Murder and genocide

[Whaleboy]

How many frags before murder becomes mass murder, and mass murder becomes genocide?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Depends on your agenda.

[Whaleboy]

What do you mean?

[Pekka]

I think the numbers doesn't matter when thinking about mass murder becoming genocide. With genocide, I think the only think making it is that you can clearly see a pure intention of wiping out the folks. Not just mass murdering, but systematic and planned to the last person if succeeded, that's genocide in my books.

[GePap]

the number is irrelevant- its intent that makes something genocide, If a dictator kills his citizens indescriminately , no matter how many millions, unless it was part of a campaing to get rid of a specific group of people, it is not genocide. "political opponents" and "enemies of the regime" don;t count as such a group..a political class, religious, ethnic grup all do count. You can also commit genocide without killing, such as attemts to wipe out the culture of a group by banning ceremonies, their language, so forth.

[Whaleboy]

So if Shipman's intent was wiping out the elderly female population, he would have been committing genocide. Is this entirely a distinction based upon intent and not action, i.e., attempted murder as opposed to assault or A/GBH?

[Pekka]

I don't know if eldery women can be counted as group that we could say it's genocide. I think that's just mass murdering, or serial killing to be more exact.

Also, even if he was killing, let's say buddhists, I wouldn't call it genocide attempt, I'd call it mass murdering or serial killing. Why? Because his actions and plans were not realistic at all to wipe out the buddhist population in some area. I think the plan has to be more decisive and 'realistic'. Also there has to be some kind of motivation, meaning there is a reason why the chosen group like hate.

[Whaleboy]

GePap: Good explanation . What about murder and mass murder then? Would a degree of systematic intent be required there, or is this quantifiable? If so, where does this distinction lie, or is it merely a familial term?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
So if Shipman's intent was wiping out the elderly female population, he would have been committing genocide. Is this entirely a distinction based upon intent and not action, i.e., attempted murder as opposed to assault or A/GBH?

Its a distinction of intent, not numbers- though unless a group if very very small, any crimes that kills so few would at best be an example of very incompetent genocide. I mean, a single individual killer will not have the ability to kill off or even really attempt with any sort of possible sucess killing of a people: only someone in a position of political power could try, and have the resources at hand to do so.

[JohnT]

This is a pretty good site for "democide" statistics. The site author defines "democide" as any killing of an individual by a government, regardless of intent (including death penalty, war, genocide, etc).

Here is a GIF file of a chart showing the total number of people killed by governments in the 20th century, by government, and here is a chart of pre-20th century democide.

[JohnT]

The following is how the International Criminal Court defines Genocide (the part in quotation marks, the rest is Mr. Rummels words):

Genocide is foremost an international crime for which individuals, no matter how high in authority, may be indicted, tried, and punished by the International Criminal Court (ICC). According to Article 6 of the ICC Statute, This crime involves, "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."

There are a number of things to note about these acts.

(1) The perpetrator is not necessarily a state's government or its military, but may be an international organization, such as a UN peacekeeping one, NATO, or a terrorist or guerrilla organization, among others.

(2) Regardless of under what authority genocide is done, it is formulated, planned, and conducted by individuals, and it is individuals that the ICC will prosecute for the crime of genocide. Unlike the International Court of Justice that only adjudicates disputes between states, the ICC is a criminal tribunal that will indict individuals, issue international warrants for their arrest, try, and punish them. This is made explicit in Article 8: "This Statute shall apply equally to all persons without distinction based on official capacity. In particular, official capacity as head of state or government, a member of a government or parliament, an elected representative or a government official shall in no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility under this statute, nor shall it, in and of itself, constitute a ground for reduction of sentence."

(3) The perpetrator's intent (purpose, goal, aim) is critical. According to the Report of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court (PCICC), the ICC may infer such from "conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could itself effect such destruction," (Article 6a) including "the initial acts in an emerging pattern" (Article 6 Introduction).

(4) The limitation of genocide to only national, ethnical, racial or religious groups is to groups that one is born into. These may be called indelible groups. In the case of a religious group, while one may choose to leave a religious group as an adult, it is rarely done and one may nonetheless remain identified with the religious group by virtue of physical characteristics, as for Jews. The crime of genocide does not apply to the intent to destroy political, ideological, economic, military, professional, or other groups. Thus, the mass murder of perhaps a million or more "capitalist roaders," "rightists," and counterrevolutionaries during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-69) would not be genocide. Neither would the systematic murder of tens of thousands of communists and leftists by death squads in Latin American during the 1960s to 80s. The rational often given for excluding such groups is that one joins or becomes a member of them as a matter of choice, and the nature and membership in such groups is not as clear as it is for indelible groups.

