This article is written by Debolina Ghosh. She is an independent Law practitioner and has done LLM in International Human Rights Law from Queen Mary University of London.

Introduction

“There aren’t just bad people that commit genocide; we are all capable of it. It’s our evolutionary history. ” -By James Lovelock. 

The total destruction of mass population is a phenomenon from the time immemorial. Any history books can give us specimens of these mass population destruction, like the atrocities of Mongols under Genghis Khan, the razing of Carthage by the Romans and the destruction of Troy by the Greeks and many more. These acts of mass violence in ancient times have been generally been motivated from imposing religious and cultural beliefs, hunger for power, wealth and death-defying glory. 

This essay shall do an insightful reading of the possible reasons behind genocide taking place. This essay is divided into five parts, beginning with a brief introduction. The piece of writing will further include about the concept of genocide, where major International genocides shall be briefly explained, following with the historical graph and literature about Genocide given by a few scholars to clarify the idea of genocide. Next section will be illustrating the ten steps which are the specific logical reasons for a genocide taking place in any Nation, and lastly, a summary of the entire essay in the Conclusion section will end my composition. 

Concept of genocide and the occurrences

On August 24, 1941, after Germany’s surprise attack of Soviet Russia on June 22, on a live broadcast from London, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill mentioned genocide as “crime without a name”. In 1944, a Polish-Jewish Legal scholar Raphael Lemkin named the crime as “Genocide”, placed it in global history and demanded remedial and intervention action. Lemkin conceived of genocide as “a composite of different acts of persecution or destruction”, under his definition, genocide was the coordinated and planned annihilation of a national, religious, or racial group by a variety of actions aimed at undermining the foundations essential to the survival of the group as a group. In 1946, thanks to Lemkin’s motivation, the U. N, for the first time considered issues of punishing and preventing genocide, and the General Assembly passed its first resolution on Genocide. The United Nations adopted Genocide Convention on December 9, 1948, and incorporated the following definition:

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the groups;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the groups;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the groups;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

This was the first the United Nations definition of genocide, which was marked as a milestone in international law but was of little use to the scholars. The definition was ineffective in its nature with many debatable propositions. The major problem is the narrow definition given by the convention of what constitutes a victim group and potential perpetrators, which results that none of the genocidal killings has occurred since the adoption of the convention has denounced by the UN as genocides. 

To understand the appropriateness and the causes of what makes Genocides possible, here I present selected cases of genocides or mass killings which has taken place in the past and affected the human race globally and also which is taking place in the present and forcing humanity to rethink about Genocides. Neither exhaustive presentations of the subsequent genocides are intended, nor is particular biases by choice. The length of any case or their number is not meant to reflect any importance or judgment of a specific case. The cases mentioned here are only for the purpose of determining the likely causes behind the concept of Genocide. 

The genocide or mass killing cases are as follows: 

North Korea (1945-present) 

“The greatest threat to the security of the people of North Korea comes from the government of North Korea. ” -By Ari Fleischer. 

In August 1948, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was established by Kim II Sung, a Korean Stalinist communist. North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, by October the same year the North Korean army was driven back to the border with China by UN forces, the Chinese army invaded Korea and drove UN forces back to the 38th Parallel. The Armistice Agreement efficiently ended the Korean War in 1953. Kim II Sung ruled North Korea until he died in 1994, he ruled the country through genocide and torture. Then his son Kim Jong II became the successor and maintained the communist rule. Now after his death the power passes as per dynasty line to Kim Jong-Un. The Kim rules have committed genocide against citizens who belong to minority racial, religious, political, and national groups. Before 1948, there were millions of Christians who lived in North Korea, but when Kim II Sung became the leader, the country became the “worst violator of religious freedom in the world” and committed Christian mass killings. 

Open Doors USA reported that about 200,000 North Koreans are currently held in political prison camps, and about 50,000 of them are Christians (Kerby, 2011). Racial and National groups have also been targeted, and many have fled to China since 1948, vast numbers of refugees are women, and most them who remain in China are forced into prostitution or forced marriages. North Korean women are returned by China to North Korea even if they get married to Chinese citizens; these women are either executed or sent to concentration camps. In order to prevent any other racial or national groups from becoming part of North Korea, women who are impregnated by non-North Korean are forced to have abortions, and any child born who is not complete North Korean are murdered. There is no second thought if we call North Korea a serial killer state. There is no human terror, that has not taken place in North Korea from its creation, be it genocide, political mass killings, religious and racial killings and so on. 

