GENOCIDE IN TWENTIETH CENTURY FAR EAST ASIA

This project is designed to provide information concerning genocide in Asia in the 20th century.

The approach of the new millennium brings forth promises of quantum advances in technology, science, and medicine, yet millions of humans are still tormented as they face extermination from the most severe form of hatred - Genocide. While the mantra of developed countries in the world became "Never Forget" as the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust and Pol Pot's Cambodia were exposed, other countries continued and continue to this day to attempt to solve their problems by eradicating those they find different, threatening or easily vilified.

For the purposes of the project, I am defining Far East Asia as both East and Southeast Asia. East Asia is widely considered to include the nations of China and Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia. Southeast Asia currently consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (recently renamed from Burma,) Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the island nations of the Philippines and Indonesia. Also, I have included Tibet and the island of East Timor as distinct from the countries currently occupying them.

The country links below do not lead to information on the countries that have committed atrocities, but rather to the countries in which they have been committed. Please be aware that some of the links to other sites contain pictures which are of a very graphic and disturbing nature.

To reference the online bibliography, please click here.

EAST ASIA

SOUTHEAST ASIA

ON GENOCIDE IN GENERAL:

"One of the most common difficulties in the whole field of international relations arises from differences of cultural assumption. ...The problem has been succinctly stated in folk terms by the Roumanian proverb which says, 'The foreigner scratches us where we don't itch'" (Foreign Service Journal 1948). In no way is this truer than in cases of genocide.

Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in 1944. Lemkin was a Polish Jewish émigré who taught law at both Yale and Duke University and was an adviser to the United States War Ministry. The word comes from a combination of the Greek word genos (race, tribe) and Latin suffix cide (to kill) (Totten and Parsons 1997; Destexhe 1995). His initial definition of genocide is as follows:

…the coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, economic existence, of national groups and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as member of the national group [Lemkin 1944:79; Totten and Parsons 1997:xxiii].

The Genocide Convention, adopted by the United nations in 1948, altered the definition of genocide to be "certain acts…committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such (Senate 1950: 3). Article II of the convention identified five acts which constituted the crime of genocide which were:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The convention also specified, in Article III, five punishable genocidal acts:

1. The crime of genocide itself;
2. Conspiracy to commit genocide;
3. Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
4. Attempt to commit genocide;
5. Complicity in genocide (Senate 1950:4).

In 1907, The Hague Convention defined war crimes, but the crime of genocide required its own definition as it was "'not only a crime against the rules of war, but a crime against humanity itself, affecting not just the individual or nation in question, but humanity as a whole" (Lemkin 1944; Destexhe 1995:2). Many people feel that the term itself is becoming dangerously commonplace and too loosely used, which could be causing the concept of genocide to be distorted. Genocide, they say, is not massacre, repression, or persecution; that while these acts are horrifying and deserving of as much attention and possible extirpation as genocide, they are not genocide (Destexhe 1995). The author of this page is not of this mind and believes that any act which attempts to annihilate a people simply because of what or who they are is of a genocidal nature regardless of the numbers of people exterminated. However, because of the sheer number of massacres which have occurred in this area during the past century, I will deal with the larger atrocities first.

The end of genocidal massacres and human atrocities will not happen through an uprising of oppressed groups and minorities, as many believe. Many times, the groups who do rebel resort to using barbarity, torture, and mass murder themselves in their pursuit of freedom from despotism (Charny 1997). However, the total burden of elimination of genocide cannot be lain at the doorstep of governmental organizations such as the United Nations. Their response record to genocide, according to Leo Kuper, "is as negative as its performance on charges of political mass murder. There are the same evasions of responsibility and protection of offending governments and the same overriding concern for state interests and preoccupation with the ideological and regional alliances"(1995:160) and while this may be a rather harsh judgment, genocidal acts continue to this day.

NGO's, or non-governmental organizations, working on various issues concerning the protection of international human rights number in the thousands but many of them have a difficult time surviving due to their lack of funds. Some NGO's have also been accused of "putting more time into working on the scholarly examination of genocide (including issues of intervention and prevention) rather than the actual intervention or prevention of genocide" (Totten and Parsons 1997:xxxiii).

Not even in our most sacred of cultural ideologies can we depend. "Many religions have not taken a stand against the genocides perpetrated by their own societies and nations; and many religions have themselves supported and themselves committed genocide in the very names of their gods" (Charny 1997:xviii). Individuals, too, are naturally concerned more about themselves and their families than to the plight of peoples in far-away countries but, as people, we should not allow ourselves to become indifferent when we hear of genocide and human rights violations both past and present. Any incident of this heinous nature is an impetus for the possibility of further atrocities, perhaps closer to home that we had believed possible (Charny 1997).

For the past decade, scholars and organizations have been working on the development of an early warning system for genocide. "The ultimate goal of such a project would be to have the ability to "detect genocidal situations, disseminate information about genocidal actions, and apply pressure on objective, international, bodies to intervene and prevent the genocide from taking place" (Totten and Parsons 1997:xxxiv). This project has not yet been completed but it is comforting to know that progress is being made in the effort to recognize and extinguish potential situations that might result in genocide.

For additional information please visit:

• Genocidal Acts During the Twentieth Century

• The Crime of Genocide

• Genocide Web Sites: The Threat Continues...

FIND OUT WHAT'S BEING DONE

COMING SOON:

• Country links and information on China, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor, Tibet, Vietnam, The Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Kampuchea and more.

• A Table of Contents.

• 20th Century History of Asian genocide as a "final solution" to what ails.

• Pinpointing why Asian culture, of which a majority are Buddhist or Taoist, tolerates and has tolerated past genocidal activities.

This website is currently being constructed and will be continually updated. Thank you for your patience.

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