human rights violations integral to stricter definitions of ethnic cleansing are treated as separate crimes falling under public international law of crimes against humanity and in certain circumstances genocide. [40] There are also situations, such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II, where ethnic cleansing has taken place without legal redress (see Preussische Treuhand v. Poland ). Timothy v. Waters argues that similar ethnic cleansing could go unpunished in the future. [41]

Exhumed victims of the Srebrenica massacre, part of the ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War Branjevo Military Farm Grave Exhumation.jpg
Exhumed victims of the Srebrenica massacre, part of the ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War

Mutual ethnic cleansing

Mutual ethnic cleansing occurs when two groups commit ethnic cleansing against minority members of the other group within their own territories. For instance in the 1920s, Turkey expelled its Greek minority and Greece expelled its Turkish minority following the Greco-Turkish War. [42] Other examples where mutual ethnic cleansing occurred include the First Nagorno-Karabakh War [43] and the population transfers by the Soviets of Germans, Poles and Ukrainians after World War II. [44]

Causes

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943. Most Poles of Volhynia had either been murdered or had fled the area. Lipniki massacre.jpg
Massacres of Poles in Volhynia in 1943. Most Poles of Volhynia had either been murdered or had fled the area.

According to Michael Mann, in The Dark Side of Democracy (2004), murderous ethnic cleansing is strongly related to the creation of democracies. He argues that murderous ethnic cleansing is due to the rise of nationalism, which associates citizenship with a specific ethnic group. Democracy, therefore, is tied to ethnic and national forms of exclusion. Nevertheless, it is not democratic states that are more prone to commit ethnic cleansing, because minorities tend to have constitutional guarantees. Neither are stable authoritarian regimes (except the nazi and communist regimes) which are likely perpetrators of murderous ethnic cleansing, but those regimes that are in process of democratization. Ethnic hostility appears where ethnicity overshadows social classes as the primordial system of social stratification. Usually, in deeply divided societies, categories such as class and ethnicity are deeply intertwined, and when an ethnic group is seen as oppressor or exploitative of the other, serious ethnic conflict can develop. Michael Mann holds that when two ethnic groups claim sovereignty over the same territory and can feel threatened, their differences can lead to severe grievances and danger of ethnic cleansing. The perpetration of murderous ethnic cleansing tends to occur in unstable geopolitical environments and in contexts of war. As ethnic cleansing requires high levels of organisation and is usually directed by states or other authoritative powers, perpetrators are usually state powers or institutions with some coherence and capacity, not failed states as it is generally perceived. The perpetrator powers tend to get support by core constituencies that favour combinations of nationalism, statism and violence. [45]

Ethnic cleansing was prevalent during the Age of Nationalism in Europe (19th and 20th centuries). [46] [47] Multi-ethnic European engaged in ethnic cleansing against minorities in order to pre-empt their secession and the loss of territory. [46] Ethnic cleansing was particularly prevalent during periods of interstate war. [46]

Genocide

Armenian genocide victims Armenianvictimsassault.jpg
Armenian genocide victims

Ethnic cleansing has been described as part of a continuum of violence whose most extreme form is genocide. Ethnic cleansing is similar to forced deportation or population transfer. While ethnic cleansing and genocide may share the same goal and methods (e.g., forced displacement), ethnic cleansing is intended to displace a persecuted population from a given territory, while genocide is intended to destroy a group. [48] [49]

Some academics consider genocide to be a subset of "murderous ethnic cleansing". [50] As Norman Naimark writes, these concepts are different but related, for "literally and figuratively, ethnic cleansing bleeds into genocide, as mass murder is committed in order to rid the land of a people." [51] William Schabas states "ethnic cleansing is also a warning sign of genocide to come. Genocide is the last resort of the frustrated ethnic cleanser." [48] Multiple genocide scholars have criticized distinguishing between ethnic cleansing and genocide, arguing that because both ultimately result in the destruction of a group, the use of the term "ethnic cleansing" is a form of genocide denial. [lower-alpha 1] [52] [36] [37]