To make matter worst North Korea has armed itself with nuclear weapons and which have the capacity to perform ultimate genocide. It has launched several missiles in the sea near Japan, Seoul, the capital of South Korea is just a few kilometres from North Korea Border and is economical and democratic power, so any North Korean invasion would kill millions of people in no time. The US, South Korea and the UN have failed to take sufficient actions to North Korean attacks, and irregular six-party talks have not made any difference against North Korean rule. Suspension of food aid and economic supplies only starve the ordinary people there. When North Korea attacked the Cheonan, the United States, South Korea, the United Nations did not take any retaliatory actions that would affect the leadership of North Korea. Instead, the United States only expanded its economic sanctions, and the United Nations Security Council wasn’t even able to hold North Korea accountable because of the threat of a veto by China. 

Expulsion of Ethnic Germans after WWII (1945)

In December 1944, Prime Minister Winston Churchill to a shock, announced in the House of Commons that the Allies had decided to carry out the most massive forced population transfer, what is nowadays known as ‘ethnic cleansing’. In 1950, 12 million Germans approximately had been expelled or fled from east-central Europe to Austria and Allied-occupied Germany. It was probably the most massive single population movement, not just the most massive forced migration in human history and the operation continued for the next five years. Around 14 million civilians were driven out of their homes and forcibly prevented from their returns. Majority of the population were women, children and older adults. 

The Prime Minister forthrightly declared, “The total expulsion of the Germans…. For expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting.” This mass displacement was achieved mostly by state-sponsored terror and violence from the beginning. Hundreds and thousands of detainees were collected into the camps in Poland and Czechoslovakia, and former Nazi concentration camps were kept into operation even years after the war. The Red Cross officials recorded the brutality in the prisons including rapes, beatings; forced labour and starvation diet of 500-800 calories the order of the day. Though the death rates in the camps were often frighteningly high- 2,227 inmates of the Mysłowice facility in southern Poland alone perished in the last ten months of 1945- most of the mortality associated with the expulsions occurred outside them. 

Inhabitants of the entire village, during forced marches were cleared within fifteen minutes notice and driven to nearest borders at rifle point which accounted for many losses. Expellees in many cases spent their lives in goods wagons, rough fields or railways platforms after arrival for initial months or even years. Various diseases like hypothermia, malnutrition took a toll especially among children and older adults. There is no accurate data to account for how many deaths took place in reality, but conservative estimates suggest nearly 500,000 lives were lost as a result of the operation. To this day, the postwar expulsions- the scale and lethality of which vastly exceed the ethnic cleansing that accompanied the break-up in the 1990s of the former Yugoslavia- remain little known outside Germany itself. The history of post-war expulsion shows that the transfer of population can never be the orderly process rather cruelty, brutality, violence, injustice etc are the intrinsic part of the process. Nonetheless, as the historian B. B. Sullivan has observed in another context, “greater evil does not absolve lesser evil. ” The postwar expulsions were by any measure one of the most significant occurrences of the mass violation of human rights in recent history. 

Partition of India (1947)

“Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians- or the Pakistanis. ” -By Khushwant Singh. 

Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal writes, “A defining moment that is neither beginning nor end, partition continues to influence how the peoples and states of postcolonial South Asia envisage their past, present and future”. India won its Independence from British colonial rule almost after 100 years of struggle, which accompanied by most unfortunate the most significant mass migration in human history. The Partition of India was the division of British India, which created two independent countries in 1947, India and Pakistan. The population of undivided India was 390 million approx after partition 330 million were in India and 30 million each in West Pakistan and East Pakistan (Bangladesh). About 14.5 million people crossed the borders, hoping to make it safely, but the riots that preceded the partition in Punjab province killed more than 200,000 people in retributive religious genocide. 

The UNHCR estimates 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during the partition. The geographical division called the Radcliffe Line, on the basis of religious differences, was thought to give political and religious freedom to its people through liberalisation of Colonial India from British rule. Instead, it brought displacement and death, benefitted the few at the cost of very many. Thousands of women were raped, at least one million people were killed, and ten to fifteen million were forced to leave their homes as refugees and one of the first events of decolonization in the twentieth century, Partition was also one of the most bloody events. 

The Rwandan Massacre (1994)

“Rwanda can be a paradise again, but it will take the love of the entire world to heal my homeland. And that’s as it should be, for what happened in Rwanda happened to us all-humanity was wounded by the genocide’ again, but it will take the love of the entire world to heal my homeland. And that’s as it should be, for what happened in Rwanda happened to us all-humanity was wounded by the genocide.” -By Immaculee Ilibagiza. 

