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Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.<ref name=UN/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>The danger of overstretching the term can be avoided...The goal of ethnic cleansing is to permanently remove a group from the area it inhabits...There is a popular dimension to ethnic cleansing because there are people needed to threaten with violence, to evict homes, organize mass transports, and to prevent the return of the unwanted...The main goal of ethnic cleansing was the removal of a group from a certain territory The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History. (2012). United Kingdom: OUP Oxford.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing is often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group,Template:Sfn<ref name=Garrity/> or calling it a euphemism for genocide or cultural genocide.<ref name="VS"/><ref name="Heiskanen 2021 p. "/>
Although scholars do not agree on which events constitute ethnic cleansing,<ref name=Garrity>Template:Cite journal</ref> many instances have occurred throughout history. The term was first used to describe Albanian nationalist treatment of the Kosovo Serbs in the 1980s,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and entered widespread use during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Since then, the term has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism.Template:Sfn Although research originally focused on deep-rooted animosities as an explanation for ethnic cleansing events, more recent studies depict ethnic cleansing as "a natural extension of the homogenizing tendencies of nation states" or emphasize security concerns and the effects of democratization, portraying ethnic tensions as a contributing factor. Research has also focused on the role of war as a causative or potentiating factor in ethnic cleansing. However, states in a similar strategic situation can have widely varying policies towards minority ethnic groups perceived as a security threat.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Ethnic cleansing has no legal definition under international criminal law, but the methods by which it is carried out are considered crimes against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention.<ref name=UN>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
EtymologyEdit
An antecedent to the term is the Greek word {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; lit. "enslavement"), which was used in ancient texts. e.g., to describe atrocities that accompanied Alexander the Great's conquest of Thebes in 335 BCE.<ref name="Booth">Template:Cite book</ref> The expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain between 1609 and 1614 is considered by some authors to be one of the first episodes of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in the modern western world.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide", considered the displacement of Native Americans by American settlers as a historical example of genocide.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Others, like historian Gary Anderson, contend that genocide does not accurately characterize any aspect of American history, suggesting instead that ethnic cleansing is a more appropriate term.<ref name="Sousa2016">Template:Cite journal</ref> The Circassian genocide, also known as "Tsitsekun", is often regarded by various historians as the first large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign launched by a state during the 19th century industrial era.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Imperial Russian general Nikolay Yevdakimov, who supervised the operations of Circassian genocide during 1860s, dehumanised Muslim Circassians as "a pestilence" to be expelled from their native lands. Russian objective was the annexation of land; and the Russian military operations that forcibly deported Circassians were designated by Yevdakimov as “ochishchenie” (cleansing).<ref name="Richmond 2013 96, 97"/>
In the early 1900s, regional variants of the term could be found among the Czechs ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), the Poles ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), the French ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) and the Germans ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A 1913 Carnegie Endowment report condemning the actions of all participants in the Balkan Wars contained various new terms to describe brutalities committed toward ethnic groups.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
During the Holocaust in World War II, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of ensuring that Europe was "cleaned of Jews" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Nazi {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} called for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of most Slavic people in central and eastern Europe for the purpose of providing more living space for the Germans.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> During the Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, the euphemism {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("cleansing the terrain") was used by the Croatian Ustaše to describe military actions in which non-Croats were purposely systematically killed or otherwise uprooted from their homes.<ref name="Toal">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The term was also used in the December 20, 1941 directive of Serbian Chetniks in reference to the genocidal massacres they committed against Bosniaks and Croats between 1941 and 1945.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Russian phrase {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}; lit. "cleansing of borders") was used in Soviet documents of the early 1930s to refer to the forced resettlement of Polish people from the Template:Convert border zone in the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs.Template:Citation needed This process of the population transfer in the Soviet Union was repeated on an even larger scale in 1939–1941, involving many other groups suspected of disloyalty.<ref name="martin"/>
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In its complete form, the term appeared for the first time in the Romanian language ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) in an address by Vice Prime Minister Mihai Antonescu to cabinet members in July 1941. After the beginning of the invasion by the Soviet Union,Template:Clarify he concluded: "I do not know when the Romanians will have such chance for ethnic cleansing."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the 1980s, the Soviets used the term "etnicheskoye chishcheniye" which literally translates to "ethnic cleansing" to describe Azerbaijani efforts to drive Armenians away from Nagorno-Karabakh.<ref>Allen, Tim, and Jean Seaton, eds. The media of conflict: War reporting and representations of ethnic violence. Zed Books, 1999. p. 152</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Cox, Caroline. "Nagorno Karabakh: Forgotten People in a Forgotten War."Template:Dead link Contemporary Review 270 (1997): 8–13: "These operations were part of a policy designated `Operation Ring, comprising the proposed ethnic cleansing (a word used in relation to Azerbaijan's policy before it became familiar to the world in the context of the former Yugoslavia) of all Armenians from their ancient homeland of Karabakh."</ref> It was widely popularized by the Western media during the Bosnian War (1992–1995).