As a military, political, and economic tactic

Foibe massacres victims Foibe1.jpg
Foibe massacres victims

The foibe massacres, or simply "the foibe", refers to mass killings both during and after World War II, mainly committed by Yugoslav Partisans and OZNA in the then-Italian territories [lower-alpha 2] of Julian March (Karst Region and Istria), Kvarner and Dalmatia also against the local ethnic Italian population (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians). [53] [54] The type of attack was state terrorism [53] and ethnic cleansing against Italians. [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] The foibe massacres were followed by the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus, which was the post-World War II exodus and departure of between 230,000 and 350,000 local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) towards Italy, and in smaller numbers, towards the Americas, Australia and South Africa. [58] [59] From 1947, after the war, they were subject by Yugoslav authorities to less violent forms of intimidation, such as nationalization, expropriation, and discriminatory taxation, [60] which gave them little option other than emigration. [61] [62] [63] In 1953, there were 36,000 declared Italians in Yugoslavia, just about 16% of the original Italian population before World War II. [64] According to the census organized in Croatia in 2001 and that organized in Slovenia in 2002, the Italians who remained in the former Yugoslavia amounted to 21,894 people (2,258 in Slovenia and 19,636 in Croatia). [65] [66]

Israeli herders have engaged in a systemic displacement of Palestinian herders in Area C of the West Bank as a form of nationalist and economic warfare. [67] [68] [69]

Portrait of Circassian refugees evicting their towns and villages after the Russian invasion of Circassia. Russian military forces massacred and forcibly deported between 95 and 97% of all native Circassians during the Circassian genocide. Mukhadzhiry.jpg
Portrait of Circassian refugees evicting their towns and villages after the Russian invasion of Circassia. Russian military forces massacred and forcibly deported between 95 and 97% of all native Circassians during the Circassian genocide.

When enforced as part of a political settlement, as happened with the expulsion of Germans after World War II through the forced resettlement of ethnic Germans to Germany in its reduced borders after 1945, the forced population movements, constituting a type of ethnic cleansing, may contribute to long-term stability of a post-conflict nation. [72] [ page needed ] Some justifications may be made as to why the targeted group will be moved in the conflict resolution stages, as in the case of the ethnic Germans, some individuals of the large German population in Czechoslovakia and prewar Poland had encouraged Nazi jingoism before World War II, but this was forcibly resolved. [72] [ page needed ]

According to historian Norman Naimark, during an ethnic cleansing process, there may be destruction of physical symbols of the victims including temples, books, monuments, graveyards, and street names: "Ethnic cleansing involves not only the forced deportation of entire nations but the eradication of the memory of their presence." [73] In many cases, the side perpetrating the alleged ethnic cleansing and its allies have fiercely disputed the charge.[ clarification needed ]

Instances

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. "How could ‘forced deportation’ ever be achieved without extreme coercion, indeed violence? How, indeed, could deportation not be forced? How could people not resist? How could it not involve the destruction of a community, of the way of life that a group has enjoyed over a period of time? How could those who deported a group not intend this destruction? In what significant way is the forcible removal of a population from their homeland different from the destruction’ of a group? If the boundary between ‘cleansing’ and genocide is unreal, why police it?" [52]
  2. Successively lost by Italy to Yugoslavia after the Treaty of Peace (1947)

