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Mass killings under communist regimes

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Skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
Child victim of the Holodomor.

Communist genocide [1] refers to mass killings of particular categories of population carried out by the communist regimes, which may be considered genocides or politicides, either convicted of such by a court of law, or accused of engaging in genocide by third parties. [2]

While Ethiopia has been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the highest ranking surviving member of the Khmer Rouge has been charged with those crimes,[3][4] no communist country, governing body, or government leader has ever been convicted of genocide.[citation needed] The very first charge of genocide in history, submitted to the UN in November 1947, was against the Soviet Union. [5]

The term was applied to mass killings in the former USSR,[6] Democratic Kampuchea, and Ethiopia,[7] while countries such as the People's Republic of China and Slovenia,[8][9] were accused of engaging in such activities. Among historians, estimates of the mass killings by communist regimes vary between 60 to 100 million people.[10]

In Slovenia, where charges of genocide against suspected Nazi collaborators were brought up in legal prosecution of a former communist partisan, mass graves of bodies continue to be unearthed.[8][9]

Definition

Main articles: Genocide definitions, Genocide, Politicide, and Crime against humanity

While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition of the crime of genocide is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[11]

Almost all of the definitions of genocide agree upon two key factors: the legal definition of intent,[12][13][14][15] and actual physical harm.

The majority of scholars disagree about two other key requirements for inclusion in the definition: the type of harm, and against whom it is perpetrated. The first draft of the Convention, adopted in 1946, included political killings, but pressure from the Soviet Union led to its deletion. [16]

Many scholars have stated the argument that the international definition of genocide is too restricted, and that it should include political groups. In his book The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982, M. Hassan Kakar says that “Genocide is a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator.”[17] Most scholars, however, use the term politicide for this distinction.

Only one individual has been found guilty of genocide under the UN definition of genocide (CPPCG), and one state has been found guilty of a breach of international law regarding genocide. In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found mayor Jean-Paul Akayesu and Prime Minister Jean Kambanda guilty of genocide. Serbia was found not guilty of direct involvement in genocide during the Bosnian war,[18] but in breach of international law by failing to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the ICTY, in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention.[19][20]

A Khmer Rouge leader has been charged, and Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam convicted of genocide (Ethiopian law defines as intent to wipe out political and not just ethnic groups)[21] imprisonment, illegal homicide and illegal confiscation of property,[22] but no Communist states, nor Communists, have been found guilty of genocide as defined by the UN convention.

Cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity

Cambodia

Cambodia's ethnic minorities that constituted 15 percent of the population in Cambodia. Of the 400,000 Vietnamese who lived in Cambodia before 1975, some 320,000 were expelled by the previous Lon Nol regime. When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge came to power, there remained about 100,000 Vietnamese left. Almost all of them were repatriated by December 1975. Some argue that that the Khmer Rouge had no intent to cause serious mental and physical harm to the Vietnamese during the repatriation process. [23]

The Chinese community about 425,000 people in 1975 was reduced to 200,000 during the next four years.[24] In the Khmer Rouge's Standing Committee, four members were of Chinese ancestry, two Vietnamese, and two Khmers. Some observers argue that this mixed composition makes it difficult to argue that there was an intent to kill off minorities.

Democratic Kampuchea experienced serious hardships due to the effects of war and disrupted economic activity. According to Michael Vickery, 740,800 people in Cambodia in a population of about 7 million died due to disease, overwork, and political repression.[25] Other estimates suggest approximately 1.7 million and it is described by the Yale University Cambodian Genocide Program as "one of the worst human tragedies of the last century."[26] Researcher Craig Etcheson of the Documentation Center of Cambodia suggests that the death toll was between 2 and 2.5 million, with a "most likely" figure of 2.2 million. After 5 years of researching some 20,000 grave sites, he concludes that "these mass graves contain the remains of 1,112,829 victims of execution."[25] Pol Pot is sometimes described as "the Hitler of Cambodia" and "a genocidal tyrant".[27] Martin Shaw described the Cambodian genocide as "the purest genocide of the Cold War era".[28]

Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union, invaded Cambodia, removing Pol Pot from power.[29] U.S. analyst Lawrence LeBlanc has suggested that the United States bowed to Chinese and ASEAN interests and voted for a UN seat for the Pol Pot regime– however the USA claimed that the issue of seating a delegation was purely technical and legal, and that its support of seating the Pol Pot regime did not imply approval of that regime's policies, although key Jimmy Carter aide Zbigniew Brzezinski has admitted that the U.S. encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot, remarking in 1979 that "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot... Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him but China could."[30][31]

In 1997 the Cambodian Government asked the United Nations assistance in setting up a genocide tribunal. It took nine years to agree to shape and structure of the court — a hybrid of Cambodia and international laws — before in 2006 the judges were sworn in.[32][33][34] The investigating judges were presented with the names of five possible suspects by the prosecution on 18 July 2007.[32] On 19 September 2007 Nuon Chea, second in command of the Khmer Rouge and its most senior surviving member, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. He will face Cambodian and foreign judges at the special genocide tribunal.[4]

Ethiopia

Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was convicted of genocide by an Ethiopian court for his role in the campaign he initiated and officially called "the Red Terror" in the late 1970s.[3][22] Amnesty International estimates that a total of half a million people were killed during the Red Terror of 1977 and 1978[35][36][37] During the terror groups of people were herded into churches that were then burned down, and women were subjected to systematic rape by soldiers.[38] The Save the Children Fund reported that the victims of the Red Terror included not only adults, but 1,000 or more children, mostly aged between eleven and thirteen, whose corpses were left in the streets of Addis Ababa.[35] Mengistu himself is alleged to have killed political opponents with his bare hands.[39]

Accusations of Genocide

Afghanistan

M. Hassan Kakar claims that during the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), "The Afghans are among the latest victims of genocide by a superpower. Large numbers of Afghans were killed to suppress resistance to the army of the Soviet Union, which wished to vindicate its client regime and realize its goal in Afghanistan. Thus, the mass killing was political."[17]

Evidence indicates there was a deliberate and systematic policy of killing civilians.[40] Such incidents were too common and too methodical to have been the result of frustrated or unruly troops.[40] Women were thrown naked from helecopters, and entire villages were razed in reprisal for the death of one Soviet soldier. Children were deliberately targetted with booby trapped toys dropped from airplanes.[41] By the time the Soviets withdrew in 1988, 1 to 1.5 million people had been killed, mostly Afghan civilians, and one-third of Afghanistan's population had been displaced.[40] Recently mass graves of executed prisoners have been uncovered dating back to the Soviet era.[42]

Prior to the Soviet invasion, the Afghan Commnists unleashed a wave of repression that resulted in the killing of 10,000 people linked to the former regime, including the president and 17 members of his family, and the imprisonment of some 14,000 to 20,000 more.[40]

China

In China, it is alleged that Mao Tse-tung's policies and political purges, such as the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Zhen Fan, brought about the deaths of some 40 to 70 million people.[43][44]

In 1960, drought and other bad weather affected 55 percent of the cultivated land in China, while in the north an estimated 60% of agricultural land received no rain at all.[45] The Encyclopædia Britannica yearbooks from 1958 to 1962 also reported abnormal weather, followed by droughts and floods. Close planting, the idea of Ukrainian pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko.[46] had been implemented. The density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again, according to the theory, plants of the same species would not compete with each other. In practice they did, which stunted growth and resulted in lower yields. Lysenko's colleague's theory encouraged peasants across China to plow deeply into the soil (up to 1 or 2 meters). They believed the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, allowing extra strong root growth. However, useless rocks, soil, and sand were driven up instead, burying the topsoil. Mao Tse-tung's Great Leap Forward, had reorganized the workforce; millions of agricultural worker had joined the iron and steel production workforce.

As a result of these factors, year over year grain production in China dropped by 15% in 1959. By 1960, it was at 70% of its 1958 level. There was no recovery until 1962, after the Great Leap Forward ended.[47]

According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period. Unofficial estimates vary, but are often considerably higher. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who spent over ten years gathering information available to no other scholars, estimates a toll of 36 million.[48]

Professors and scholars of the famine, who do not use the word 'genocide' to describe it, but rather more neutral terms, such as "abnormal deaths", have estimated that they number between 17 million to 50 million. Some western analysts such as Patricia Buckley Ebrey estimate that about 20-40 million people had died of starvation caused by bad government policy and natural disasters. J. Banister estimates this number is about 23 million. Li Chengrui, a former minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million (1998). His estimation was based on Ansley J. Coale and Jiang Zhenghua's estimation of 17 million. Cao Shuji estimated 32.5 million.

