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  • Genocide Fast Facts

    CNN Wire
    September 20, 2013 Friday 5:24 PM EST


    Genocide Fast Facts

    By CNN Library


    (CNN) -- Here's a look at what you need to know about genocide, the
    attempted or intentional destruction of a national, racial, religious,
    or ethnic group, whether in wartime or peace.

    Facts: The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
    Genocide was adopted by the United Nations after World War II.

    Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following
    acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
    national, ethnic, racial or religious group: (a) Killing its members;
    (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c)
    Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
    bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing
    measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly
    transferring children of the group to another group.

    Timeline (selected events): 1915-1923 - Armenians are forced out of
    their homeland by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire
    through massacres and deportation. There are an estimated 1 million to
    1.5 million deaths. Turkey denies any genocide, stating the death toll
    is inflated and the dead are victims of civil unrest.

    1932-1933 - Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union inflict a famine upon
    the Ukraine after people rebel against the imposed system of land
    management known as "collectivization," which seizes privately owned
    farmlands and puts people to work in collectives. An estimated
    25,000-33,000 people die every day. There are an estimated 6 million
    to 10 million deaths.

    December 1937-January 1938 - The Japanese Imperial Army marches into
    Nanking, China and kills an estimated 300,000 Chinese civilians and
    soldiers. Tens of thousands are raped before they are murdered.

    1938-1945 - Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, deems the Jewish
    population racially inferior and a threat, and kills an estimated six
    million Jews in Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union, and other areas
    around Europe during World War II.

    1944 - The term "genocide" is coined by lawyer Raphael Lemkin.

    December 9, 1948 - The United Nations adopts the Convention on the
    Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.

    January 12, 1951 - The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
    the Crime of Genocide enters into force. It is eventually ratified by
    142 nations.

    1975-1979 - Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's attempt to turn Cambodia into
    a Communist peasant farming society leads to the deaths of up to two
    million people from starvation, forced labor, and executions.

    1988 - The Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein attacks civilians who
    have remained in "prohibited" areas. The attacks include the use of
    mustard gas and nerve agents and result in the death of an estimated
    100,000 Iraqi Kurds.

    1992-1995 - Yugoslavia, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, attacks
    Bosnia after it declares its independence. Approximately 100,000
    Muslims, or Bosniaks, are killed by the Serbs during this "ethnic
    cleansing." There are mass executions of "battle-age" men and mass
    rape of women.

    1994 - In Rwanda, an estimated 800,000 civilians, mostly from the
    Tutsi ethnic group, are killed over a period of three months.

    1998 - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda establishes the
    precedent that rape during warfare is a crime of genocide. In Rwanda,
    HIV-infected men had participated in the mass rape of Tutsi women.

    1998 - The first genocide conviction occurs at the International
    Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Jean Paul Akayesu, the Hutu mayor of the
    town, Taba, is convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity.

    July 1, 2002 - The International Criminal Court opens at The Hague,
    The Netherlands as the first permanent war crimes tribunal, with
    jurisdiction to try perpetrators of genocide. Previously, the U.N.
    Security Council created ad hoc tribunals to try those responsible for
    genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

    2003-present - In the Darfur region of Sudan an estimated 200,000 to
    500,000 people are killed.

    2008 - Fugitive Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, is
    arrested. He is charged with genocide in connection with the
    Srebrenica massacre of 1995.

    July 2004 - The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate pass
    resolutions declaring the crisis in Darfur to be genocide.

    March 4, 2009 - The International Criminal Court issues an arrest
    warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of
    crimes against humanity and war crimes. In 2010, three more counts of
    genocide are added to the arrest warrant.

    2013 - There are 122 countries that are parties to the Rome Statute of
    the International Criminal Court. Although the U.S. signed it just
    before the deadline in December 2000, in May 2002, the administration
    of President George W. Bush unsigned it.




    From: A. Papazian
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