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Ethnic cleansing". United Nations. United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
  2. Walling, Carrie Booth (2000). "The history and politics of ethnic cleansing". The International Journal of Human Rights. 4 (3–4): 47–66. doi:10.1080/13642980008406892. S2CID   144001685. Most frequently, however, the aim of ethnic cleansing is to expel the despised ethnic group through either indirect coercion or direct force, and to ensure that return is impossible. Terror is the fundamental method used to achieve this end.
    Methods of indirect coercion can include: introducing repressive laws and discriminatory measures designed to make minority life difficult; the deliberate failure to prevent mob violence against ethnic minorities; using surrogates to inflict violence; the destruction of the physical infrastructure upon which minority life depends; the imprisonment of male members of the ethnic group; threats to rape female members, and threats to kill. If ineffective, these indirect methods are often escalated to coerced emigration, where the removal of the ethnic group from the territory is pressured by physical force. This typically includes physical harassment and the expropriation of property. Deportation is an escalated form of direct coercion in that the forcible removal of 'undesirables' from the state's territory is organised, directed and carried out by state agents. The most serious of the direct methods, excluding genocide, is murderous cleansing, which entails the brutal and often public murder of some few in order to compel flight of the remaining group members.13 Unlike during genocide, when murder is intended to be total and an end in itself, murderous cleansing is used as a tool towards the larger aim of expelling survivors from the territory. The process can be made complete by revoking the citizenship of those who emigrate or flee.
  3. Schabas, William A. (2003). "'Ethnic Cleansing' and Genocide: Similarities and Distinctions". European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online. 3 (1): 109–128. doi: 10.1163/221161104X00075 . The Commission considered techniques of ethnic cleansing to include murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial executions, sexual assault, confinement of civilian populations in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian populations, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property.
  4. The danger of overstretching the term can be avoided...The goal of ethnic cleansing is to permanently remove a group from the area it inhabits...There is a popular dimension to ethnic cleansing because there are people needed to threaten with violence, to evict homes, organize mass transports, and to prevent the return of the unwanted...The main goal of ethnic cleansing was the removal of a group from a certain territory The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History. (2012). United Kingdom: OUP Oxford.
  5. Joireman, Sandra Fullerton. Peace, preference, and property : return migration after violent conflict. University of Michigan. p. 49. Violent conflict changes communities. "Returnees painfully discover that in their period of absence the homeland communities and their identities have undergone transformation, and these ruptures and changes have serious implications for their ability to reclaim a sense of home upon homecoming." The first issue in terms of returning home is usually the restoration of property, specifically the return or rebuilding of homes. People want their property restored, often before they return. But home means more than property, it also refers to the nature of the community. Anthropological literature emphasizes that time and the experience of violence changes people's sense of home and desire to return, and the nature of their communities of origin. To sum up, previous research has identified factors that influence decisions to return: time, trauma, family characteristics and economic opportunities.
  6. Bulutgil 2018, p. 1136.
  7. 1 2 Garrity, Meghan M (September 27, 2023). ""Ethnic Cleansing": An Analysis of Conceptual and Empirical Ambiguity". Political Science Quarterly. 138 (4): 469–489. doi:10.1093/psquar/qqad082.
  8. Kirby-McLemore, Jennifer (2021–2022). "Settling the Genocide v. Ethnic Cleansing Debate: Ending Misuse of the Euphemism Ethnic Cleansing". Denver Journal of International Law and Policy. 50: 115.
  9. Thum 2010, p. 75: way. Despite its euphemistic character and its origin in the language of the perpetrators, 'ethnic cleansing' is now the widely accepted scholarly term used to describe the systematic and violent removal of undesired ethnic groups from a given territory.
  10. Bulutgil, H. Zeynep (2018). "The state of the field and debates on ethnic cleansing". Nationalities Papers. 46 (6): 1136–1145. doi:10.1080/00905992.2018.1457018. S2CID   158519257.
  11. Jones, Adam (2012). "'Ethnic cleansing' and genocide". Crimes Against Humanity: A Beginner's Guide. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-1-78074-146-8.
  12. Schabas, William A. (2003). "'Ethnic Cleansing' and Genocide: Similarities and Distinctions". European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online. 3 (1): 109–128. doi: 10.1163/221161104X00075 . 'Ethnic cleansing' is probably better described as a popular or journalistic expression, with no recognized legal meaning in a technical sense... 'ethnic cleansing' is equivalent to deportation,' a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions as well as a crime against humanity, and therefore a crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal.
  13. 1 2 Richmond, Walter (2013). "4: 1864". The Circassian Genocide. New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA: Rutgers University Press. pp. 96, 97. ISBN   978-0-8135-6068-7.
  14. Levene, Mark (2005). "6: Declining Powers". Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State Volume II: The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide. 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010. pp. 299–300. ISBN   1-84511-057-9.
