Genocide, ‘Mass Killing,’
and ‘Murderous Ethnic Cleansing’
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debate over terms
o legal definition of
genocide v. analytical definitions of mass killing
§
signed Dec. 1948; entered into force, Jan. 1951
§
US ratified in 1988
“Article I: The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether
committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international
law which they undertake to prevent and
to punish.”
“Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the
following acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, as such:
(a)
Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
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Mann’s distinctions among “murderous
ethnic cleansing” (MEC)
o Ethnocide: unintended wiping out
of a group and its culture
o Politicide: intended
wiping out of group’s leadership and potential leadership (Harff)
o Classicide: intended mass
killing of entire social classes
o Genocide: intended mass killing of entire group
§
Mann excludes partial killing
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Modernity and MEC
o Mann rejects “primitive” and “ancient hatreds” argument
o MEC as possible only when mass democracy is conceivable as a political
project
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Not entirely elite manipulated