Genocide: Lessons from the 20th Century

Fri., Apr. 21, 2006

This special feature was authored by Dr. Matthew Levinger, director of the Academy for Genocide Prevention at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The 20th century has been called the �century of genocide.� According to one estimate, more than 170 million people were �murdered by governments� between 1900 and 1999�over four times the number killed in the century�s wars. Although genocide is not a new phenomenon, the past hundred years have witnessed the killing of civilian populations on a wider and more systematic scale than ever before�from the Armenian genocide of 1915 through the slaughters in Bosnia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and elsewhere during the 1990s.

F�licien Kabuga is still at large, but wanted for war crimes in Rwanda © U.S. State Department

In the years ahead, continuing advances in weaponry, electronic communications, and information technology will make it easier to identify and annihilate target populations. Global population growth, along with the depletion of critical resources such as water, arable land, and fossil fuels, may intensify the potential for political and ethnic conflicts. Other factors such as pandemic diseases and extremist religious ideologies may further destabilize fragile political communities around the world.

But these worst case scenarios need not become a reality. Senior policy makers in the U.S. and other countries have increasingly recognized the importance of preventing violent conflict and genocide. And, we can respond more effectively to threats to global security in the 21st century by taking stock of lessons learned to date.

Errant Leaders

Most scholars today reject the notion that genocidal violence stems from ancient rivalries among ethnic groups. Instead, they argue that leadership elites reshape existing ethnic communities and stir up nationalist or racist ideologies in order to mobilize followers to their cause.

Most scholars today reject the notion that genocidal violence stems from ancient rivalries among ethnic groups.

Sometimes the leader�s motive may be to hold on to power in an unstable and perilous situation. With communism faltering across Eastern Europe in 1989, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic gave a speech commemorating the 600th anniversary of Serbia's defeat in the Battle of Kosovo of 1389. The overwhelming public response to this speech was a catalyst for Milosevic�s political rebirth as a Serbian nationalist.

In other cases, the primary motive may be greed. Some analysts use the term �conflict entrepreneurs� to describe factional leaders who secure personal benefits by committing or sponsoring violence. Paul Collier, former director of the Development Research Group at the World Bank, argues that regions with a wealth of natural resources are more prone to violent strife than regions that are resource poor�both because the sale of resources can finance insurgent movements and because these resources are potentially valuable spoils of war.

Whether leaders act primarily out of fear or greed, their sponsorship of genocide and atrocities should be understood, at least in part, as an opportunistic act. They seek to thwart potential challenges to their power, and often to advance their personal status, by fanning the flames of ethnic violence.

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