  15. Akçam, Taner (2011). "Demographic Policy and the Annihilation of the Armenians". The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire . Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-15333-9. The thesis being proposed here is that the Armenian Genocide was not implemented solely as demographic engineering, but also as destruction and annihilation, and that the 5 to 10 percent principle was decisive in achieving this goal. Care was taken so that the number of Armenians deported to Syria, and those who remained behind, would not exceed 5 to 10 percent of the population of the places in which they were found. Such a result could be achieved only through annihilation... According to official Ottoman statistics, it was necessary to reduce the prewar population of 1.3 million Armenians to approximately 200,000.
  16. Booth Walling, Carrie (2012). "The History and Politics of Ethnic Cleansing". In Booth, Ken (ed.). The Kosovo Tragedy: The Human Rights Dimensions. London: Routledge. p. 48. ISBN   978-1-13633-476-4.
  17. Richmond, Walter (2013). "3: From War to Genocide". The Circassian Genocide. New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA: Rutgers University Press. p. 66. ISBN   978-0-8135-6068-7.
  18. Levene, Mark (2005). "6: Declining Powers". Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State Volume II: The Rise of the West and the Coming of Genocide. 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010. pp. 298–302. ISBN   1-84511-057-9.
  19. Ther, Philipp (2004). "The Spell of the Homogeneous Nation State: Structural Factors and Agents of Ethnic Cleansing". In Munz, Rainer; Ohliger, Rainer (eds.). Diasporas and Ethnic Migrants: Germany, Israel and Russia in Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge. ISBN   978-1-13575-938-4. Archived from the original on January 26, 2020. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  20. Akhund, Nadine (December 31, 2012). "The Two Carnegie Reports: From the Balkan Expedition of 1913 to the Albanian Trip of 1921". Balkanologie. Revue d'études pluridisciplinaires. XIVb (1–2). doi: 10.4000/balkanologie.2365 . Archived from the original on April 4, 2017. Retrieved April 3, 2017 via balkanologie.revues.org.
  21. Toal, Gerard; Dahlman, Carl T. (2011). Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and Its Reversal. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN   978-0-19-973036-0. Archived from the original on July 6, 2014. Retrieved March 1, 2016.
  22. West, Richard (1994). Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia. New York: Carroll & Graf. p. 93. ISBN   978-0-7867-0332-6.
  23. Becirevic, Edina (2014). Genocide on the River Drina. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. pp. 22–23. ISBN   978-0-3001-9258-2. Archived from the original on January 26, 2020. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  24. 1 2 Martin, Terry (1998). "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing" Archived July 24, 2019, at the Wayback Machine . The Journal of Modern History 70 (4), 813–861. pg. 822
  25. Fulbrooke, Mary (2004). A Concise History of Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 197. ISBN   978-0-52154-071-1. Archived from the original on January 26, 2020. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  26. Eichholtz, Dietrich (September 2004). "'Generalplan Ost' zur Versklavung osteuropäischer Völker" ['General Plan East' for the enslavement of Eastern European peoples]. Utopie Kreativ (in German). 167: 800–808 via Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
  27. Petrovic, Vladimir (2017). Ethnopolitical Temptations Reach Southeastern Europe: Wartime Policy Papers of Vasa Čubrilović and Sabin Manuilă. CEU Press.
  28. Allen, Tim, and Jean Seaton, eds. The media of conflict: War reporting and representations of ethnic violence. Zed Books, 1999. p. 152
  29. Feierstein, Daniel (April 4, 2023). "The Meaning of Concepts: Some Reflections on the Difficulties in Analysing State Crimes". HARM – Journal of Hostility, Aggression, Repression and Malice. 1. doi:10.46586/harm.2023.10453. ISSN   2940-3073. The concept seems to have been borrowed from the Slavic expression etnicheskoye chishcheniye, first used by Soviet authorities in the 1980s to describe Azeri attempts to expel Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh area, and then immediately reappropriated by Serb nationalists to describe their policies in the central region of Yugoslavia.
  30. Cox, Caroline. "Nagorno Karabakh: Forgotten People in a Forgotten War." Contemporary Review 270 (1997): 8–13: "These operations were part of a policy designated `Operation Ring, comprising the proposed ethnic cleansing (a word used in relation to Azerbaijan's policy before it became familiar to the world in the context of the former Yugoslavia) of all Armenians from their ancient homeland of Karabakh."
  31. Gunkel, Christoph (October 31, 2010). "Ein Jahr, ein (Un-)Wort!" [One year, one (un)word!]. Spiegel Online (in German). Archived from the original on May 12, 2013. Retrieved February 17, 2013.
  32. "Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 780 (1992)" (PDF). United Nations Security Council. May 27, 1994. p. 33. Paragraph 129
  33. "Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 780 (1992)" (PDF). United Nations Security Council. May 27, 1994. p. 33. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved May 25, 2020. Upon examination of reported information, specific studies and investigations, the Commission confirms its earlier view that 'ethnic cleansing' is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. To a large extent, it is carried out in the name of misguided nationalism, historic grievances and a powerful driving sense of revenge. This purpose appears to be the occupation of territory to the exclusion of the purged group or groups. This policy and the practices of warring factions are described separately in the following paragraphs. Paragraph 130.
  34. Hayden, Robert M. (1996) "Schindler's Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers" Archived April 11, 2016, at the Wayback Machine . Slavic Review 55 (4), 727–48.
