The Ten Stages of Genocide

The stages created by Dr. Gregory Stanton

at Genocide Watch © 2015 Gregory Stanton
 The Ten Stages of Genocide
 Understanding the genocidal process is one of the most
important steps in preventing future genocides.
 Initially, the “Eight Stages of Genocide” were outlined
by Dr. Greg Stanton, Department of State in 1996 and he
finally upgraded the list to become “Ten Stages” in 2012
 The first seven stages are Early Warnings:
 1) Classification
 2) Symbolization
 3) Discrimination
 4) Dehumanization
 5) Organization
 6) Polarization
 7) Preparation
 Stage 1: Classification
 “Us versus them”

 Distinguish by nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion.

 Bipolar societies (Rwanda) most likely to have

genocide because no way for classifications to fade
away through inter-marriage.

 Classification is a primary method of dividing society

and creating a power struggle between groups.
 Classification (Rwanda)
Belgian colonialists believed Tutsis were a “naturally superior
nobility” who were descended from the Israelite tribe of Ham.

The Rwandan royalty was Tutsi.

Belgians distinguished between Hutus and Tutsis by nose size,

height & eye type. Another indicator to distinguish Hutu farmers
from Tutsi pastoralists was the number of cattle owned.
 Prevention: Classification

 Promote common identities (national,

religious, human.)

 Use common languages (Swahili in Tanzania,

science, music.)

 Actively oppose racist and divisive politicians

and parties.
 Stage 2: Symbolization

Names: Stereotype slang; derogatory terms.
 Languages: Turkish v. Armenian; Urdu v. Bengali
 Types of dress codes: Arab v. Kurdish; German v. Herero
in Namibia

 Group uniforms: e.g. Nazi Swastika armbands

 Colors and religious symbols:
•Yellow star for Jews
•Blue checked scarf Eastern Zone in Cambodia
Symbolization (Nazi Germany)
Nazis required the yellow Star of David emblem to be
worn by nearly all Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe by
1941.
Symbolization (Nazi Germany)
Nazis wore the swastika armband and required the
yellow Star of David emblem to be worn by nearly all
Jews within Nazi-occupied Europe by 1941.

https://www.genocidewatch.com/ten-stages-of-genocide
 Symbolization (Nazi Germany)
 Homosexuals = pink triangles
 Identified homosexuals to SS guards in the camps
 This caused inevitable discrimination by fellow inmates
who shunned homosexuals (LGBTQI).
Symbolization (Nazi Germany)
 In concentration camps, “[c]riminals were marked
with green inverted triangles, political prisoners
with red, ‘asocial’ (including Roma,
nonconformists, vagrants, and other groups) with
black or – in the case of Roma in some camps
brown triangles. Homosexuals were identified
with pink triangles and Jehovah’s Witnesses with
purple ones. Non-German prisoners were
identified by the first letter of the German name
for their home country, which was sewn onto their
badge. The two triangles forming the Jewish star
badge would both be yellow unless the Jewish
prisoner was included in one of the other prisoner
categories. A Jewish political prisoner, for
example, would be identified with a yellow
triangle beneath a red triangle. Jews were required
to wear the Star of David outside of concentration
camps as well” (Holocaust Memorial Museum).
 https://thebookthiefholocaust.weebly.com/8-stages-of-g
enocide.html
“Facebook removes Trump ad over ‘Nazi hate symbol,”

 “Facebook pulls Trump ads which used Nazi symbol”

Bangkok Post, 19 June, 2020.
 https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1937624/facebook-pulls-trump-ads-which-used-nazi
-symbol

 “Facebook removes Trump ad over ‘Nazi hate symbol,”

BBC News, 18 June, 2020.
 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53098439
 “Nashville hat shop faces backlash for selling anti-
vaccine Nazi Jewish star,”

“Nashvillehat shop faces backlash for selling anti-vaccine Nazi Jewish star”
BBC News, 30 May, 2021.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57297902
 Czech Republic: Anti-vaccination protesters
in Prague wearing yellow stars with:
Neočkovaný (Unvaccinated). ”