Tibet

According to The Black Book of Communism, the Chinese Communists carried out a cultural genocide against the Tibetans. Jean-Louis Margolin states that the killings were proportionally larger in Tibet than China proper, and that "one can legitimately speak of genocidal massacres because of the numbers involved."[49] According to the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration, "Tibetans were not only shot, but also were beaten to death, crucified, burned alive, drowned, mutilated, starved, strangled, hanged, boiled alive, buried alive, drawn and quartered, and beheaded."[49]

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

The Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania diplomatic missions abroad submitted in November 1947 to the UN the very first charge of genocide in history accusing the Soviet Union in the crime of genocide against those nations under the Soviet Occupation.[5] It has been estimated that around 169,250 Baltic citizens were murdered or deported by Soviet authorities.[50]

Since regaining independence in 1991 authorities in the Baltic states have started investigations, in Lithuania alone 91 proceedings have been initiated against perpetrators of Soviet repressions. Over a dozen cases have been tried, some have received suspended sentences and several have been imprisoned.

In Latvia signing a deportation order has been the grounds of charges in the crime of genocide. Accordingly Alfons Noviks, a former head of Soviet security Police serving a life sentence for the crimes committed including genocide died in prison in 1996. Others charges of genocide in Latvia have been made against Mikhails Farbuths, and Nikolai Tess.

In Estonia the charges of genocide have been connected to Soviet deportations. In 1999 Vassilli Beshkv was convicted for an "intent to destroy in part a national group offering resistance to the occupation regime which was also a social group declared 'kulaks'"

In Lithuania the Viater and Kregzde case, the activities of the accused were qualified as genocide, but the case was discontinued due to the poor health of the accused.

In other cases against the surviving executors of Soviet repressions the courts in Baltic states have used the notion of the crime against humanity instead of the crime of genocide.[51]

Slovenia

Communists have been accused of orchestrating a genocide after World War II, where mummified remains and massacre sites of are still being discovered to this day.[8][9] A Slovene historian, commenting when 540 such sites had been located throughout Slovenia, has said that communist executions have made Srebrenica look like "an innocent case" by comparison–although those executed were mostly soldiers who collaborated with the Nazis.[52]

In 2005, Slovenia charged Mitja Ribicic, a chief in the security forces under Yugoslavia's communist leader Josip Broz Tito, with genocide against suspected Nazi collaborators, Ribicic having carried out summary executions in 1945-1946.[53][54] The charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.[9]

Soviet Union

Decossackization

During the Russian Civil War, there was intense conflict between the Bolshevik Government and the "Don Army" of General Krasnov. White Cossacks initiated a civil war in the Don Region in late 1917. After the German occupation of Rostov on May 8, a puppet regime headed by Krasnov was formed in Rostov. Krasnov's forces then invaded Tsaritsyn, but were defeated. In the period that Krasnov's regime controlled the Don province, more than 40,000 people were executed.[55] Cossacks rebelled against the Krasnov regime, which helped the Red Army advance in the region in January 1919. The Soviet forces then retaliated against their defeated enemies through a policy of decossackization: the systematic elimination of the Cossacks of the Don and the Kuban as social groups.[56] The policy was established by a secret resolution of the Bol'shevik Party on January 24 1919, which ordered local branches to "carry out mass terror against wealthy Cossacks, exterminating all of them; carry out merciless mass terror against any and all Cossacks taking part in any way, directly or indirectly, in the struggle against Soviet power."[57] The Southern Front published instructions stating, "The main duty of stanitsa and khutor executive committees is to neutralize the Cossackry through the merciless extirpation of its elite. District and Stanitsa atamans are subject to unconditional elimination, [but] khutor atamans should be subject to execution only in those cases where it can be proved that they actively supported Krasnov's policies (having organized pacification, conducted mobilization, refused to offer refuge to revolutionary Cossacks or to Red Army men)" Before the White Cossacks seized power again in March 1919, revolutionary tribunals executed thousands of alleged counter-revolutionaries. In mid-March 1919 alone, Cheka forces executed more than 8,000 Cossacks.[58] In addition, entire villages were burned to the ground and the survivors deported.[59] After the revolt, the Soviet Government concluded that the decossackization was an error that contributed to counter-revolution. The Government then cancelled the policy later in 1919. However, after the retaking of the Crimea by Red Army, the Cossacks were subjected to terror once again, with 6,000 being put to death in October 1920.[58] Several historians, among them Orlando Figes[60], Donald Rayfield[61], Alexander Nekrich[62], R.J. Rummel[63], Shane O'Rourke[64], and Stéphane Courtois[65], conclude that decossackization amounted to genocide and involved numbers in the hundreds of thousands. But others, such as Peter Holquist and Andrei Venkov, conclude that it did not constitute an "open-ended program" of genocide. [66][why?] However, Holquist does claim that it shows the Soviet regime's "dedication to social engineering" and was a "ruthless" and "radical attempt to eliminate undesirable social groups."[67] The late Soviet historian Dmitri Volkogonov asserted that "almost a third of the Cossack population was exterminated on Lenin’s orders."[68] Historian Robert Gellately states: "the most reliable estimates indicate that between 300,000 and 500,000 were killed or deported in 1919-20."[59] In addition, more than 45,000 Cossacks were deported from the Terek province to Ukraine. Their land was distributed among pro-soviet Cossacks and Chechens.[69]