  35. Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, "A Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing" Archived February 3, 2004, at the Wayback Machine , Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 110, Summer 1993. Retrieved May 20, 2006.
  36. 1 2 Blum, Rony; Stanton, Gregory H.; Sagi, Shira; Richter, Elihu D. (2007). "'Ethnic cleansing' bleaches the atrocities of genocide". European Journal of Public Health. 18 (2): 204–209. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckm011 . PMID   17513346.
  37. 1 2 Douglas Singleterry (April 2010), "Ethnic Cleansing and Genocidal Intent: A Failure of Judicial Interpretation?", Genocide Studies and Prevention 5, 1
  38. Ferdinandusse, Ward (2004). "The Interaction of National and International Approaches in the Repression of International Crimes" (PDF). The European Journal of International Law. 15 (5): 1042, note 7. doi: 10.1093/ejil/15.5.1041 . Archived from the original (PDF) on July 5, 2008.
  39. "Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court" Archived January 13, 2008, at the Wayback Machine , Article 7; Updated Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Archived August 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine , Article 5.
  40. Shraga, Daphna; Zacklin, Ralph (2004). "The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia". The European Journal of International Law. 15 (3). Archived from the original on September 27, 2007.
  41. Timothy V. Waters, "On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing" Archived November 6, 2018, at the Wayback Machine , Paper 951, 2006, University of Mississippi School of Law. Retrieved on 2006, 12–13
  42. Pinxten, Rik; Dikomitis, Lisa (May 1, 2009). When God Comes to Town: Religious Traditions in Urban Contexts. Berghahn Books. ISBN   978-1-84545-920-8 . Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  43. Cornell, Svante E. (September 1998). "Religion as a factor in Caucasian conflicts". Civil Wars. 1 (3): 46–64. doi:10.1080/13698249808402381. ISSN   1369-8249.
  44. Snyder, Timothy (July 11, 2004). The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999. Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-10586-5 . Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  45. Archived May 3, 2020, at the Wayback Machine , Mann, Michael (2005), The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ch. 1 "The Argument," pp. 1–33.
  46. 1 2 3 Müller-Crepon, Carl; Schvitz, Guy; Cederman, Lars-Erik (2024). ""Right-Peopling" the State: Nationalism, Historical Legacies, and Ethnic Cleansing in Europe, 1886–2020". Journal of Conflict Resolution. doi:10.1177/00220027241227897. hdl: 20.500.11850/657611 . ISSN   0022-0027.
  47. Mylonas, Harris (2013). The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139104005. ISBN   978-1-107-02045-0.
  48. 1 2 Schabas, William (2000). Genocide in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 199–201. ISBN   9780521787901. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016. Retrieved October 29, 2015.
  49. Ethnic cleansing versus genocide:
    • Lieberman, Benjamin (2010). "'Ethnic cleansing' versus genocide?". In Bloxham, Donald; Moses, A. Dirk (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-923211-6. Explaining the relationship between ethnic cleansing and genocide has caused controversy. Ethnic cleansing shares with genocide the goal of achieving purity but the two can differ in their ultimate aims: ethnic cleansing seeks the forced removal of an undesired group or groups where genocide pursues the group's 'destruction'. Ethnic cleansing and genocide therefore fall along a spectrum of violence against groups with genocide lying on the far end of the spectrum.
    • Martin, Terry (1998). "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing". The Journal of Modern History. 70 (4): 813–861. doi:10.1086/235168. ISSN   0022-2801. JSTOR   10.1086/235168. S2CID   32917643. When murder itself becomes the primary goal, it is typically called genocide... Ethnic cleansing is probably best understood as occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end. Given this continuum, there will always be ambiguity as to when ethnic cleansing shades into genocide
    • Schabas, William A. (2003). "'Ethnic Cleansing' and Genocide: Similarities and Distinctions". European Yearbook of Minority Issues Online. 3 (1): 109–128. doi: 10.1163/221161104X00075 . The crime of genocide is aimed at the intentional destruction of an ethnic group. 'Ethnic cleansing' would seem to be targeted at something different, the expulsion of a group with a view to encouraging or at least tolerating its survival elsewhere. Yet ethnic cleansing may well have the effect of rendering the continued existence of a group impossible, thereby effecting its destruction. In other words, forcible deportation may achieve the same result as extermination camps.
    • Walling, Carrie Booth (2000). "The history and politics of ethnic cleansing". The International Journal of Human Rights. 4 (3–4): 47–66. doi:10.1080/13642980008406892. S2CID   144001685. These methods are a part of a wider continuum ranging from genocide at one extreme to emigration under pressure at the other... It is important - politically and legally - to distinguish between genocide and ethnic cleansing. The goal of the former is extermination: the complete annihilation of an ethnic, national or racial group. It contains both a physical element (acts such as murder) and a mental element (those acts are undertaken to destroy, in whole or in part, the said group). Ethnic cleansing involves population expulsions, sometimes accompanied by murder, but its aim is consolidation of power over territory, not the destruction of a complete people.
