Ethnic cleansing: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:52, 12 June 2007

Revision as of 11:31, 13 June 2007

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[[Image:Marcharmenians.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Armenian civilians, being cleansed from their homeland during the [[Armenian Genocide]].]]

'''Ethnic cleansing''' refers to various policies or practices aimed at the displacement of an [[ethnic group]] from a particular territory in order to create a supposedly ethnically "pure" society. The term entered English and international usage in the early 1990s to describe certain events in the former [[ex-Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]]. Its typical usage was developed in the Balkans, to be a less objectionable code-word meaning “[[genocide]]”, but its intent was to best avoid the obvious pitfalls of longstanding international treaty laws prohibiting war-crimes. This Orwellian term has since become still more Orwellian, because it is occasionally used as a claim of war-crimes, when no war-crimes actually exist. For example, “Ethnic Cleansing” has become improperly used to describe a situation wherein poorer ethnic groups are being displaced economically, by other, generally more affluent ethnic groups.

Synonyms include ''sectarian revenge''{{Fact|date=February 2007}} and ''ethnic purification'' and (in the French versions of some UN documents) ''nettoyage ethnique'' and ''épuration ethnique''.<ref>Drazen Petrovic, [http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol5/No3/art3.html "Ethnic Cleansing - An Attempt at Methodology"], ''European Journal of International Law'', Vol. No. 3. Retrieved 20 May 2006.</ref>

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==Ethnic cleansing as a military and political tactic==

[[image:Soloviev-009.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Ethnic Georgian civilian killed during the [[Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia|ethnic-cleansing]] of Georgians in Abkhazia, 1993]]

The purpose of ethnic cleansing is to remove the conditions for potential and actual opposition, whether political, terrorist, guerrilla or military, by physically removing any potentially or actually hostile ethnic communities. Although it has sometimes been motivated by a doctrine that claim an ethnic group is literally "unclean" (as in the case of the Jews of medieval Europe), more usually it has been a rational (if brutal) way of ensuring that total control can be asserted over an area. The campaign in Bosnia in early 1992 was a case in point. The tactic was used by Bosnian Croat, Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Serb forces. Ethnic cleansing is often also accompanied by efforts to eradicate all physical traces of the expelled ethnic group, such as by the destruction of cultural artifacts, religious sites and physical records.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}

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On the other hand, ethnic cleansing is such a brutal tactic and so often accompanied by large-scale bloodshed that it is widely reviled. It is generally regarded as lying somewhere between [[population transfer]]s and [[genocide]] on a scale of odiousness, and is treated by international law as a [[war crime]].

[[image:Soloviev-009.jpg|right|200px|thumb|Ethnic Georgian civilian killed during the [[Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia|ethnic-cleansing]] of Georgians in Abkhazia, 1993]]

[[Image:Marcharmenians.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Armenian civilians, being cleansed from their homeland during the [[Armenian Genocide]].]]

==Ethnic cleansing as a crime under international law==

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Hilary Andersson, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3752871.stm "Ethnic cleansing blights Sudan"], ''BBC News'', 27 May 2004.</ref>

* The removal of around 8,500 Jews (including the forced removal of about half of them)<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4159958.stm 'Israel evicts Gaza Strip settlers'], BBC News Online, [[17 August]], 2005.</ref> from the [[Gaza Strip]], and around 660 from four small settlements in the [[West Bank]],<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4172694.stm 'Settlers and army clash in W Bank'], BBC News Online, [[22 August]], 2005.</ref> in 2005 through the implementation of [[Israel's unilateral disengagement plan]].<ref>Robinson, Eugene. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/18/AR2005081801642.html "Betrayed in Gaza"], ''[[Washington Post]]'', August 19, 2005.</ref><ref>Klein, Morton A. [http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=11876 "Gaza Withdrawal Rewards Terrorism"], ''[[The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles]]'' February 27, 2004.</ref><ref>[[Jeff Jacoby|Jacoby, Jeff]]. [http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby_2005_04_01.php3 "Sharon's retreat is a victory for terrorists"], ''Jewish World Review'', April 1, 2005.</ref><ref>Gross, Tom. [http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ExodusFromGaza.html Exodus From Gaza] Tom Gross Mid-East Media Analysis. Retrieved November 4, 2006.</ref>

* The [[Expulsion of Tamils from Colombo|removal of 376 minority Tamils]] from the capital [[Colombo]], [[Sri Lanka]] into buses, most of them headed towards the northern district of Vavuniya, which is the front line of the renewed civil war without proof of wrong doing. <ref>[http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL267809.htm, Reuters questioning Ethnic Cleansing, [[7 June]], 2007.</ref><ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6729555.stm]</ref>.<ref name=AFP>{{cite news|url=http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070607/wl_sthasia_afp/srilankapoliticsunrestrights_070607124831| title= Sri Lanka police evict ethnic Tamils from capital | date= [[2007-06-07]] | publisher = [[AFP]] | first = Jayasinghe | last = Amal | accessdate = 2007-06-07 }}</ref>

==See also==