Within 100 days, between April and June 1994, 800,000 estimated Rwandans were killed. In Rwanda the ethnic tensions are not new, the disagreement between the minority Tutsis and majority Hutus had always been there, but the animosity between them grew since colonial period. Tutsis are often thinner and taller than Hutus; the bodies of Tutsis were thrown into the rivers during the genocide, saying they were sent back to Ethiopia as some say the origin of Tutsis lie in Ethiopia. When in 1916, the Belgian colonists arrived they considered Tutsis to be superior to the Hutus and this idea was welcomed by the Tutsis and for the next 20 years, they enjoyed better opportunities in education and jobs than the Hutus. The Hutus gradually built up bitter indignation which culminated in a series of riots in 1959, many Tutsis fled to neighboring countries like Uganda, Tanzania etc and more than 20,000 Tutsis were killed. After Belgium renounces power and granted independence to Rwanda in 1962, the Hutus took over, and the Tutsis were the victims every time. 

The Hutus have cited the history of exploitation and oppression under Tutsis-dominated monarchy and Tutsis have pointed to both waves of refugees driven from the country and multiple forms of discriminations, and the exile outside the country to be the reason behind the massacre. In 1973 Juvenal Habyarimana came to power and from that time the structure of political institutions within Rwanda permitted the concentration of power in the president office, under single party (MRND) and in the security services. During the same time Tutsi refugees in Uganda, who were supported by some moderate Hutus started to form RPF Rwandan Patriotic Party, which was led by Mr. Kagame, RPF’s aim was to overthrow Habyarimana and Harbyarimana chose to exploit this threat to bring the Hutus to his side and Tutsis within Rwanda were accused being RPF associates. During the same time Tutsi refugees in Uganda, who were supported by some moderate Hutus started to form RPF Rwandan Patriotic Party, which was led by Mr. Kagame, RPF’s aim was to overthrow Habyarimana and Harbyarimana chose to exploit this threat to bring the Hutus to his side and Tutsis within Rwanda were accused being RPF associates. 

With the President, the President of Burundi and other chief members of staff were killed. The political opposition leaders were murdered almost immediately and mass slaughter of moderate Hutus and Tutsis began. Initially, military officials, politicians etc organized the mayhem but soon many others joined. Organized gangs of military and government soldiers slashed their way through the Tutsis population blew them wherever they took refuge, even churches. The extremists Hutus strongly believed that by wiping of ethnic Tutsis completely would hang them on to power, which was encouraged by the presidential guards and radio propaganda of unofficial militia group called the Interahamwe. The soldiers encouraged and forced the ordinary Hutus citizen to kill their Tutsis neighbours, participants were given incentives like money and food and in some cases were allowed to appropriate the land of the Tutsis they killed.

The International community was shocked and largely left Rwandans alone, the UNAMIR force did nothing. Although the killing in Rwanda was over, the presence of Hutu militias in DR Congo has led to years of conflict there, causing up to five million deaths. Rwanda now has Tutsi led government, which has invaded its larger neighbour twice, saying they want to wipe out the Hutu forces, and Congolese Tutsi rebel group is active and refuses to put down their arms, giving the reason that their community would be at risk of genocide. The international community of peace-making has failed to end this fighting. 

The Armenian Genocide (1915-1923)

“…. the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it… the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.” -By Theodore Roosevelt

In 1915, under the appearance of First World war, the Ottoman Empire led by the Committee of Union and Progress, who was also known as the Young Turks, embarked on extermination against the Armenian minority. Most sources agree that during the massacre there were around 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, an estimation of 1 million had been dead by 1918, while thousand had become homeless and stateless, and by 1923, virtually the entire Armenian population had disappeared from Anatolian TurkeyThe Ottoman Empire was ruled by Turks, centred in Istanbul, headed by Sultan who endowed absolute power and had conquered lands extending across North Africa, West Asia and Southeast Europe. The Armenian people who had made their home in the Caucasus, a region in Eurasia for some 3000 years, established the kingdom of Armenia as an independent entity and were the first nation in the world to make Christianity its official religion for some of that time. 

During the 15th Century, Armenia was absorbed into Ottoman Empire, the Turks practised Islam. The Armenians were a Christian minority that had been given second-class citizenship, which was subjected to legal restrictions and denied normal securities. The Armenians were permitted to maintain autonomy but the Turks also viewed them as ‘infidels’, and were given unequal and unjust treatments, like Christians had to pay higher taxes than Muslims and were given negligible legal and political rights. The Ottoman Empire was in serious decline in the 19th century, had reduced its size and lost lands in Europe and Africa, this decline brought internal economic and political pressure and contributed to intensifying ethnic tensions. The Armenians tended to be better educated and wealthier than Turks, who in turn tended to resent their success, and this resentment was compounded by the suspicion that Christian Armenians would be more loyal to Christian Government like that of Russia, who shared an unstable border with Turkey and betrayed the Ottoman Empire. 