    • Naimark, Norman M. (2002). Fires of Hatred. Harvard University Press. pp. 2–5. ISBN   978-0-674-00994-3. A new term was needed because ethnic cleansing and genocide two different activities, and the differences between them are important. As in the case of determining first-degree murder, intentionality is a critical distinction. Genocide is the intentional killing off of part or all of an ethnic, religious, or national group; the murder of a people or peoples (in German, Völkermord) is the objective. The intention of ethnic cleansing is to remove a people and often all traces of them from a concrete territory. The goal, in other words, is to get rid of the "alien" nationality, ethnic, or religious group and to seize control of the territory it had formerly inhabited. At one extreme of its spectrum, ethnic cleansing is closer to forced deportation or what has been called "population transfer"; the idea is to get people to move, and the means are meant to be legal and semi-legal. At the other extreme, however, ethnic cleansing and genocide are distinguishable only by the ultimate intent. Here, both literally and figuratively, ethnic cleansing bleeds into genocide, as mass murder is committed in order to rid the land of a people.
    • Hayden, Robert M. (1996). "Schindler's Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers". Slavic Review. 55 (4): 727–748. doi:10.2307/2501233. ISSN   0037-6779. JSTOR   2501233. S2CID   232725375. Hitler wanted the Jews utterly exterminated, not simply driven from particular places. Ethnic cleansing, on the other hand, involves removals rather than extermination and is not exceptional but rather common in particular circumstances.
  50. Mann, Michael (2005). The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 17. ISBN   9780521538541. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016. Retrieved October 29, 2015.
  51. Naimark, Norman (November 4, 2007). "Theoretical Paper: Ethnic Cleansing". Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016.
  52. 1 2 Shaw, Martin (2015b), What is Genocide, Polity Press, ISBN 978-0-7456-8706-3 ‘Cleansing’ and genocide.
  53. 1 2 3 Ota Konrád; Boris Barth; Jaromír Mrňka, eds. (2021). Collective Identities and Post-War Violence in Europe, 1944–48. Springer International Publishing. p. 20. ISBN   9783030783860.
  54. 1 2 Bloxham, Donald; Dirk Moses, Anthony (2011). "Genocide and ethnic cleansing". In Bloxham, Donald; Gerwarth, Robert (eds.). Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 125. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511793271.004. ISBN   9781107005037.
  55. Silvia Ferreto Clementi. "La pulizia etnica e il manuale Cubrilovic" (in Italian). Retrieved February 15, 2015.
  56. «....Già nello scatenarsi della prima ondata di cieca violenza in quelle terre, nell'autunno del 1943, si intrecciarono giustizialismo sommario e tumultuoso, parossismo nazionalista, rivalse sociali e un disegno di sradicamento della presenza italiana da quella che era, e cessò di essere, la Venezia Giulia. Vi fu dunque un moto di odio e di furia sanguinaria, e un disegno annessionistico slavo, che prevalse innanzitutto nel Trattato di pace del 1947, e che assunse i sinistri contorni di una "pulizia etnica". Quel che si può dire di certo è che si consumò – nel modo più evidente con la disumana ferocia delle foibe – una delle barbarie del secolo scorso.» from the official website of The Presidency of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, official speech for the celebration of "Giorno del Ricordo" Quirinal, Rome, 10 February 2007.
  57. "Il giorno del Ricordo – Croce Rossa Italiana" (in Italian). Archived from the original on January 28, 2022. Retrieved December 18, 2022.
  58. "Il Giorno del Ricordo" (in Italian). February 10, 2014. Retrieved October 16, 2021.
  59. "L'esodo giuliano-dalmata e quegli italiani in fuga che nacquero due volte" (in Italian). February 5, 2019. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  60. Pamela Ballinger (April 7, 2009). Genocide: Truth, Memory, and Representation. Duke University Press. p. 295. ISBN   978-0822392361 . Retrieved December 30, 2015.
  61. Tesser, L. (May 14, 2013). Ethnic Cleansing and the European Union – Page 136, Lynn Tesser. Springer. ISBN   9781137308771.
  62. Ballinger, Pamela (2003). History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans. Princeton University Press. p. 103. ISBN   0691086974.
  63. Anna C. Bramwell, University of Oxford, UK (1988). Refugees in the Age of Total War. Unwin Hyman. pp. 139, 143. ISBN   9780044451945.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  64. Matjaž Klemenčič, The Effects of the Dissolution of Yugoslavia on Minority Rights: the Italian Minority in Post-Yugoslav Slovenia and Croatia. See "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 24, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  65. "Državni Zavod za Statistiku" (in Croatian). Retrieved June 10, 2017.
  66. "Popis 2002" . Retrieved June 10, 2017.
  67. Amira, Saad (2021). "The slow violence of Israeli settler-colonialism and the political ecology of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank". Settler Colonial Studies. 11 (4): 512–532. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2021.2007747. S2CID   244736676.
  68. Graham-Harrison, Emma; Kierszenbaum, Quique (October 21, 2023). "'The most successful land-grab strategy since 1967' as settlers push Bedouins off West Bank territory". The Guardian. Ein Rashash. Archived from the original on October 22, 2023.
  69. Ziv, Oren (October 19, 2023). "בעוד העיניים נשואות לדרום ולעזה, הטיהור האתני בגדה מואץ" [While the eyes are on the south and Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank is accelerating]. Mekomit (in Hebrew). Archived from the original on October 22, 2023.
  70. Jones, Adam (2016). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction. Taylor & Francis. pp. 108–110. ISBN   978-1-317-53386-3 via Google Books.
  71. Richmond, Walter (2013). The Circassian Genocide. New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA: Rutgers University Press. pp. 97, 132. ISBN   978-0-8135-6068-7.
  72. 1 2 Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Press.
  73. Naimark, Norman M. (September 19, 2002). Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe. Harvard University Press. pp. 209–211. ISBN   978-0-674-00994-3.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocide</span> Intentional destruction of a people