“Anti-Vaxxers Wearing Jewish Badges Condemned, Czechs Remain Sceptical of COVID-

19 Vaccine,” Prague Morning, 11 January, 2021.
https://praguemorning.cz/anti-vaxxers-wearing-jewish-badges-condemned-czechs-remain-sceptical-of-c
ovid-19-vaccine
/
 Germany: Munich bans use of Nazi ‘Jewish star’ at
coronavirus protests wearing yellow stars with:
Ungeimpft (Unvaccinated).

“Munichbans use of Nazi ‘Jewish star’ at coronavirus protests,” DW (Deutsche Welle), 31

May, 2020.
https://praguemorning.cz/anti-vaxxers-wearing-jewish-badges-condemned-czechs-remain-sceptical-of-c
ovid-19-vaccine
/
 “German call to ban ‘Jewish star’ at Covid
demos”

“This Berlin protester wore a yellow star with the word “unvaccinated,”
mimicking the notorious badges the Nazis forced Jews to wear in World
War Two.”
 “German call to ban 'Jewish star' at Covid demos,” BBC News, 7 May, 2021.
 https://praguemorning.cz/anti-vaxxers-wearing-jewish-badges-condemned-czechs-remain-sce
ptical-of-covid-19-vaccine/
 “Canada’s Jewish community condemns t-shirts
comparing COVID-19 vaccinations to Holocaust”

“ ‘It’s insulting’: Jewish community reacts to yellow star used by B.C. anti-vaxxer on T-shirt,” CTV News,1
March, 2021.
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/it-s-insulting-jewish-community-reacts-to-yellow-star-used-by-b-c-anti-vaxxer-on-t-
shirt-1.5327514
.

Canada’s Jewish community condemns t-shirts comparing COVID-19 vaccinations to Holocaust,”

Cleveland Jewish News, 1 March, 2021.
https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/jns/canada-s-jewish-community-condemns-t-shirts-comparing-covid
-19-vaccinations-to-holocaust/article_5696fa0e-5b47-5078-8c7b-9d8f523e38eb.html
 Israel: The Star of David has been used by some
anti-Covid-19 vaccine protesters, stating in Hebrew:
“I am not vaccinated – I will bear a yellow pass. ”

.

“Latest provocation by anti-vaxxers: 'Yellow Star of David', Israel Hayom, 04-08-2021.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/04/08/latest-provocation-by-anti-vaxxers-yellow-star-of-david/
 Israel: “At a demonstration in Tel Aviv, the anti-
vaccine protesters compared the vaccine green passes to
the yellow star. ”

.

“Antivaxxers liken vaccine green passes to yellow star', The Times of Israel, 1 March, 2021.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/yad-vashem-warns-of-abuse-as-antivaxxers-liken-vaccine-passes-to-yellow-star
/
 Symbolization (Nazi Germany)

 Hermann Mano Höllenreiner has his Auschwitz prisoner tattoo. His prisoner
number: Z 3526. The “Z” stands for “Zigeuner,” the German word for Gypsy,
which was the derogatory name given to the Sinti and the Roma ethnic groups by
the Nazi regime.