This suspicions grew strong when Ottoman Empire experienced its decline in 19th century, then the despotic Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II declared that he would solve the “Armenian Question” once and for all, “I will soon settle those Armenians”, “I will give them a box on the ear which will make them… relinquish their revolutionary ambitions” he told a reporter in 1890, this “box on the ear” took a form of an organized massacre of Armenians in between 1894 and 1896. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were murdered. When reformer group called ‘Young Turks’ overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid, the Armenian were hopeful for an equal place is this new state but soon they realized that nationalist Young Turks wanted to “Turkify” the empire, which meant non-Turks were in a grave threat to the new state. Under the guise of World War I, on April 24, 1915, the Armenian Genocide began. 

On that day the Turkish Government of Young Turks arrested several hundred Armenian intellectuals and executed them, ordinary Armenians were thrown out of their homes and sent on to death march through Mesopotamian desert without water or food, the marchers were stripped nude and were forced to walk under scorching sun until they were dead, and those who stopped to rest while marching was shot. The Young Turks also created a ‘Special Organisation’ which turned out to become killing squad or butcher battalions, they were often made up of ex-convicts and murderer, precisely the Turkish countryside was a litter of Armenian corpses. There are records which also show that women were raped and forced to join Turkish ‘harems’ or serve as sex slaves, children were kidnapped, converted to Islam and given them to Turkish families. When the genocide was over in 1922, there were only 388,000 Armenians left in the Ottoman Empire. 

The Killing Fields of Cambodia (1975-1978)

To the outsider, and often to ourselves, Cambodia looked peaceful enough. The farmers bound their planting cycles. Fishermen living on their boats…. The wide boulevards and the flowering trees of our national capital, Phnom Penh. All that beauty and serenity was visible to the eye. But inside, hidden from sight the entire time, was kum, Kum is a Cambodian word for a particularly Cambidian mentality of revenge – to be precise, a long standing grudge leading to revenge much more damaging than the original injury. If I hit you with my fist and you wait five years and then shoot me in the back one dark night, that is kum…. Cambodians know all about kum. It is the infection that grows on our national soul. – HaingNgor, A Cambodian Odyssey. 

“The Bones cannot find peace until the truth they hold in themselves has been revealed” -Deputy Military Police Chief Nhim Seila, Cambodia. 

In August 2014, 83 years old Khieu Samphan and 88 years old Nuon Chea had been found guilty and jailed for life after being convicted by Cambodia’s UN-backed tribunal of crime against humanity. These elderly and frail men committed the crime against humanity for more than 30 years, who were senior members of the regime that created up to 2 million deaths in Cambodia. In April 1975, the US-backed Lon Nol regime was overthrown by the Khmer Rouge, ending the bloody civil war, in which nearly 600,000 Cambodian died. The Khmer Rouge claimed that only pure people were qualified to build revolution and soon after they got power, the military officers and civil servants of the Khmer Republic regime, which was led by Marshal Lon Nol were arrested and killed including thousands of soldiers. The horror and cruelty on an enormous scale and its reality are impossible to imagine for the people who have not been there. 

Around 1.7 million people are believed to have lost their lives in such a small country like Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. Just after the Khmer Rouge took power, 2 million people living in Phnom Penh and other urban areas were ordered to move to the countryside, which was to be “Year Zero” in Cambodia’s new rural, classless society and the country would now be known as The Democratic Kampuchea. Thousands of Cambodians died during this evacuation. The Khmer Rouge began to implement radical Maoist and Marxist-Leninist transformation, the transformation included Cambodia into rural, classless society which would be a society where there were no rich people, no poor people, and exploitation. And to accomplish this, they abolished free markets; money, private properties, schooling, foreign clothing, religious practices and traditional Khmer culture, all the churches, pagodas, schools, universities, shops and government buildings were turned into prisons, re-education camps, stables and granaries. Everyone was ordered to wear black costumes, which were their traditional revolutionary clothes, people throughout the country were deprived of their basic rights. No one was allowed to gather or hold a discussion, if three people talked, they were accused to be enemies and were arrested and executed. Even the family relationships were criticized, people were not allowed to show slightest affection, pity or humour, and the Khmer Rouge asked the Cambodians to believe, respect and obey on Angkar Padevat, which was everyone’s ‘mother and father’. 

Over the next three years, hundreds and thousands of intellectuals, people from the minority like Vietnamese, Chinese, Cham etc, city residents, many of their own party members and soldiers who were accused to be traitors were executed. A huge number of people were held in prisons, where they were interrogated, detained, tortured and executed. The most important prison known as S-21 held 14,000 people during this operation and only seven were believed to survive. The Khmer Rouge isolated Cambodia from the rest of world very strictly and they continued, harsh labour, executions, brutality in prisons etc. There are many killing fields in Cambodia, but the actual one is a few kilometres from Phnom Penh, where the Khmer Rouge would force their victims to dig pits, line them up along the edge and bayonet them to death, some would be buried alive. 