In 1992, the German equivalent of ethnic cleansing (Template:Langx, {{#invoke:IPA|main}}) was named German Un-word of the Year by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache due to its euphemistic, inappropriate nature.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
DefinitionsEdit
The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined ethnic cleansing as:
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The official United Nations definition of ethnic cleansing is "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group."<ref>Hayden, Robert M. (1996) "Schindler's Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers" Template:Webarchive. Slavic Review 55 (4), 727–48.</ref> As a category, ethnic cleansing encompasses a continuum or spectrum of policies. In the words of Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, "ethnic cleansing ... defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide. At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory."<ref>Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, "A Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing" Template:Webarchive, Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 110, Summer 1993. Retrieved May 20, 2006.</ref>
Terry Martin has defined ethnic cleansing as "the forcible removal of an ethnically defined population from a given territory" and as "occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end."<ref name="martin">Martin, Terry (1998). "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing" Template:Webarchive. The Journal of Modern History 70 (4), 813–861. pg. 822</ref>
Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, has criticised the rise of the term and its use for events that he feels should be called "genocide": because "ethnic cleansing" has no legal definition, its media use can detract attention from events that should be prosecuted as genocide.<ref name="Sousa2016"/><ref name="Singleterry2010">Douglas Singleterry (April 2010), "Ethnic Cleansing and Genocidal Intent: A Failure of Judicial Interpretation?", Genocide Studies and Prevention 5, 1</ref> Ethnic cleansing has therefore and for being read as euphemistic alternatively identified as ethnocide or cultural genocide.<ref name="Heiskanen 2021 p. ">Template:Cite journal</ref>
As a crime under international lawEdit
There is no international treaty that specifies a specific crime of ethnic cleansing;<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> however, ethnic cleansing in the broad sense—the forcible deportation of a population—is defined as a crime against humanity under the statutes of both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).<ref>"Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court" Template:Webarchive, Article 7; Updated Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Template:Webarchive, Article 5.</ref> The gross human rights violations integral to stricter definitions of ethnic cleansing are treated as separate crimes falling under public international law of crimes against humanity and in certain circumstances genocide.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> There are also situations, such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II, where ethnic cleansing has taken place without legal redress (see Preussische Treuhand v. Poland). Timothy v. Waters argues that similar ethnic cleansing could go unpunished in the future.<ref>Timothy V. Waters, "On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing" Template:Webarchive, Paper 951, 2006, University of Mississippi School of Law. Retrieved on 2006, 12–13</ref>
Mutual ethnic cleansingEdit
Mutual ethnic cleansing occurs when two groups commit ethnic cleansing against minority members of the other group within their own territories. For instance in the 1920s, Turkey expelled its Greek minority and Greece expelled its Turkish minority following the Greco-Turkish War.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other examples where mutual ethnic cleansing occurred include the First Nagorno-Karabakh War<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and the population transfers by the Soviets of Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians after World War II.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
CausesEdit
According to Michael Mann, in The Dark Side of Democracy (2004), murderous ethnic cleansing is strongly related to the creation of democracies. He argues that murderous ethnic cleansing is due to the rise of nationalism, which associates citizenship with a specific ethnic group. Democracy, therefore, is tied to ethnic and national forms of exclusion. Nevertheless, it is not democratic states that are more prone to commit ethnic cleansing, because minorities tend to have constitutional guarantees. Neither are stable authoritarian regimes (except the nazi and communist regimes) which are likely perpetrators of murderous ethnic cleansing, but those regimes that are in process of democratization. Ethnic hostility appears where ethnicity overshadows social classes as the primordial system of social stratification. Usually, in deeply divided societies, categories such as class and ethnicity are deeply intertwined, and when an ethnic group is seen as oppressor or exploitative of the other, serious ethnic conflict can develop. Michael Mann holds that when two ethnic groups claim sovereignty over the same territory and can feel threatened, their differences can lead to severe grievances and danger of ethnic cleansing. The perpetration of murderous ethnic cleansing tends to occur in unstable geopolitical environments and in contexts of war. As ethnic cleansing requires high levels of organisation and is usually directed by states or other authoritative powers, perpetrators are usually state powers or institutions with some coherence and capacity, not failed states as it is generally perceived. The perpetrator powers tend to get support by core constituencies that favour combinations of nationalism, statism, and violence.<ref>[1] Template:Webarchive, Mann, Michael (2005), The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ch. 1 "The Argument," pp. 1–33.</ref>