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Population transfer</span> Movement of a large group of people from one region to another

Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration that is often imposed by a state policy or international authority. Such mass migrations are most frequently spurred on the basis of ethnicity or religion, but they also occur due to economic development. Banishment or exile is a similar process, but is forcibly applied to individuals and groups. Population transfer differs more than simply technically from individually motivated migration, but at times of war, the act of fleeing from danger or famine often blurs the differences. If a state can preserve the fiction that migrations are the result of innumerable "personal" decisions, the state may be able to claim that it is not to blame for the displacement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cultural genocide</span> Type of genocide

Cultural genocide or culturicide is a concept described by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, in the same book that coined the term genocide. The destruction of culture was a central component in Lemkin's formulation of genocide. Though the precise definition of cultural genocide remains contested, the United Nations makes it clear that genocide is "the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group... it does not include political groups or so called 'cultural genocide'" and that "Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group" thus this is what "makes the crime of genocide so unique". While the Armenian Genocide Museum defines culturicide as "acts and measures undertaken to destroy nations' or ethnic groups' culture through spiritual, national, and cultural destruction", which appears to be essentially the same as ethnocide. The drafters of the 1948 Genocide Convention initially considered using the term, but later dropped it from inclusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimes against humanity</span> Serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians

Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as foreign nationals. Together with war crimes, genocide, and the crime of aggression, crimes against humanity are one of the core crimes of international criminal law, and like other crimes against international law have no temporal or jurisdictional limitations on prosecution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yugoslav Wars</span> 1991–2001 series of wars in the Balkans

The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia. SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars. While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Population transfer in the Soviet Union</span> Transfer and deportation of people in the Soviet Union

From 1930 to 1952, the government of the Soviet Union, on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin under the direction of the NKVD official Lavrentiy Beria, forcibly transferred populations of various groups. These actions may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite directions to fill ethnically cleansed territories. Dekulakization marked the first time that an entire class was deported, whereas the deportation of Soviet Koreans in 1937 marked the precedent of a specific ethnic deportation of an entire nationality.