The “Killing Fields” are mass graves of innocent Cambodians, which is the most horrified resting place on the earth and now it is a “tourist attraction” importantly and hopefully a tribute to people who died. There are seven storied buildings which houses the bones and skulls of the victims, those are excavated so far, however, bones and clothing come up to the surface from erosion when you walk along the paths. ‘It’s different from many other genocidal events,’ observes Adam Fifield, author of A Blessing Over Ashes, a new book about a Killing Fields refugee coming of age in America and Cambodia. ‘It was genocide driven not by racial or religious hatred but by an ideology that had been incubated so fervently that it became insanity.’

The Holocaust (1939-1945)

The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, bureaucratic persecution and mass killing or murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. The word Holocaust is a Greek originated word, which means “sacrifice by fire”. The Nazis in Germany, who were in power in 1933, believed they were the superior racial group and the Jews were deemed to be inferior and were an alien threat to the German community. During the period of the Holocaust, the German authorities also targeted other groups whom they perceived to be ‘racial inferior’, like Roma, Poles, Russians, disabled and others. After the Germans lost the First World War in 1918, the Nazi party was formed in 1919 to provide a political alternative to the Marxist movement that was taking place across Europe. Adolf Hitler joined the party soon after its foundation, and he attempted to take over Germany by force and was jailed in 1923. The sowing of seeds behind the Holocaust germinated in the late 1920s and in 1930s the hatred against Jews and who were haters of the German dictator, Adolf Hitler, were sown deep amongst the German people.

The Jews and many other groups were frightened, brutalised and ridiculed by the Germans. In 1933, Hitler came into power legitimately, within a month the democracy in Germany was taken over by the power of a Dictator, no more elections were held in Germany until the Second World War came to an end. The Nazis pursued two goals: the destruction of Jews and expansion of Germans towards east. Hitler permitted the first deportation of German Jews to east in October 1941 and in the same year on 8th of December gas vans “killing with showers of carbon monoxide while bathing” was proposed by him, but it was found that Zyklon B, cyanide gas was used more. By Spring 1942, several death camps were established in Sobibor, Treblinka, Balzac and Majdanek, and by summer Auschwitz was enlarged to a killing centre. 

The death toll:

PLACE	TIME PERIOD	PEOPLE KILLED
CHELMNO	DECEMBER 1941 – JULY 1944	320,000
BELZEC	MAY 1942 – AUGUST 1943	600,000
SOBIBOR	JULY 1942- NOVEMBER 1943	200,000
TREBLINKA	JULY 1942 – NOVEMBER 1942	750,000
MAJDANEK	1941-1944	275,000

There were very few survivors of these death camps and killing centres, victims included men, women and children. The vast majority were being killed almost on their immediate arrival, irrespective of height, size, personality, intelligence, colour, kindness etc. More than 1. 25 million people were killed, who were predominantly Jews, also Gypsies, ill prisoners of all nationality and Soviet Prisoners of war. 

The Rohingya Genocide 

“To be called a refugee is the opposite of an insult; it is a badge of strength, courage and victory…. ” -By the Tennessee office for refugees. 

The Rohingya persecution in Myanmar occurred in late 2016 when Myanmar’s armed forces and police started a major crackdown on Rohingya people in Rakhine State in the country’s northwestern region. The Rohingyas are the ethnic minorities in Myanmar and are numbered around one million at the start of 2017. They are descendants of Arab traders, who have their language and culture and they have been in the region for generations. Myanmar is predominantly a Buddhist country, the citizenship to Rohingyas are denied by the government and are excluded from the 2014 census as well and also see them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The latest evacuation began after Rohingya Arsa militants attacked more than 30 police posts on 25 August 2017. More than 6700 Rohingya were killed, including at least 730 children under the age of five, who were killed within one month after the violence broke out. The UN says the Rohingya’s situation is the “world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis”. According to the UNHCR there were already around 307,500 Rohingya refugees living in camps and further around 655,000 are estimated to have arrived since August 2017. Almost one million people require food aid, about 22,000 children below the age of five are suffering from acute malnutrition, and the situation is not getting any better. 

Historigraphical elements of genocide 

As I have mentioned at the beginning of the essay that the scholar Raphael Lemkin brought the word Genocide into existence and following with his explanation of the word Genocide, the UN adopted the Genocide Convention, incorporating the definition in 1948. However, the UN definition does not justify the true meaning of Genocide and fails to clarify many aspects. And to look vastly into the basic causes of genocides we have to review the literature of Genocide and history of various Genocides those took place and out of which some have been mentioned above in this essay. 

