Genocide

• Genocide- the deliberate systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group

• Examples of Genocide throughout history

• Rwanda• Kosovo• Irish Famine• Armenian

Rwanda• “If the pictures of tens of thousands of human bodies

being gnawed on by dogs do not wake us out of our apathy, I do not know what will”

- Kofi Annan (Undersecretary-General of UN)

• “The whole world failed Rwanda”- UN staff members

• “The horror of Rwanda is too high a price to pay for a very vaporous and whimsical notion of what constitutes inviolable territorial boundaries”

- Laureate Wol Soyinka

Rwanda • Over the course of 100 days from April 6th-July 16th 1994, between

800,000-1milion Tutsis were slaughtered

• More than 6 men, women, and children were murdered every minute of every hour of every day

• Between 250,00 and 500,000 women were raped during the 100 days of genocide. Up to 20,000 children were born due to the result of rape

• More than 67% of women raped were infected with HIV/AIDS

• 75,000 of survivors were orphaned as a result of the genocide

• 40,000 survivors are still without shelter

Kosovo

• 1998-1999 - Yugoslavia

• Armed conflict between ethnic Albanians (Kosovo Liberation Army) and Serbian Police and Yugoslavian military

• People were attacked and killed many civilians; including rape, arson, and severe maltreatments

Irish Potato Famine

• This was a period of mass starvation, disease, and emigration in 1845 and 1852

• An estimated 1 million people died and about 1 million more emigrated out of Ireland

• The effects of this event have permanently changed the demographic of Ireland (many native Irish tribes disappeared)

Irish Famine

• The poor Irish had become dependent on the potato as a main source of their diet

• 1845 the potato crop become completely destroyed and most of the poor had nothing to eat

• The United Kingdom who was in control of Ireland was experience their own potato famine, so any fresh potatoes that were being grown were sent to England.

• The United Kingdom did send the Irish food but in most cases it was inevitable

Irish FamineWeary men, what reap ye? Golden corn for the stranger.What sow ye? Human corpses that wait for the avenger.Fainting forms, Hunger—stricken, what see you in the offingStately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffing.There's a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door?They guard our master's granaries from the thin hands of the poor.Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? 'Would to God that we were dead—Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread.

Speranza

Armenian Genocide

• This was the systematic killing of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I (April 1915)

• It was implemented through wholesale massacres and deportations, with the deportations consisting of forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees.

• 1-1.5 million people died

• Widely acknowledged as the first “modern” genocide

Armenian Genocide

• The Turks would take whole villages force them into a large building and burn them alive

• They would load boats with children take them out to sea and throw them overboard

• Death Marches- they would force them to walk through the desert is order to leave the empire walking hundreds of miles with no supplies until they died

• There were an estimated 25 concentration camps