Deportations of ethnic minorities

The Soviet government during Stalin's rule conducted a series of deportations on an enormous scale which significantly affected the ethnic map of the USSR. Separatism, resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with the invading Germans were cited as the official reasons for the deportations, rightly or wrongly. Deportations took place under extremely inhumane conditions, often by cattle truck, with hundreds of thousands of deportees dying en route.[70] Some experts estimate the number of deaths from the deportations could be as high as 1 in 3.[71][72] The following ethnic groups were deported completely or partially: Ukrainians, Poles, Koreans, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Finns, Bulgarians, Greeks, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Jews. Large numbers of Kulaks, regardless of their nationality, were resettled to Siberia and Central Asia.[70] Regarding the fate of the Crimean Tatars, Amir Weiner of Stanford University writes that the policy could be classified as "ethnic cleansing". But it is concluded that the policy was not genocide because there was no intent to kill off the Crimean Tatars in an attack.[73] In the book Century of Genocide, Lyman H Legters writes "We cannot properly speak of a completed genocide, only of a process that was genocidal in its potentiality."[74]

Holodomor

The Holodomor recognized as a crime against humanity by the European Parliament,[75] has been characterized by various Ukrainian politicians and historians in the West[who?] the 1930s famine as genocide against Ukraine. Many Ukrainians refer to this event as the Holodomor, which translates as "murder by hunger."[76] While some experts on the famine do not characterize it as genocide[77][78], others suggest that the famine was used as a weapon against certain segments of the population (i.e. "kulaks," "counterrevolutionaries," "idlers," and "thieves,") and therefore could be classified as genocide, according to a more relaxed definition, which is favored by some specialists in the field of genocide studies.[79] Allegations that the famine was genocide has provoked controversy in Russia, where the Government concludes that Russia the famine affected the entire country, not just Ukraine.[80] Many scholars attribute the famine to government policies,[81] which include exporting 1.8 million tonnes of grain during the height of the starvation, banning migration from famine-stricken areas and refusing to secure humanitarian aid from abroad.[79] One professor traces the causes of the famine to natural disasters which contributed to a genuine shortage in food and a significant decrease in agriculture.[82] Stephen Wheatcroft, author of The Years of Hunger, claims this view represents the opposite extreme in arguing the famine was totally accidental.[83] Moreover, historian James Mace wrote that it "is not taken seriously by either Russians or Ukrainians who have studied the topic."[84] As of March 2008, the Ukraine and nineteen other governments[85] have recognized the actions of the Soviet government as genocide. The joint declaration at the United Nations in 2003 has defined the famine as the result of cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, Russians, Kazakhs and other nationalities in the USSR. On 23 October 2008 the European Parliament adopted a resolution[86] that recognized the Holodomor as a crime against humanity.[87]

In 1988 the U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine reported to Congress that the American government had ample and timely information about the Famine but failed to take any steps which might have ameliorated the situation. During the Famine certain members of the American press corps cooperated with the Soviet government to deny the existence of the Ukrainian Famine.[88]