If we look into the literature, Jessei Bernard, in her book American Community Behavior (1949) in the last chapter she argued that the process of competition, organisation, conflict, disorganisation, and control are as real at the international level as they are at the local level. She cited Lemkin’s work in discussing racial and ethnic conflict and completion and also mentioned that genocide is the ultimate tool for resolving the conflict. Pieter N. Drost, a Dutch law professor, wrote a major work assessing the UN Convention in 1959, charging the omission of the political and other groups from the definition of genocide and predicting that the governments would exploit the loopholes in the convention. After the publication of Drost’s work, there was almost not much research on genocide. Vahakn Dadrian also set aside the U. N. definition and in his definition he emphasized the degree and type of disparity between the power of the perpetrator group and the victim group, and establishes his five-category typology of genocide: 

1) cultural genocide, in which control and dominance is the perpetrator’s aim; 

2) latent genocide, here the perpetrator’s activities have unintended consequences, such as accidental spread of disease during invasion etc; 

3) retributive genocide, to punish a particular segment of a minority that is threat to the dominant group; 

4) utilitarian genocide, making mass killing a tool to obtain control of economic resources; 

5) optimal genocide, where main aim of the perpetrator is the total obliteration of the group. 

In 1983-84 the sociologist Helen Fein defined, ‘Genocide is the calculated murder of a segment or all of a group defined outside the universe of obligation of the perpetrator by a government, elite, staff or crowd representing the perpetrator in response to a crisis or opportunity perceived to be caused by or impeded by the victim. ’ And she categories genocide as 1) developmental, in which the perpetrator intentionally or unintentionally destroys anybody who stands in the way of the economic resources exploitation; 2) despotic, designated to eliminate potential or real opposition; 3) retributive, where the perpetrator seeks to destroy a real opponent; and 4) ideological, a category embracing cases of genocides against groups cast as enemies by the state’s hegemonic myth or by its need to destroy victims who can be portrayed as the embodiment of evil. Leo Kuper’s in 1981 analyses the modern genocidal motives of the perpetrator in three categories: 1) genocides design to settle religious, racial, and ethnic difference; 2) genocides intend to terrorise people conquered by a colonising empire; and 3) genocides perpetrate to enforce or fulfil a political ideology. 

In 1987, Roger W. Smith on the 20th century as an age of genocide presented five categories on the based on the motives of the perpetrator, 1) retributive genocide, based on the desire for revenge; 2) institutional genocide, prevalent in medieval and ancient worlds and incidental to military conquest; 3) utilitarian genocide, those which are motivated for material gains and common in colonial expansion of 16th to 19th centuries and also genocides of development that devastates small indigenous groups in the 20th century; 4) monopolistic genocide, the desire to monopolize power, particularly in plural societies; and 5) ideological genocide, the desire to impose a particular notion of salvation or purifying an entire society. 

All the above-written definitions and their categories show the typology of genocides, which also somehow points towards the etiology of genocides and also connects to the reasons behind all the eight genocides that have been mentioned above. The most astonishing and hurting question about genocide is, how it possible to commit mass killing by some people to the other people on such a scale? The answer seems to be not possible generally, but it is possible when the potential victims are not considered as human or perceived as people by the other who commits the scene because history shows that no genocides have ever taken place on a group of equals. Genocide is neither particular to a specific class, race, ethnicity or nation, nor rooted in some single ethnocentric view of this world. 

The North Korean atrocities and genocide which is performed for not allowing any non-North Koreans and Christians in the territory focus on religious, ethnic and racial resentments and also ideologically motivated. In the case of Armenian Genocide as described earlier in this essay, we can find the possible reasons to be that the group had been victimized was from communal minority background and by no mean was considered equals to the majority group and the victim group is identified to be with enemies of the state, either ideologically or geographically and considered to be a threat. Armenian genocide shows that it is a mix of Cultural and retributive genocide and also focuses on racial hatred. 

The Expulsion of Germans post World War II was driven by a desire to create homogeneous ethnic nation-states, the German minority was viewed as a potential threat, and somehow it was another motive to punish the Germans. Here we can find that it was retributive, despotic and ideological in nature. Looking into Partition of India in 1947, we can apparantly make that the genocide occurred due to the uprooting an ancient civilization in the name of religious difference to enforce political ideology. Rwanda Massacre the shortest and the bloodiest genocide ever in the history is completely based on a combination of retributive and ideological approach. The Cambodian genocide represents an explosion of virulent ideological motivated killing; this form of genocide cannot afford to be ignored, as the victims were not selected from a particular racial, ethnic or religious group. 