 “Roma Holocaust Memorial Day: Auschwitz survivor Mano Höllenreiner recalls Nazi ‘Gypsy
Camp’,” DW (Deutsche Welle), 2 August, 2018.
 https://
www.dw.com/en/roma-holocaust-memorial-day-auschwitz-survivor-mano-h%C3%B6llenreiner-recall
s-nazi-gypsy-camp/a-44926614
 Symbolization (Cambodia)
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
 People in the Eastern
Zone, near Vietnam,
were accused of having
“Khmer bodies, but
Vietnamese heads.”
 They were deported to
other areas to be
worked to death.
 They were marked
with a blue and white
checked scarf (Krama)
https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/1987/03/14/Blue-Scarves-and-Yellow-Stars-Cl
assification-and-Symbolization-in-the-Cambodian-Genocide
 Symbolization (Cambodia)
Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge
 The Khmer Rouge soldiers
wore red and white checked
krama and back shirt and
trousers
 Prevention: Symbolization
 Get ethnic, religious, racial, and national
identities removed from ID cards, passports.
 Protest imposition of marking symbols on
targeted groups (yellow cloth on Hindus in
Taliban Afghanistan).
 Protest negative or racist words for groups.
Work to make them culturally unacceptable.
 Stage 3: Discrimination
 Segregation; apartheid: Separate groups in
housing, schools, transport, and eating places.
 Prohibit voting by members of victim group.
 Remove specific groups from professions.
(e.g. Nazis fired Jewish university professors and
Jews working as civil servants for the German
Government in 1933.)
 Require an “ official pass” to travel. Hunt and
arrest “ undocumented aliens.”
 Stage 3: Discrimination
 “Ethnicity” was first noted on cards by Belgian Colonial Authorities in
1933.
 Tutsis were given access to limited education programs and Catholic
priesthood. Hutus were given much less assistance by colonial
authorities.
 After independence, these preferences were reversed.
The Hutus were then favoured as “the superior.”
 These ID cards were later used to distinguish Tutsis from Hutus in the
1994 massacres of Tutsis and moderate Hutus that resulted in 800,000+
deaths.
 Stage 3: Discrimination
 Jewish Passport: “Reisepäss” which was required to be
carried by all Jews by 1938. This form of identification
preceded the yellow star.
 Stage 3: Discrimination
 Jewish Passport: “Reisepäss”

O’Connell, Ronan, “How China Saved More Than 20,000 Jews During WW2,”
BBC News, 5 April, 2021.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210405-how-china-saved-more-than-20000-jews-during-ww
2?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2F
 Stage 4: Dehumanization
 One group denies the humanity of another group, and makes the
victim group seem sub-human.

 Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against

murder.

Idi Amin Dada of Uganda made . Kangura Newspaper, Rwanda:

white Journalists and Businessmen “The Solution for Tutsi
kneel before him *(1971-1979). Cockroaches”
 Dehumanization
Tuol Sleng (S-21) Khmer Rouge 1975 to 1979:

.
Tuol Sleng (S21) Genocide Museum
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
 Dehumanization
 Hate propaganda in speeches, print and on hate radios vilify
the victim group.
 Members of the victim group are described as animals,
vermin, and diseases. Hate radio, Radio Télévision Libre des
Mille Collines, during the Rwandan genocide in 1994,
broadcast anti-Tutsi messages like “kill the cockroaches” and
“If this disease is not treated immediately, it will destroy all
the Hutu.”
 Dehumanization invokes superiority of one group and
inferiority of the “other.”
 Dehumanization justifies murder by calling it “ ethnic
cleansing,” or “purification.” Such euphemisms hide the
horror of mass murder.
 Prevention: Dehumanization
 Vigorously protest use of dehumanizing words
that refer to people as “filth,” “vermin,” animals
or diseases. Deny people using such words visas
and freeze their foreign assets and contributions.
 Prosecute hate crimes and incitements to commit
genocide.
 Jam or shut down hate radio and television
stations where there is danger of genocide.
 Prevention: Dehumanization
 Provide programs for tolerance to radio, TV,
and newspapers.
 Enlist religious and political leaders to speak out
and educate for tolerance.
 Organize inter-ethnic, interfaith, and inter-racial
groups to work against hate and genocide.
 Stage 5: Organization
 Genocide is a group crime, so all activities must be organized.
 The state usually organizes, arms and financially supports the
groups that conduct the genocidal massacres. (State
organization is not a legal requirement – e.g. Indian partition.)
 Plans are made by elites for a “final solution” of genocidal
killings.

  Genocide of the Assyrian community of Armenia.

 Organization (Rwanda)
 “Hutu Power” elites
armed youth militias
called Interahamwe
(“Those Who Stand
Together”).