Professor Michael Ellman believes that the Kazakh case could be an example of ‘negligent genocide,’ but this falls outside the scope of the UN convention.[79] The famine in Kazakhstan, which was brought about by Soviet policies (i.e. collectivization, dekulakization), killed 1.3 to 1.5 million people.[89]

National operations of the NKVD

According to professor Michael Ellman, the National operations of the NKVD, which targeted "national contingents" (foreign ethnicities), such as Poles, Ethnic Germans, Koreans, etc, may constitute genocide as defined by the UN convention.[79] A total of 350,000 were arrested and 247,157 were executed.[90]

Modern perspectives

In 2005, Slovenia charged Mitja Ribicic, a chief in the security forces under Yugoslavia's communist leader Josip Broz Tito, with genocide against suspected Nazi collaborators, Ribicic having carried out summary executions in 1945-1946.[53][91] The charges were later dropped due to lack of evidence.[9]

In August 2007, Arnold Meri, a cousin of former Estonian president Lennart Meri, faced charges of genocide by Estonian authorities.[92] The trial was halted when Meri died March 27, 2009, at the age of 89. Meri denied the accusation, characterizing them as politically motivated defamation: "I do not consider myself guilty of genocide.", he said.[93]

In regards to the Holodomor, officially Moscow recognizes that the famine took place, but refuses to classify it as an ethnic genocide.[94]

On 11 January 2006 it was reported that the Spanish High Court will investigate whether seven former Chinese officials, including the former President of China Jiang Zemin and former Prime Minister Li Peng participated in a genocide in Tibet. This investigation follows a Spanish Constitutional Court (26 September 2005) ruling that Spanish courts could try genocide cases even if they did not involve Spanish nationals.[95] The court proceedings in the case brought by the Madrid-based Committee to Support Tibet against several former Chinese officials was opened by the Judge on 6 June 2006, and on the same day China denounced the Spanish court's investigation into claims of genocide in Tibet as an interference in its internal affairs and dismissed the allegations as "sheer fabrication".[96][97]

Remembrance Day for the Victims of Communist Genocide is celebrated in Latvia on June 14.[98]

Laws against denial

Several Central European countries enacted laws which state "endorsing or attempting to justify Nazi or Communist genocide" will be punishable by up to three years of imprisonment.[99]

The Czech Republic has a law including a provision against denial of communist genocide. Article 261a of the amended constitution of December 16, 1992 states "the person who publicly denies, puts in doubt, approves or tries to justify Nazi or communist genocide, or other crimes against humanity of Nazis or communists will be punished by prison of 6 months to 3 years."[100]