Ethnic cleansing was prevalent during the Age of Nationalism in Europe (19th and 20th centuries).<ref name="Müller-Crepon-Schvitz-Cederman-2024">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Multi-ethnic European engaged in ethnic cleansing against minorities in order to pre-empt their secession and the loss of territory.<ref name="Müller-Crepon-Schvitz-Cederman-2024" /> Ethnic cleansing was particularly prevalent during periods of interstate war.<ref name="Müller-Crepon-Schvitz-Cederman-2024" />
GenocideEdit
Ethnic cleansing has been described as part of a continuum of violence whose most extreme form is genocide. Ethnic cleansing is similar to forced deportation or population transfer. While ethnic cleansing and genocide may share the same goal and methods (e.g., forced displacement), ethnic cleansing is intended to displace a persecuted population from a given territory, while genocide is intended to destroy a group.<ref name=Schabas>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Ethnic cleansing versus genocide:
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Some academics consider genocide to be a subset of "murderous ethnic cleansing".<ref name=Mann>Template:Cite book</ref> Norman Naimark writes that these concepts are different but related, for "literally and figuratively, ethnic cleansing bleeds into genocide, as mass murder is committed in order to rid the land of a people."<ref name=MassVio>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> William Schabas states "ethnic cleansing is also a warning sign of genocide to come. Genocide is the last resort of the frustrated ethnic cleanser."<ref name="Schabas"/> Multiple genocide scholars have criticized distinguishing between ethnic cleansing and genocide, with Martin Shaw arguing that forced deportation necessarily results in the destruction of a group and this must be foreseen by the perpetrators.Template:Efn<ref name=shawcriti>Shaw, Martin (2015b), What is Genocide, Polity Press, ISBN 978-0-7456-8706-3 ‘Cleansing’ and genocide.</ref><ref name="Sousa2016" /><ref name="Singleterry2010" /> Furthermore ethnic cleansing has been identified as a euphemism for genocide or cultural genocide.<ref name="VS">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Heiskanen 2021 p. "/>
As a military, political, and economic tacticEdit
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The foibe massacres (Template:Langx; Template:Langx; Template:Langx), or simply "the foibe", refers to ethnic cleansing, mass killings and deportations both during and immediately after World War II, mainly committed by Yugoslav Partisans and OZNA in the then-Italian territoriesTemplate:Efn of Julian March (Karst Region and Istria), Kvarner and Dalmatia, against local Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians)Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and Slavs, primarily members of fascist and collaborationist forces, and civilians opposed to the new Yugoslav authorities,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name=":3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Italian, German, Croat and Slovene anti-communists against the regime of Josip Broz Tito, presumed to be associated with fascism, Nazism, collaboration with AxisTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and reventive purge of real, potential or presumed opponents of TitoismTemplate:Sfn The foibe massacres were followed by the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus, which was the post-World War II exodus and departure of between 230,000 and 350,000 local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) towards Italy, and in smaller numbers, towards the Americas, Australia and South Africa.<ref name="rainews">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="ilgiornale">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> From 1947, after the war, they were subject by Yugoslav authorities to less violent forms of intimidation, such as nationalization, expropriation, and discriminatory taxation,<ref name="books.google.fr">Template:Cite book</ref> which gave them little option other than emigration.<ref name="ReferenceA">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1953, there were 36,000 declared Italians in Yugoslavia, just about 16% of the original Italian population before World War II.<ref>Matjaž Klemenčič, The Effects of the Dissolution of Yugoslavia on Minority Rights: the Italian Minority in Post-Yugoslav Slovenia and Croatia. See {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to the census organized in Croatia in 2001 and that organized in Slovenia in 2002, the Italians who remained in the former Yugoslavia amounted to 21,894 people (2,258 in Slovenia and 19,636 in Croatia).<ref name="dzs">Template:Croatian Census 2001</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The resettlement policy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the 9th and 7th centuries BC is considered by some scholars to be one of the first cases of ethnic cleansing.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