 The government and Hutu

Power businessmen
provided the militias with
over 500,000 machetes and
other arms and set up
camps to train them to
“protect their villages” by
exterminating every Tutsi.
 Prevention: Organization
 Treat genocidal groups as the organized crime groups
they are. Make membership in them illegal and
demand that their leaders be arrested.
 Deny visas to leaders of hate groups and freeze their
foreign assets.
 Impose arms embargoes on hate groups and
governments supporting ethnic or religious hatred.
 Create UN commissions to enforce such arms
embargoes and call on UN members to arrest arms
merchants who violate them.
 Stage 6: Polarization
 Extremists drive the groups apart.
 Hate groups broadcast and print polarizing propaganda.
 Laws are passed that forbid intermarriage or social interaction.
 Political moderates are silenced, intimidated, and imprisoned or assassinated .
Polarization
 No Escape from the Regime:
“Child soldiers grow to become the elderly”
“Nazi trial: 100-year-old SS guard in court in Germany,”
BBC News, 7 October, 2021.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58826189

“Bruno Dey: Former Nazi guard found guilty over mass

murder at Stutthof Camp,” BBC News, 23 July, 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53511391

“Ex-Nazi camp guard, 93, gets two-year suspended

sentence,” Bangkok Post, 23 July, 2020.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1956399/ex-nazi-camp-
guard-93-gets-two-year-suspended-sentence?
cx_placement=recent#cxrecs_s
 Prevention: Polarization
 Vigorously protest laws or policies that segregate
or marginalize groups, or that deprive whole
groups of citizenship rights.

 Physically protect moderate leaders, by use of

armed guards and armored vehicles.

 Demand the release of moderate leaders if they are

arrested. Demand and conduct investigations if
they are murdered.

 Oppose coups d’état by extremists.

 Stage 7: Preparation
Planning (Conspiracy)

 Wannsee House, Berlin, Germany, where the Nazi elite

leaders, Heydrich and Eichmann planned “ the Final
Solution to the Jewish Question” on 20 January, 1942.
 Preparation
 Weapons for killing are stock-piled.

 This build- up of killing capacity is a major step towards the

actual genocide.
 Prevention: Preparation
 With evidence of death lists, arms shipments, militia
training, and trial massacres, a Genocide Alert™
should be declared.

 UN Security Council should warn it will act (but

only if it really will act.)
Diplomats must warn potential perpetrators.

 Humanitarian relief should be prepared.

 Military intervention forces should be organized,

including logistics and financing.
 Stage 8: Persecution
 Segregation into
ghettoes is imposed,
victims are forced into
concentration camps.
 Separate victims because
of their ethnic or
religious identity; their
sexual orientation,
language, passport,
visible disabilities, or any Expropriate; or usurp
other specific trait that the houses, businesses
and property of the
has been targeted.
victim group(s)
 Stage 8: Persecution
 Victims are also
deported to regions
which have no running
water or no electricity,
very poor
infrastructure; or are
famine-struck regions
that lead to inevitable
starvation.
Forced Resettlement into
 Death lists are made. Ghettos – Poland 1939-
1942)
 Stage 9: Extermination
(Genocide; “Politicide”; Mass
Murder)
 Active extermination begins, and
becomes the mass killing legally called
“genocide” or “politicide” or just clear
“mass murder.”
 Most, if not all genocide, is committed
by and controlled by governments.
Extermination (Genocide)

Government organized extermination of Tutsis

by Hutu extremists in Rwanda in 1994
 Extermination (Genocide)
.

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

on children and adults who survive.

 “Mental health: Trauma, genocide and my

invisible illness,” BBC News, 24 April, 2021.
 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56852375

Government organized extermination of Tutsis

by Hutu extremists in Rwanda in 1994
 Extermination (Genocide)
•The killing is
“extermination” to the
killers because they do
not believe the victims
are fully human. They
are “cleansing” the
society of impurities,
disease, animals,
vermin,
“cockroaches,” or
Roma (Gypsies) in a Nazi
enemies.
death camp
 Extermination (Genocide)
 Although most
genocide is sponsored
and financed by the
state, the armed forces
often work with local
militias.