In Ukraine, a draft law "On Amendments to the Criminal and the Procedural Criminal Codes of Ukraine" submitted by President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada, envisages prosecution for public denial of the Holodomor Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine as a fact of genocide of the Ukrainian people, and of the Holocaust as the fact of genocide of the Jewish people. The draft law foresees that public denial as well as production and dissemination of materials denying the above shall be punished by a fine of 100 to 300 untaxed minimum salaries, or imprisonment of up to two years.[101]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ White, James Daniel (2007). "Understanding genocide". Fear of persecution: global human rights, international law, and human well-being. Lexington Books. pp. 248–249. ISBN 0739115669. The scale of communist genocide is overwhelming, and it will be years before all the information about these atrocities is processed and disseminated {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Lenṭin, Ronit (1997). Gender and catastrophe. Zed Books. p. 1997. Soviet and communist genocide and mass state killings, sometimes termed politicide, occurred in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, and the People's Republic of China {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ a b Backgrounders: Ethiopian Dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam Human Rights Watch, 1999
  4. ^ a b Staff, Senior Khmer Rouge leader charged, BBC 19 September 2007
  5. ^ a b WEISS-WENDT, ANTON (2005). "Hostage of Politics Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet Genocide"" (PDF). Journal of Genocide Research (7(4)): 551–559. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  6. ^ Deker, Nikolai K (1958). Genocide in the USSR: studies in group destruction. Scarecrow Press. p. 12. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Gray, John. In Totalitarianism at the crossroads. Ellen Frankel Paul (Editor). Transaction Publisher, 1990
  8. ^ a b c [1] TerrorismCentral Newsletter. May 29, 2005. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
  9. ^ a b c d e Štor, Barbara. "Post-War Killings: Enter the Bloody History". 2 April 2009. The Slovenia Times. Retrieved 14 August 2009 Cite error: The named reference "Stor-2009" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  10. ^ Valentino, Benjamin (2005). Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. p. 275. ISBN 0801472733. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
  12. ^ "deliberate and systematic": Count 3 of the indictment of the 24 Nazi leaders: Sunday Times, 21 October, 1945
  13. ^ "deliberate destruction": Peter Drost (1959). Kolloquium: Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah The Crime of State, Volume 2. {{cite book}}: Check |url= value (help) p. 125.
  14. ^ "a structural and systematic destruction": Irving Louis Horowitz, 1976
  15. ^ "actualization of the intent": Steven T. Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Perspective, Vol. 1, 1994
  16. ^ Stalin, according to researchers Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, "was presumably anxious to avoid his purges being subjected to genocidal scrutiny."Robert Gellately & Ben Kiernan (2003). The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 267. ISBN 0521527503.
  17. ^ a b M. Hassan Kakar Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 University of California press © 1995 The Regents of the University of California.
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReuterScG was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference NYThague was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  20. ^ Cite error: The named reference ICJCIJ was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  21. ^ Tsegaye Tadesse. Verdict due for Ethiopia's ex-dictator Mengistu Reuters, 2006
  22. ^ a b "BBC, "Mengistu found guilty of genocide," 12 December 2006".
  23. ^ Phnom Penh Post, "Debating Genocide"
  24. ^ Totten, Samuel (2004). Century of genocide:. Routledge. p. 345. ISBN 0415944309. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  25. ^ a b Sharp, Bruce (2005-04-01). "Counting Hell: The Death Toll of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia". Retrieved 2006-07-05. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  26. ^ The CGP, 1994-2008 Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale University
  27. ^ William Branigin, Architect of Genocide Was Unrepentant to the End The Washington Post, April 17, 1998
  28. ^ Theory of the Global State: Globality as Unfinished Revolution by Martin Shaw, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp 141, ISBN 9780521597302
  29. ^ Howard, Lise Morje. UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars. Cambridge University Press. P. 132.
  30. ^ LeBlanc, Lawrence J. "United States Foreign Policies Toward Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity".
  31. ^ Kiernan, Ben. "Cambodia's Twisted Path to Justice". History Place. Retrieved 11 August 2009.
  32. ^ a b Doyle, Kevin. Putting the Khmer Rouge on Trial, Time, July 26, 2007
  33. ^ MacKinnon, Ian Crisis talks to save Khmer Rouge trial, The Guardian, 7 March 2007
  34. ^ The Khmer Rouge Trial Task Forc, Royal Cambodian Government
  35. ^ a b The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, pg 457
  36. ^ US admits helping Mengistu escape BBC, 22 December 1999
  37. ^ Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators by Riccardo Orizio, pg 151
  38. ^ Stephane Courtois, et al. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. pg. 692