Ethnic violence is a form of political violence which is expressly motivated by ethnic hatred and ethnic conflict. Forms of ethnic violence which can be argued to have the characteristics of terrorism may be known as ethnic terrorism or ethnically motivated terrorism. "Racist terrorism" is a form of ethnic violence which is dominated by overt racism and xenophobic reactionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnocide</span> Extermination of a culture

Ethnocide is the extermination or destruction of cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greek genocide</span> 1913–1922 genocide of Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire

The Greek genocide, which included the Pontic genocide, was the systematic killing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population of Anatolia which was carried out mainly during World War I and its aftermath (1914–1922) on the basis of their religion and ethnicity. It was perpetrated by the government of the Ottoman Empire led by the Three Pashas and by the Government of the Grand National Assembly led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, against the indigenous Greek population of the Empire. The genocide included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches through the Syrian Desert, expulsions, summary executions, and the destruction of Eastern Orthodox cultural, historical, and religious monuments. Several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. Most of the refugees and survivors fled to Greece. Some, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circassian genocide</span> 19th-century genocide in the Caucasus

The Circassian genocide, or Tsitsekun, was the Russian Empire's systematic mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and expulsion of 95–97% of the Circassian population, resulting in 1 to 1.5 million deaths during the final stages of the Russo-Circassian War. The peoples planned for extermination were mainly the Muslim Circassians, but other Muslim peoples of the Caucasus were also affected. Killing methods used by Russian forces during the genocide included impaling and tearing the bellies of pregnant women as means of intimidation of the Circassian population. Russian generals such as Grigory Zass described the Circassians as "subhuman filth", and glorified the mass murder of Circassian civilians, justified their use in scientific experiments, and allowed their soldiers to rape women.

An atrocity crime is a violation of international criminal law that falls under the historically three legally defined international crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is widely regarded as a fourth mass atrocity crime by legal scholars and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field, despite not yet being recognized as an independent crime under international law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War</span> Deportations and persecutions that occurred during the Yugoslav Wars

Ethnic cleansing occurred during the Bosnian War (1992–95) as large numbers of Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and Bosnian Croats were forced to flee their homes or were expelled by the Army of Republika Srpska and Serb paramilitaries. Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs had also been forced to flee or were expelled by Bosnian Croat forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The UN Security Council Final Report (1994) states while Bosniaks also engaged in "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other violations of international humanitarian law", they "have not engaged in "systematic ethnic cleansing"". According to the report, "there is no factual basis for arguing that there is a 'moral equivalence' between the warring factions".

The genocide of Indigenous peoples, colonial genocide, or settler genocide is the intentional elimination of Indigenous peoples as a part of the process of colonialism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genocidal rape</span> Mass sexual assault during wartime as part of a genocidal campaign

Genocidal rape, a form of wartime sexual violence, is the action of a group which has carried out acts of mass rape and gang rapes, against its enemy during wartime as part of a genocidal campaign. During the Armenian Genocide, the Greek genocide, the Assyrian genocide, the second Sino-Japanese war, the Holocaust, the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Bosnian War, the Rwandan genocide, the Congolese conflicts, the South Sudanese Civil War, the Yazidi Genocide, Rohingya genocide, the mass rapes that had been an integral part of those conflicts brought the concept of genocidal rape to international prominence. Although war rape has been a recurrent feature in conflicts throughout human history, it has usually been looked upon as a by-product of conflict and not an integral part of military policy.

Anti-Croat sentiment or Croatophobia is discrimination or prejudice against Croats as an ethnic group and it also consists of negative feelings towards Croatia as a country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulgarian occupation of Serbia (World War I)</span> Bulgaria military occupation of Serbia during WW1

The Bulgarian occupation of Serbia during World War I started in Autumn 1915 following the invasion of Serbia by the combined armies of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. After Serbia's defeat and the retreat of its forces across Albania, the country was divided into Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian occupation zones.

Population cleansing is the deliberate removal of a population with certain undesirable characteristics, such as its ethnicity, its religion, its social group, its social class, its ideological or political criteria, etc. from certain territories.

References

Further reading