During the 1980s, in Lebanon, ethnic cleansing was common during all phases of the conflict, notable incidents were seen in the early phase of the war, such as the Damour massacre, the Karantina massacre, the Siege of the Tel al-Zaatar Palestinian refugee camp, and during the 1982 Lebanon War such as the Sabra and Shatila Massacre committed by Lebanese Maronite forces backed by Israel against Palestinian refugees and Lebanese Shia civilians. After the Israeli withdrawal from the Chouf, the Mountain War broke out, where ethnic cleansings (mostly in the form of tit-for-tat killings) occurred. During that time, the Syrian backed, mostly Druze dominated People's Liberation Army used a policy they called "territorial cleansing" to "drain" the Chouf of Maronite Christians in order to deny them of resisting the advance of the PSP. As a result, 163,670 Christian villagers were displaced due to these operations. In response to these massacres, the Lebanese Forces conducted a similar policy, which resulted in 20,000 Druze displaced.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Ethnic cleansing was a common phenomenon in the wars in Croatia, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This entailed intimidation, forced expulsion, or killing of the unwanted ethnic group as well as the destruction of the places of worship, cemeteries and cultural and historical buildings of that ethnic group in order to alter the population composition of an area in the favour of another ethnic group which would become the majority.
According to numerous ICTY verdicts and indictments, Serb<ref name="Prosecutor v. Vujadin Popovic, Ljubisa Beara, Drago Nikolic, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Radivoje Miletic, Milan Gvero, and Vinko Pandurevic">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="ICTY: Radoslav Brđanin judgement">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Tadic Case: The Verdict">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Croat<ref name="Prosecuter v. Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic and Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> forces performed ethnic cleansing of their territories planned by their political leadership to create ethnically pure states (Republika Srpska and Republic of Serbian Krajina by the Serbs; and Herzeg-Bosnia by the Croats).
Survivors of the ethnic cleansing were left severely traumatized as a consequence of this campaign.Template:Sfnp
Israeli herders have engaged in a systemic displacement of Palestinian herders in Area C of the West Bank as a form of nationalist and economic warfare.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
When enforced as part of a political settlement, as happened with the expulsion of Germans after World War II through the forced resettlement of ethnic Germans to Germany in its reduced borders after 1945, the forced population movements, constituting a type of ethnic cleansing, may contribute to long-term stability of a post-conflict nation.<ref name="Judt, Tony 2005">Judt, Tony (2005). Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Press.</ref>Template:Page needed Some justifications may be made as to why the targeted group will be moved in the conflict resolution stages, as in the case of the ethnic Germans, some individuals of the large German population in Czechoslovakia and prewar Poland had encouraged Nazi jingoism before World War II, but this was forcibly resolved.<ref name="Judt, Tony 2005"/>Template:Page needed
According to historian Norman Naimark, during an ethnic cleansing process, there may be destruction of physical symbols of the victims including temples, books, monuments, graveyards, and street names: "Ethnic cleansing involves not only the forced deportation of entire nations but the eradication of the memory of their presence."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
InstancesEdit
See alsoEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}Template:Col div
- Cultural genocide
- Discrimination based on skin tone
- Ethnic conflict
- Ethnic violence
- Ethnocentrism
- Ethnocide
- Forced displacement
- Identity cleansing
- Identity politics
- Nativism (politics)
- Political cleansing of population
- Population cleansing
- Racial segregation
- Racism
- Redlining
- Religious persecution
- Religious discrimination
- Religious segregation
- Religious violence
- Sectarian violence
- Social cleansing
- Sundown town
- Supremacism
- Xenophobia
Explanatory notesEdit
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
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- Vladimir Petrović (2007), Etnicizacija čišćenja u reči i nedelu (Ethnicisation of Cleansing), Hereticus 1/2007, 11–36
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Further readingEdit
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External linksEdit
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