Rwandan militia killing

squads

Nazi killing squad working with

local militia
Tuol Sleng (S-21), Cambodia:
Choeung Ek Mass Grave

 Photos © Gregory Stanton 1980

 Build extermination or concentration
camps.
Call them “ labour camps.”
Transport victims to camps, kill, and cremate them.
 Arbeit macht frei is a German phrase meaning
"Work sets you free" or "Work makes one free."
 Extermination: Stopping Genocide
 Regional organizations, national governments,
and the UN Security Council should impose
targeted sanctions to undermine the economic
viability of the perpetrator regime.
 Sales of oil and imports of gasoline should be
stopped by blockade of ports and land routes.
 Perpetrators should be indicted by the
International Criminal Court.
 Extermination: Stopping Genocide
 The UN Security Council should authorize armed
intervention by regional military forces or by a
UN force under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.
 The Mandate must include protection of civilians and
humanitarian workers and a No Fly Zone.
 The Rules of Engagement must be robust and include
aggressive prevention of killing.
 The major military powers must provide leadership,
logistics, airlift, communications, and financing.
 If the state where the genocide is underway will not
permit entry, its UN membership should be suspended.
 Stage 10: Denial
 Denial is always found in genocide, both
during it and after it.
 Continuing denial is among the surest
indicators of further genocidal massacres.
 Denial extends the crime of genocide to future
generations of the victims. It is a continuation
of the intent to destroy the group.
 The tactics of denial are predictable.
 Denial: Deny the Evidence.
 Deny that there was any mass killing at all.

 Question and minimize the statistics.

 Block access to archives and witnesses.

 Intimidate or kill eye-witnesses.

 Denial: Deny the Evidence
 Destroy the evidence. (Burn the bodies
and the archives, dig up and burn the
mass graves, throw bodies in rivers or
seas.)
 Denial: Attack the truth-tellers.

 Attack the motives of the truth-tellers.

Say they are opposed to the religion,
ethnicity, or nationality of the deniers.

 Point out atrocities committed by people

from the truth-tellers’ group. Imply they
are morally disqualified to accuse the
perpetrators.
 Denial: Deny Genocidal Intent.
 Claim that the deaths were inadvertent
(due to famine, migration, or disease.)
 Blame “out of control” forces for the
killings.
 Blame the deaths on ancient ethnic
conflicts.
 Denial: Blame the Victims.
 Emphasize the strangeness of the victims.
They are not like us. (savages, infidels)
 Claim they were disloyal insurgents in a
war.
 Call it a “civil war,” not genocide.
 Claim that the deniers’ group also
suffered huge losses in the “war.” The
killings were in self-defense.
 Denial: Deny for current
interests.
 Avoid upsetting “the peace process.”
“Look to the future, not to the past.”
 Deny to assure benefits of relations with the
perpetrators or their descendents. (oil,
arms sales, alliances, military bases)
 Don’t threaten humanitarian assistance to
the victims, who are receiving good
treatment. (Show the model Thereisenstadt
IDP camp.)
 Denial: Deny “facts” fit legal definition
of genocide.
 They are crimes against humanity, not genocide.
 They are “ethnic cleansing”, not genocide.
 There is not enough proof of specific intent to
destroy a group, “as such.” (“Many survived!”-
UN Commission of Inquiry on Darfur.)
 Claim the only “real” genocides are like the
Holocaust: “in whole.”
(Ignore the “in part” in the Genocide Convention.)
 Claim declaring genocide would legally obligate us
to intervene. (We don’t want to intervene.)
 Optional Protocol to Genocide
Convention is needed.
 An Optional Protocol is needed to re-empower the
UN General Assembly and Regional organizations to
prevent and stop genocide.
 The UN General Assembly already has authority
under the Uniting for Peace Resolution of 1950 to
authorize force if the UNSC (United Nations Security
Council) is paralyzed.
 Regional organizations already have authority to
prevent and stop genocide without any UN
authorization under Chapter 8 of the UN Charter.
Denial by the Belgium monarchy: in 2020

King Leopold II of Belgium

“……….the younger brother of Belgium’s King

Philippe, Prince Laurent, defended his ancestor
saying Leopold II was not responsible for atrocities
in the colony ‘because he never went to Congo’.”

