The term ''genocidal massacre'' was introduced by
Leo Kuper (1908–1994) to describe incidents which have a genocidal component but are committed on a smaller scale when they are compared to
genocide
Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
s such as the
Rwandan genocide
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Gre ...
. Others such as
Robert Melson, who also makes a similar differentiation, class genocidal
massacre
A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...
s as "partial genocide".
In his book ''
Blood and Soil'',
Ben Kiernan
Benedict F. "Ben" Kiernan (born 29 January 1953) is an Australian-born American historian who is the Whitney Griswold Professor Emeritus of History, Professor of International and Area Studies and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale ...
states that
imperial powers have often committed genocidal massacres to control difficult minorities within their
empire
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
s. As an example he describes the actions of two
Roman legion
The Roman legion (, ) was the largest military List of military legions, unit of the Roman army, composed of Roman citizenship, Roman citizens serving as legionary, legionaries. During the Roman Republic the manipular legion comprised 4,200 i ...
s which were sent to Egypt in 68 AD in order to quell Jews who were rioting in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
in support of Jews who were taking part in the
First Jewish–Roman War. The Roman governor
Tiberius Julius Alexander ordered two legions to massacre the inhabitants of the Jewish quarter, which was carried out to the letter, sparing none whatever their age or sex. The massacre ended after about 50,000 had been killed when Alexander, listening to the pleas of some yet to be killed, felt pity for them and ordered an end to the killings.
Kiernan makes the point that in his opinion, the killings, like genocide, do not have to be organized by the state. In support of his view, he describes several incidents:
* The massacre in the
Uamh Fhraing of all the inhabitants of the
Isle of Eigg by members of the
Clan MacLeod
Clan MacLeod ( ; ) is a Scottish Highlands, Highland Scottish clan associated with the Isle of Skye. There are two main branches of the clan: the MacLeods of Harris, Outer Hebrides, Harris and Dunvegan, known in Gaelic as ' ("seed of Tormod") an ...
on a raiding party from the
Isle of Skye
The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some of ...
in 1577 and a retaliatory raid the next year when members of the
Clan MacDonald burnt a MacLeod congregation to death in
Trumpan Church, which was almost immediately followed by the
Battle of the Spoiling Dyke.
* On 27 February 2002, an argument on a train of
Hindu
Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
pilgrims (returning from
Ayodhya
Ayodhya () is a city situated on the banks of the Sarayu river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ayodhya district as well as the Ayodhya division of Uttar Pradesh, India. Ayodhya became th ...
) with
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
vendors at the platform where it had stopped was followed by
burning of the train (believed to be an accidental fire but alleged to be
arson) that killed 59 people (9 men, 25 women, 25 children). The next day, and for the following two days,
riots in Gujarat caused 790 Muslim and 254 Hindu fatalities.
Kiernan states that some genocidal massacres are carried out against groups that are not covered by the
Genocide Convention—such as being a member of a political party, or social class—but that these are covered under local laws and international treaties that criminalise
crimes against humanity
Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...
. However he does acknowledge that massacres against groups other than those in the Genocide Convention, and where the intention of the perpetrators did not specifically intend to commit genocide, are a grey area.
William Schabas makes the point that genocidal massacres are criminal offences under
international law
International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...
as a crime against humanity, and during an armed conflict under the
laws of war. However he points out that international prosecutions for individual acts are not covered by the
Rome Statute (which brought into existence the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...
) because crimes against humanity must be "widespread or systematic" and
war crime
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...
s usually have to have a threshold above the individual crime "in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes".
[ cites Rome Statute of International Criminal Court, note 4 above, art7(1) and art 8(1).]
Irving Louis Horowitz is critical of Kuper's approach. He cites Kuper's use of the term ''genocidal massacre'' to describe the inter-communal violence during the
partition of India
The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...
and during
The Troubles
The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...
in Northern Ireland. Hirsh states "to speak of
heseas genocidal in a context of religious competition and conflict risks diluting the notion of genocide and equating it with any conflict between national, religious, or racial groups".
Definitions
This is a list of scholarly definitions of genocide massacre, a phrase coined by Leo Kuper.
See also
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Outline of genocide studies
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Ten stages of genocide
References
Works cited
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Further reading
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Bibliography of genocide studies
{{Genocide topics
Massacre
A massacre is an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...
Massacres