Genocide denial

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Genocide denial occurs when an otherwise accepted act of genocide is met with attempts to deny the occurance and minimize the scale or death toll. The most well-known type is Holocaust denial, but it's definition can extend to any genocidal event that has been met with exaggerated skepticism. Note that denial of Armenian Genocide, the second most contested (and most studied) genocide after the Holocaust, is sometimes referred to simply as "Genocide Denial".

Most instances of genocide denial are usually considered a form of Historical revisionism. However, in circumstances where the event in dispute is not seen to constitute genocide by the majority of scholars, the use of the term may be instead considered propaganda. The extremely serious nature of the crime of genocide, along with the terrible reputation it creates and potential repercussions that may come against a nation as a result of commiting it, ensures that whenever it genocide is enacted, there will be parties that attempt to avoid or refuse blame.

While the arguments made by a genocide denialist vary depending on which genocide is being denied, most arguments have a common basis. Typical denialist accusations include conspiracies stating that the targeted ethnic group conspired against the accused state with its enemies, that death tolls have been exaggerated in order to create undeserved sympathy, that the victims provoked the actions against them, through either armed insurrection or exploitation of the majority, and that the evidence supporting a genocide thesis was largely fabricated. Denialists often argue from ignorance, approaching the subject without acknowledging eyewitness records or previously made studies, or previosu conclusions, and claim falsehood based on lack of direct evidence. Denialists also accumulate pieces of data from less-cited or less-used sources that do not support a genocide thesis and exaggerate them in an attempt to counter records indicating such.

The list of acts of genocide denial is extensive, and proof of genocide is often difficult to obtain, either because governments are involved in the denial or because there is debate whether the occurred atrocities can be considered genocide (especially within a culture discussing its own recent events). For example, Ward Churchill, a controversial scholar and activist in the area of Native American studies, asserts that the concept of holocaust denial applies to the minimization of the significance of attempted extermination of other victims of the Nazi holocaust such as Gypsies and to the marginalization of other "holocausts" such as the near elimination of Native Americans.

[edit] Examples of Genocide Denial

• Deniers of the Holocaust state that the genocide of Jews during World War II, referred to as the Holocaust, did not occur.
• The death toll of the Great Chinese Famine caused by the government of Mao Zedong was higher than China's death toll in the Second World War. This could only be proved some decades later with demographic evidence;
• The Nanjing Massacre (1937) by the Japanese army has been denied by many Japanese politicians, such as Ishihara Shintaro, and mainstream historians;
• The Armenian Genocide (1915-1917) which was committed by the radical Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire is today denied by the government of Turkey, asserting that the mass deaths of Armenians were the result of a civil war coupled with famine, despite the standpoint of the majority of western scholars. Although some Turkish writers are being persecuted for going against the state's official standpoint concerning the event, the situation might change complexion in the coming years, mainly as a result of Turkey's attempt to join the European Union. The Pontic Greek and Assyrian Genocides that occurred around the same time are similarly denied;
• The Holodomor famine in Ukraine in 1932-33 killed at least 3 million victims after agricultural produce has been confiscated from peasants by the communist authorities of the Soviet Union. Its genocidal character is denied by authorities and researchers in Russia. In the West, an example of a Holodomor objector is Canadian journalist Douglas Tottle.
• The Ustaše genocide by the Croats, who killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs during WWII in Jasenovac and other places, was denied by Croatian president Franjo Tuđman and by many others in present day Croatia.
• The mass-killings organized by the Khmer Rouge in Democratic Kampuchea (today Cambodia), now almost universally regarded as genocide, were sometimes denied or minimized by contemporary commentators, primarily on the political left. Critics of Noam Chomsky accuse him of doing such.^[1] Chomsky's position was based largely on his prior objections to the Khmer Rouge's opponents, whom he considered imperialists and his argument that the U.S. media distorted events in Cambodia. Chomsky now refers to what happened in Cambodia as a genocide (although he now tries to rationalize it as a reaction to the U.S. bombing of Cambodia rather than Khmer Rouge ideology, see Criticism of Noam Chomsky);
• The Indonesian genocide in East Timor during its occupation of the country between 1975 and 1999 was also denied. The figure of 200,000 dead, first put forward by the Catholic Church in East Timor in 1982, accounted for nearly a third of the original population of nearly 700,000. This figure was rejected by the Indonesian government as an exaggeration ^[2], as was the figure of 180,000 in a report by East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation ^[3] in January 2006;
• The Bosnian Genocide by Bosnian Serbs is still denied by most Serbs and others although it has gained acceptance at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) through the court case entitled Prosecutor vs. Krstic (see Srebrenica Massacre).

Gregory H. Stanton, formerly of the US State Department and the founder of Genocide Watch, lists denial as the final stage of a genocide development: "Denial is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims."^[4]

[edit] References

1. ^ Chomsky support for Khmer Rouge, Usenet debate 1996
2. ^ Indonesia questions death toll, quoting the Jakarta Post, April 21 and 22, 1994
3. ^ Army chief denies Timor killings, BBC News, January 22, 2006
4. ^ Gregory Stanton, Eight Stages of Genocide Denial, Genocide Watch