“Leopold II: Belgium ‘wakes up’ to its bloody colonial past”

BBC News, 13 June, 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53017188
“A man sits on a low platform looking at a dismembered small foot and
small hand. They belonged to his five-year-old daughter, who was
later killed when her village did not produce sufficient rubber. She was
not unique – chopping off the limbs of enslaved Congolese was a
routine form of retribution when Leopold II's quotas were not met.”

“Leopold II: Belgium ‘wakes up’ to its bloody colonial past,” BBC News, 13 June, 2020.
“Colonial officials amputated and mutilated Congolese
people, including children, as punishment.”

“Leopold II: Belgium ‘wakes up’ to its bloody colonial past,” BBC News, 13 June, 2020.
“Christian missionaries documented amputations while
investigating abuses committed in Congo Free State as they
exposed the brutal regime.”
“Leopold II: Belgium ‘wakes up’ to its bloody colonial past,” BBC News, 13 June, 2020.
“Killings, famine and disease combined to cause the deaths of perhaps
10 million people, though historians dispute the true number.”

“Leopold II may never have set foot there, but he poured the
profits into Belgium and into his pockets.”

“He built the Africa Museum in the grounds of his palace at Tervuren,
with a “human zoo” in the grounds featuring 267 Congolese people as
exhibits.”

“Leopold II: Belgium ‘wakes up’ to its bloody colonial past,” BBC News, 13 June, 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53017188
 Stage 10: Denial.
“A 100-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, the
oldest person charged with complicity in the murder of thousands of
detainees, told a German court on Friday that he was not guilty.

“I am innocent,” said Josef Schuetz, who stands accused of

“knowingly and willingly” assisting in the murder of 3,518 prisoners
at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin,
between 1942 and 1945. The Sachsenhausen camp detained more
than 200,000 people between 1936 and 1945, including Jews,  .

Roma, regime opponents and gay people.”

“ ‘I am innocent’: ex-Nazi guard, 100, tells German court,” Bangkok Post, 9 October, 2021
https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2195111/i-am-innocent-ex-nazi-guard-100-tells-german-
court
. 
 Stage 10: Denial.
Bosnian Serbs defy top UN official over
genocide denial in July 2021.
“Bosnian Serbs have reacted furiously to a ban on genocide denial imposed by the
international official overseeing Bosnia's 1995 peace deal. UN-appointed High
Representative Valentin Inzko said the ban was needed to stop glorification of war
criminals.”

"I had to do something - I followed my conscience. If you're in a country where

war criminals are glorified, this cannot be a good future," he said.

“Bosnian Serb politicians are boycotting Bosnia's multi-ethnic national bodies. Last
month the genocide conviction of Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko.


Mladic was confirmed in The Hague, yet some ethnic-Serb leaders were still
acclaiming him as a hero. So Mr Inzko, an Austrian diplomat, said he had to act.”

“Bosnian Serbs defy top UN official Inzko over genocide denial,”

BBC News, 28 July, 2021.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58001974 . 
 Stage 10: Denial.
Bosnian Serbs defy top UN official over
genocide denial in July 2021.

“Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb member of the country's joint

presidency, says he will not accept the amendments to the criminal code.
He has launched a petition claiming that the Srebrenica massacre was
not an act of genocide – yet such denials may now be punished with a
maximum prison sentence of five years. That massacre was the
worst atrocity of the war – forces led by Mladic killed about 8,000
captive Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys.”
 .

