Genocide: Past Incidents

Genocides and targeting of specific groups of people have been around since the beginning of civilization. For the purpose of ProjectArcix, we will examine the genocides that occurred since 1951, the year the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was signed into international law.

1933-1945
The Holocaust by the Nazis in Germany exterminated 11 million people. In what the Nazis called the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question,” 6 million Jews in Europe were killed. They massacred in open air shootings and gas chambers in lethal efficiency. Led by Adolf Hitler, the Nazis also targeted homosexuals, the disabled and political opponents such as communists.
1975-1979
The Communist Party of Kampuchea plotted and exterminated 1.7 million Cambodians. Targets of this genocide were ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Chams, ethnic Thais, Buddhist monks, intellectuals, and refugees.
1992-1995
Bosnia Muslims experienced a genocide by the Republika Srpska and its Army. At least 8,000 people were killed and nearly one million including Croats and Bosniaks were displaced.
1994
During only 100 days in 1994, nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered by the Hutu majority in Rwanda. With radios broadcasting a list of names of Tutsis in one hand and machetes in another, the Hutus marched through the country and slaughtered their neighbors and even friends on the streets, in markets, and in homes. The international community, including the United Nations, did not intervene and the United States refused to call it a genocide for fear of being obligated to act.
1997
The Bangladesh War in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) saw the killing of up to 3,000,000 people. President General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generaisl targeted the Bengali intellectual, cultural and political elite as well as hundreds and thousands of Hindus.

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