The Holocaust, we can sum it up at least in four imperatives: 1) deconstruct the ties between the Province and the progress; 2) deconstruct the distinction between the elect and the damned; 3) discern ways beyond the self-regarding individualism that often drives propensities towards triage; and 4) deploy the right kinds of dissonance. And the newest of all the Rohingya Genocide is also the result of a retributive approach designed to settle religious and cultural differences. 

Ten steps that make genocide possible 

The process that develops Genocide is predictable but not inexorable, at every stage, preventive measures can stop it. The steps of Genocide precede the earlier one. We can understand the steps that lead genocides by the following ten points:

1. Classification: Every culture has different categories to distinguish people into “us and them” on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality etc. Like in the Holocaust: ‘the German and the Jew”, in Rwanda ‘Hutu and Tutsi’, in North Korea ‘North Korean and non-North Korean’, in the Partition of India 1947 ‘the Hindus and the Muslims’ and so on. The lack of developed universalistic institutions which can transcend ethnic or racial divisions, can actively promote understanding and tolerance, and encourage classifications which can exceed the divisions would make societies with various differences most likely to have genocide. The search for common ground is a vital element to prevent genocide in its early stage. 
2. Symbolization: We give symbols and names to the classification. Dress, language or colours distinguish people; symbols are applied to members of groups, like tribal scarring or gang clothing for group marking. Classification by symbolizing particular human race, group etc. is universal and do not result in genocide unless it leads to dehumanisation. When this kind of symbolization is combined with hatred and is forced upon e.g., the blue scarf for people from an eastern zone in Khmer Rouge Cambodia or the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule, possibilities of genocide become apparent. Hate symbols should be forbidden legally to prevent genocide; sometimes denial of symbolization can be powerful and convincing. 
3. Discrimination: In some genocide cases mentioned earlier in this essay, we have seen the powerless groups have been denied full civil rights or even citizenships. The dominant group uses law, custom, and power to deny the rights to the other powerless groups. One of the recent examples is the denial of citizenship to minority groups i.e. the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The citizenship rights and full political empowerment should be enforced to prevent discrimination between various groups in society. The disparity between by from of legal and political power leads to genocide in any nation, therefore the discrimination on any grounds, i.e. ethnicity, race, religion or nationality must be outlawed. 
4. Dehumanization: When one group of influential humans denies humanity and treats and equates the weaker group as animals or disease, it is dehumanization. At this stage, the hate propaganda to vilify the victim group takes its flight through various mediums like print, telecast etc. We can find this situation taking place in the Holocaust, North Korean Genocide and others too. At this stage the use of hate speech should be condemned by the local and international leaders and make it culturally unacceptable. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished, hate telecast stations should be shut down, and hate propaganda should be banned. 
5. Organization: Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility. There are still plans made for genocide and army units are armed and trained. Only sometimes genocides are informal and occur out of rage and due to circumstantial terrorization like some mass killing during Partition of India 1947. The members of militias who support the genocide should be outlawed to combat this stage. 
6. Polarization: At this step, the hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda, and the extremists drive the groups apart. The moderates are targeted by the extremists, intimidated and silenced, and are first to be arrested and killed, as they are considered most able to stop genocide. Prevention at this stage would include security protection or assistance to human rights groups. 
7. Preparation: At this stage the perpetrator makes the victim group accept their set of beliefs uncritically using fear as a tool. Leaders claim that “ if we don’t kill them, they will kill us”, they build forces and armies, trade weapons and train them for the genocide. They also use understatements like “purification”, “ethnic cleansing” or “counter-terrorism” to cover up their motives. E. g. the “Final solution” to the Jews, Tutsi or Armenians. 
8. Persecution: Here the victims are identified and then separated on the basis of their ethnic or religious identity and killing lists are drawn up. In genocide which is sponsored by the state, members of victim groups may be forced, and their properties are often seized. The genocidal massacres begin at this stage. A Genocide Emergency must be declared, and 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 substantial assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its self-defence. 
9. Extermination: At this step, the mass killing begins and is legally called ‘genocide’. It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. This stage is the most disastrous situation where the armed forces and military make the killing when the state sponsors it. The victim groups do not have any safe place to protect themselves; neither is aware where to seek help from. Sometimes the genocide also land up becoming the revenge killing by one group to another, and it takes a complete form of mass massacre. Only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide at this stage. 
10. Denial: It is the final stage which lasts throughout and always follows genocide and gives the surest indication of further massacres. The perpetrators deny that they committed any mass murder; they dig up the mass graves, burn the dead bodies and try to cover up pieces of evidences and intimidate the witnesses. The perpetrator continues to rule until driven by the power; they remain with impunity until captured. The response to the stage of denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts, Tribunals like the Yugoslav or Rwanda Tribunals, or an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. 