“Bosnian Serbs defy top UN official Inzko over genocide denial,”

BBC News, 28 July, 2021.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58001974 . 
 Stage 10: Denial.
“UN defines Holocaust denial in new resolution”
January, 2022.
“The UN has adopted a resolution aimed at combating Holocaust denial and is
urging member states and social media firms to help fight anti-Semitism. The
resolution, put forward by Israel and Germany, was passed without a vote by the
193-member General Assembly.”
“The move sends: “a strong... message against the denial or the distortion of
these historical facts,” the UN said.”
“On Thursday, the UN General Assembly said it "rejects and condemns without
any reservation any denial of The Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or
in part".
 .

“Ignoring historical facts increases the risk that they will be repeated," Germany’s
UN Ambassador Antje Leendertse said.”

“UN defines Holocaust denial in new resolution,” BBC News, 20 January, 2022.
. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60072506
 Reconciliation (Rwanda)

“Rwanda genocide: ‘I am a mother – I killed some

children’s parents’,” BBC News, 15 June, 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52938283
Preventing Genocide
 Prevention: Political Will
 The world really needs an international and entirely
en-masse movement to truly end genocide.
 The Alliance Against Genocide was founded in 1999.
 Organize civil society and human rights groups.
 Mobilize religious leaders of churches, mosques,
synagogues, temples; and include humanist atheist
groups, as they also live with moral and ethics.
 Place “genocide education” in the curricula of every
secondary school and university in every country in the
world.
 Hold political leaders accountable. If they fail to act to
stop genocide, vote them out of office.
Why has the UN not stopped genocide ?
 Genocide succeeds when state sovereignty
blocks international responsibility to protect.
 The UN represents states, not peoples.
 Since founding of UN:
Over 45 genocides and politicides
Over 70 million dead

 Genocide prevention ≠ conflict resolution

Prevention requires:
1. Early
warning

2. Rapid
response

3. Courts for
accountability
 Genocide continues due to:
•Lack of authoritative international
institutions to predict it
•Lack of ready rapid response forces to stop it

UNAMIR peacekeeper in Rwanda, April 1994

Genocide continues due to lack of
UN or external intervention:
 “Srebrenica massacre: Dutch state ‘10%
liable’ for 350 deaths,” BBC News, 19 July,
2019.
 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-
49042372

 “What happened at Srebrenica?” (2-mins)

 Genocide continues due to:
• Lack of political will to peacefully prevent it
and to forcefully intervene to stop it.

UN Security Council votes to withdraw

UNAMIR troops from Rwanda, April 1994
Memorial to 800,000 Rwandans murdered,
April – July, 1994
 Halabja, Kurdistan, Iraq
Memorial to 5000 killed in chemical attack on 16 March 1988.
182,000 Kurds died in Anfal genocide.
 Prevention: Political Will
 Build an international mass movement to
end genocide in this 21st century.
 Organize civil society and human rights groups.
 Mobilize religious leaders of churches, mosques,
synagogues, and temples.
 Put genocide education in curricula of every
secondary school and university in the world.
 Hold political leaders accountable. If they fail to
act to stop genocide, vote them out of office.
 Never Again? Or Again and
Again?
 How can we use the 8 Stages of
Genocide to develop more
effective ways to prevent
genocide in the future?

 Would it be useful for the UN

to establish a Genocide
Prevention Center to work
with the Special Adviser for
Genocide Prevention?

 Even with Early Warning, how

can we achieve effective Early
Response to prevent and stop
genocide?
 UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein deplores
violence against Rohingya in Myanmar:
‘…a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”

 UN rights chief deplores violence against Rohingya in Myanmar (2017)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=5NskGhOpNHI&ab_channel=UnitedNations
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50375739
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https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20191211-myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi-rejects-
gambia-rohingya-genocide-claims
Countries at Risk of Genocide 2016
Map.

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 Reconciliation by
Seeking, Finding and Confirming
the “Truth”

“Remembering Nuremberg 75 years on”

BBC News, 20 November, 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-
55008987
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