  39. ^ Guilty of genocide: the leader who unleashed a 'Red Terror' on Africa by Jonathan Clayton, The Times Online, 13 December 2006
  40. ^ a b c d Valentino, Benjamin A (2005). "Counterguerrilla Mass Killings: Guatemala and Afghanistan". Final solutions: mass killing and genocide in the twentieth century. Cornell University Press. p. 217-219. ISBN 0801472733. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  41. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 pp. 718-719.
  42. ^ In pictures: Afghan mass grave BBC, July 5, 2007
  43. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. p. 631. ISBN 0805066381.; Chang, Jung and Halliday, Jon. Mao: The Unknown Story. Jonathan Cape, London, 2005. ISBN 0-224-07126-2 p. 3; Rummel, R. J. China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 Transaction Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0-88738-417-X p. 205: In light of recent evidence, Rummel has increased Mao's democide toll to 77 million. See also: "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm". Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century. Retrieved 2008-08-23.
  44. ^ Fenby, Jonathan. Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power, 1850 to the Present. Ecco, 2008. ISBN 0-06-166116-3 p. 351"Mao’s responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin, his indifference to the suffering and the loss of humans breathtaking."
  45. ^ Asia times online
  46. ^ The People's Republic of China 1949-76, second edition, Michael Lynch (London: Hodder Education, 2008), p. 57
  47. ^ "What caused the great Chinese famine?" (PDF). 2000-01-01. Retrieved 2009-05-14.
  48. ^ "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine.", chinaelections.org, 7 July 2008
  49. ^ a b Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 pp. 545-546.
  50. ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Knopf, 2004 ISBN 1-4000-4230-5 p. 334
  51. ^ McCormack, T. "Soviet genocide trials in the Baltic states, the relevance of international law". Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law - 2004. pp. 388–409. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  52. ^ "Slovenia digs up proof of World War 2 Slaughter". Reuters. 22 October 2007. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
  53. ^ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4581197.stm Man on Slovenia genocide charges] BBC News
  54. ^ [ Walter Laqueur, Black hundred: the rise of the extreme right in Russia‎, p.195
  55. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 p. 98
  56. ^ Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev. A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-08760-8 p. 100
  57. ^ a b Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 p 99-100
  58. ^ a b Robert Gellately. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe Knopf, 2007 ISBN 1400040051 pp. 70–71.
  59. ^ Orlando Figes. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Penguin Books, 1998. ISBN 014024364X p. 660: "However, it must be said in Denikin's defense that he was responding to what can only be called a war of genocide against the Cossacks. The Bolsheviks had made it clear that their aim in the northern Don was to unleash ‘mass terror against the rich Cossacks by exterminating them to the last man' and transferring their land to the Russian peasants. During this campaign of 'decossackization', in the early months of 1919, some 12,000 Cossacks, many of them old men, were executed as "counter-revolutionaries' by tribunals of the invading Red Army."
  60. ^ Donald Rayfield. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him Random House, 2004. ISBN 0375506322 pg 83: "Sometimes a whole ethnic group was declared White and genocide took place. Iona Iakir, a famous Red Army general, had 50 percent of the male Don Cossacks exterminated, and used artillery, flamethrowers, and machine guns on women and children."
  61. ^ Mikhail Heller & Aleksandr Nekrich. Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present. Summit Books, 1988. ISBN 0671645358 p. 87: "The suppression of the Don Cossack revolt in the spring and summer of 1919 took the form of genocide. One historian has estimated that approximately 70 percent of the Don Cossacks were physically eliminated."
  62. ^ R. J. Rummel. Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917. Transaction Publishers, 1990. ISBN 1560008873 p. 2.
  63. ^ Soviet order to exterminate Cossacks is unearthed University of York Communications Office, 21 January 2003
  64. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-674-07608-7 pp. 8-9: “The policy of "de-Cossackization" begun in 1920 corresponds largely to our definition of genocide: a population group firmly established in a particular territory, the Cossacks as such were exterminated, the men shot, the women, children and the elderly deported, and the villages razed or handed over to new, non-Cossack occupants. Lenin compared the Cossacks to the Vendée during the French Revolution and gladly subjected them to a program of what Gracchus Babeuf, the "inventor" of modern Communism, characterized in 1795 as "populicide."
  65. ^ Holquist, Peter, "A Russian Vendee: The Practice of Revolutionary Politics in the Don Countryside, 1917-1921." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1994.
  66. ^ Peter Holquist. "Conduct merciless mass terror": decossackization on the Don, 1919"
  67. ^ Dmitri Volkogonov. Autopsy of an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime. Free Press, 1998. ISBN 0684871122 pg 74
  68. ^ P.M. Polian, Against Their Will, p. 60, 2004
  69. ^ a b Boobbyer, Phillip (2000), The Stalin Era, Routledge, ISBN 0767900561 p. 130