These 10 stages give explicit representation of what makes genocide has been taken from the work by Dr. Gregory Stanton. He also mentions that no model can correctly explain the vastness and complexities of the subject genocide, his model also demonstrates that though the genocidal process does not proceed in a linear order but there is logic to a genocidal process. However, these 10 stages give a clear reading of the possible reasons behind genocide and have been useful for my essay. 

Conclusion

If we are able to explain the past genocides logically, then we can anticipate the possibilities of future genocides. People can see and understand the warning signs of genocides and know when and how to act, and also can take the next logical step, i.e. prevention. The international body like the UN has failed to stop or prevent the genocidal policies by sovereign states. The best antidote to genocide is the development of cultural and social tolerance for diversity and proper education. Finally, what will end genocide must come not from international armed interventions, but rather from popular resistance to every form of discrimination; dehumanization, hate speech, and formation of hate groups; rise of political parties that preach hatred, racism or xenophobia; rule by polarizing elites that advocate exclusionary ideologies; police states that massively violate human rights; closure of borders to international trade or communications; and denial of past genocides or crimes against humanity against groups within or without the state that is in denial. 

Bibliography 

BOOKS

• Chalk F and others, The History and Sociology of Genocide, (Yale University Press 1990). 
• Dadrian V, The History Of The Armenian Genocide (6th edn, Berghan Book 1995). 
• Khan Y, The Great Partition (Yale Univ Press 2008). 
• Wallimann I, M DobkowskiR Rubenstein, Genocide And The Modern Age (Syracuse University Press 2000). 

JOURNALS

• Hinton A, ‘A Head For An Eye: Revenge In The Cambodian Genocide’ (1998) 25 American Ethnologist. 
• Kharabanda D, ‘Cases For Acceptance Of Refugees Into Europian Union’. 

ONLINE ARTICLE

• ‘Armenian Genocide’ <http://www. armenian-genocide. org/genocide. html>. 
• ‘Armenian Genocide- Facts & Summary- HISTORY. Com’ <https://www. history. com/topics/armenian-genocide>. 
• ‘”Axis Rule In Occupied Europe,” Chapter IX: Genocide, By Raphael Lemkin, 1944– Prevent Genocide International’ (Preventgenocide. org, 2018) <http://www. preventgenocide. org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1. htm> accessed 15 April 2018. 
• ‘BBC- History- British History In Depth: The Hidden Story Of Partition And Its Legacies’ <http://www. bbc. co. uk/history/british/modern/partition1947_01. shtml>. 
• ‘Genocide Alerts: North Korea’ <http://genocidewatch. net/2013/03/20/genocide-alerts-north-korea/>. 
• ‘Genocidewatch. Org’ <http://www. genocidewatch. org/genocide/tenstagesofgenocide. html>. 
• ‘Holocaust Memorial’ <http://holocaustmemorial. softwaredesign. co. uk/holocaust. overview. html>. 
• ‘Introduction To The Holocaust’ <https://www. ushmm. org/wlc/en/article. php?ModuleId=10005143>. 
• ‘Is Refugee Crisis ‘Textbook Ethnic Cleansing’?’ <http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/world-asia-41566561>. 
• ‘Khmer Rouge History | Cambodia Tribunal Monitor’ <http://www. cambodiatribunal. org/history/cambodian-history/khmer-rouge-history/>. 
• ‘Profile: Nuon Chea And Khieu Samphan’ <http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/world-asia-28654147>. 
• ‘Rwanda: How The Genocide Happened’ <http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/world-africa-13431486>. 
• ‘Remembering The Killing Fields’ <https://www. cbsnews. com/news/remembering-the-killing-fields/>. 
• ‘Search For The Real Villain Of Partition Divides India Again’ <https://www. independent. co. uk/news/world/asia/search-for-the-real-villain-of-partition-divides-india-again-1773486. html>. 
• ‘The Ethnic Cleansing You Didn’t Learn About In School’ <https://www. huffingtonpost. com/rm-douglas/expulsion-germans-forced-migration_b_1625437. html>. 
• ‘The War Against The Jews 1933–1945’ <https://www. nytimes. com/1975/04/20/archives/the-war-against-the-jews-19331945-by-lucy-s-dawidowicz-460-pp-new. html>. 
• ‘The Killing Fields’ <http://www. roch. edu/course/doors2cambodia/cambodia. _killing_fields. html>. 
• ‘Why The World Should Not Forget Khmer Rouge And The Killing Fields Of Cambodia’ <https://www. washingtonpost. com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/08/07/why-the-world-should-not-forget-khmer-rouge-and-the-killing-fields-of-cambodia/?utm_term=. 085b6ae71806>. 

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