(5) In the definition of genocide, the term "as such" is important. It means that the defined groups are by intention explicitly targeted for destruction, and such destruction is not the unintended outcome, byproduct, or spillover of the intent to achieve some other goal, such as in defensive operations o attacks on military targets during a war or rebellion.

(6) Also critical is the word "destroy." The acts that are carried out with this intent are carefully defined in (a) to (e), above. They exclude attempts, for example, to eliminate an indelible group from a territory by ethnic cleansing (that which involves their forced or coerced removal), or the destruction of the culture of a group, as by forced education of their children in a different language and customs. While "culture" is unmentioned in the articles of the ICC's Statute and the Report of the PCICC, and may well be included as the case law of genocide develops, "ethnic cleansing" would seem to be a crime against humanity in the Statute. Under Article 7.1.d, it is unlawful to deport of forcibly transfer a population.

(7) The "in whole or in part" means that there is no lower limit to the number of people on which these acts may be committed. It is genocide even any of the Acts (a)-(e) are on one person with the intent described.

(8) Genocide is generally believed to involve the murder of indelible group members. But the crime does not. Acts (b)-(e) make clear genocide may also involve the intent to destroy a group by means other than killing one or more of its members.

(9) In Act (b) "serious bodily or mental harm" may include acts of torture, rape, sexual slavery, apartheid, or other inhuman or degrading treatment. (PCICC, ft. 3) That these inhumane acts, among others, were explicitly included in the ICC Statute is a major advance in genocide criminal law.

(10) In Act (c) "conditions of life" may include "deliberate deprivation of resources indispensable for survival, such as food or medical services, or systematic expulsion from homes." (PCICC ft. 4)

(11) The term "forcibly" in Act (e), "is not restricted to physical force, but may include threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power; or taking advantage of a coercive environment. " (PCICC ft. 5).

(12) Finally, it must be noted that there are many other crimes that do not fall under the definition of the crime of genocide that are also subject to prosecution by the ICC. Under Article 7 such are systematic murder, extermination of civilians, enslavement, torture, rape, forced pregnancy, political persecution, and forced disappearances.

Source: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/GENOCIDE.ENCY.HTM

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes, but they miss the largest worldwide genocide.

a political class, religious, ethnic grup all do count.

Why just these three? What about Cambodia where Pol Pot based many of his victims on their education level?

I think what matters more than the specific nature of the group, is the intent and systematic extermination.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
How many frags before murder becomes mass murder, and mass murder becomes genocide?

Three or more is the typical definition used for spree killing, mass murder, and serial killers.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Why just these three? What about Cambodia where Pol Pot based many of his victims on their education level?

Class is an included catagory.

[Ben Kenobi]

Class is not necessarily contingent with education levels.

[JohnT]

According to the ICC, killing people of different "classes" is not genocide:

The limitation of genocide to only national, ethnical, racial or religious groups is to groups that one is born into. These may be called indelible groups. In the case of a religious group, while one may choose to leave a religious group as an adult, it is rarely done and one may nonetheless remain identified with the religious group by virtue of physical characteristics, as for Jews. The crime of genocide does not apply to the intent to destroy political, ideological, economic, military, professional, or other groups. Thus, the mass murder of perhaps a million or more "capitalist roaders," "rightists," and counterrevolutionaries during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-69) would not be genocide.

Italics mine, quoted from above quote in my earlier post.

[GePap]

I always though class was included- what happened in Cambodia is always classed as genocide as far as I know. But no, most of the crims of states would not be rules as genocide.

[Ben Kenobi]

I disagree with this concept of an indelible group being a prerequisite for genocide. I don't buy their exception for religion.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by GePap
the number is irrelevant- its intent that makes something genocide, If a dictator kills his citizens indescriminately , no matter how many millions, unless it was part of a campaing to get rid of a specific group of people, it is not genocide. "political opponents" and "enemies of the regime" don;t count as such a group..a political class, religious, ethnic grup all do count.

Why would political class or religious group count?