  70. ^ In one estimate, based on a report by Lavrenti Beria to Joseph Stalin, 150,000 of 478,479 deported Ingush and Chechen people (or 31.3 percent) died within the first four years of the resettlement. See: Kleveman, Lutz. The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia. Jackson, Tenn.: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003. ISBN 0871139065. Another scholar puts the number of deaths at 22.7 percent: Extrapolating from NKVD records, 113,000 Ingush and Chechens died (3,000 before deportation, 10,000 during deportation, and 100,000 after resettlement) in the first three years of the resettlement out of 496,460 total deportees. See: Naimark, Norman M. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. ISBN 0674009940. A third source says a quarter of the 650,000 deported Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Kalmyks died within four years of resettlement. See: Mawdsley, Evan. The Stalin Years: The Soviet Union 1929-1953. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2003. ISBN 0719063779. However, estimates of the number of deportees sometimes varies widely. Two scholars estimated the number of Chechen and Ingush deportees at 700,000, which would have the percentage estimates of deaths. See: Fischer, Ruth and Leggett, John C. Stalin and German Communism: A Study in the Origins of the State Party. Edison, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0878558225
  71. ^ Conquest, Robert. The Nation Killers. New York: Macmillan, 1970. ISBN 0333105753
  72. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=KStML5rSbQ4C&pg=PA223&dq=crimean+tatars+genocide+soviet+collaborate&lr=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
  73. ^ Samuel Totten, William S. Parsons, Israel W. Charny. Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views. Garland, 1997 ISBN 0815323530 p. 120
  74. ^ "MEPs recognize Ukraine's famine as crime against humanity". Russian News & Information Agency. 23/ 10/ 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-23. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  75. ^ Helen Fawkes , Legacy of famine divides Ukraine, BBC News, 24 November 2006
  76. ^ http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/Tauger,%20%27The%201932%20Harvest%20and%20the%20Famine%20of%201933,%20SR%2091.pdf
  77. ^ # Robert W. Davies; Wheatcroft, Stephen G., The Years of Hunger. Soviet Agriculture 1931-1933, Houndmills 2004 ISBN 3-412-10105-2, also ISBN 0-333-31107-8
  78. ^ a b c d Michael Ellman, Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 Revisited Europe-Asia Studies, Routledge. Vol. 59, No. 4, June 2007, 663-693. PDF file
  79. ^ http://www.russiatoday.ru/Top_News/2009-05-25/Who_is_the_culprit_Ukraine_starts_Holodomor_criminal_case__.html
  80. ^ Is the Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives on Comparative Genocide Alan S. Rosenbaum
  81. ^ http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/Tauger,%20Natural%20Disaster%20and%20Human%20Actions.pdf
  82. ^ Wheatcroft, S. G. TOWARDS EXPLAINING SOVIET FAMINE OF 1931-3: POLITICAL AND NATURAL FACTORS IN PERSPECTIVE, Food and Foodways, 2004, 12:2, 107 — 136
  83. ^ James Mace, Intellectual Europe on Ukrainian Genocide, The Day, October 21, 2003
  84. ^ sources differ on interpreting various statements from different branches of different governments as to whether they amount to the official recognition of the Famine as Genocide by the country. For example, after the statement issued by the Latvian Sejm on March 13, 2008, the total number of countries is given as 19 (according to Ukrainian BBC: "Латвія визнала Голодомор ґеноцидом"), 16 (according to Korrespondent, Russian edition: "После продолжительных дебатов Сейм Латвии признал Голодомор геноцидом украинцев"), "more than 10" (according to Korrespondent, Ukrainian edition: "Латвія визнала Голодомор 1932-33 рр. геноцидом українців")
  85. ^ European Parliament resolution on the commemoration of the Holodomor, the Ukraine artificial famine (1932-1933)
  86. ^ European Parliament recognises Ukrainian famine of 1930s as crime against humanity (Press Release 23-10-2008)
  87. ^ "Findings of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine" (1988)
  88. ^ Simon Ertz The Kazakh Catastrophe and Stalin’s Order of Priorities, 1929-1933: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives. Stanford’s Student Journal of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Spring 2005
  89. ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Knopf, 2004 ISBN 1-4000-4230-5 p. 229
  90. ^ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4581197.stm Man on Slovenia genocide charges] BBC News
  91. ^ Estonian charged with Communist genocide International Herald Tribune, August 23, 2007
  92. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7978111.stm
  93. ^ Helen Fawkes Legacy of famine divides Ukraine BBC News 24 November 2006
  94. ^ Spanish courts to investigate if a genocide took place in Tibet.
  95. ^ World in Brief: Lawyers take China to court in The Times, 7 June 2006
  96. ^ Alexa Olesen China rejects Spain's 'genocide' claims in The Independent 7 June 2006
  97. ^ Remembrance Day for the Victims of Communist Genocide
  98. ^ Is Holocaust denial against the law? Anne Frank House
  99. ^ Michael Whine, Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It Institute for Global Jewish Affairs
  100. ^ "Public denial of Holodomor Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine as genocide of Ukrainian people to be prosecuted", December 12, 2007

References and Further reading

External links

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