Day Five

Friday, June 20

Cyprus

Today we studied a highly complicated political issue that, while not universally considered genocide, was consumed with atrocities and could have developed into one.

In 1974, following a period of violence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots and an attempted Greek Cypriot coup d'état aimed at annexing the island to Greece, Turkey invaded and occupied one-third of the island. This led to the displacement of thousands of Cypriots and the establishment of a separate Turkish Cypriot political entity in the north. This event and its resulting political situation is a matter of ongoing dispute.

The island is partitioned into four parts:
• the area under the effective control of the Republic of Cyprus in the south of the island;
• the Turkish-occupied area in the north, calling itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognized only by Turkey);
• the United Nations-controlled Green Line, separating the two; and
• two Sovereign Base Areas (Akrotiri and Dhekelia), over which the United Kingdom retained jurisdiction after Cypriot independence.

To understand this conflict, you have to grasp two terms that define the political objectives of the two combatant groups the EOKA and the TMT:

Enosis – Union with Greece – central objective of Greek community
Taksim - Partition

EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters)) was a Greek Cypriot nationalist organization that fought for the expulsion of British troops from the island, for self-determination and for union with Greece.

TMT (The Turkish Resistance Organization) was a Turkish Cypriot pro-taksim paramilitary organization formed in 1958 to counter the Greek Cypriot Fighter's Organization EOKA and to bring partition in Cyprus.



In 1976 and again in 1983, the European Commission of Human Rights found Turkey guilty of repeated violations of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The Republic of Cyprus has also been found guilty of violations of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The estimates of deaths due to this conflict vary, but scholars tend to support a death toll of 3,000 civilians and 2,000 military for a total of approximately 5,000 deaths. Additionally both sides have accusations related to missing persons, the destruction of cultural heritage, and concerns over Turkish settlers.

The Kurds – IRAQ

This genocide is the most completely documented genocide in history.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/

The al-Anfal Campaign also known as Operation Anfal, was a genocidal campaign against Kurds led by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid. The campaign takes its name from Surat al-Anfal in the Qur'an, which was used as a code name by the former Iraqi Baathist regime for a series of attacks against the peshmerga rebels and the mostly Kurdish civilian population of rural Northern Iraq, conducted between 1986 and 1989 culminating in 1988.

The Anfal campaign included the use of ground offensives, aerial bombing, systematic destruction of settlements, mass deportation, concentration camps, firing squads, and chemical warfare, which earned Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of Saddam Hussein's notorious top former aides, the nickname of "Chemical Ali".



Thousands of civilians were killed during chemical and conventional bombardments stretching from the spring of 1987 through the fall of 1988. The attacks were part of a long-standing campaign that destroyed almost every Kurdish village in a vast areas of northern Iraq -- along with a centuries-old way of life -- and displaced at least a million of the country's estimated 3.5 million Kurdish population.

According to the HRW during the Anfal campaign, the Iraqi government:
• massacred 50,000 to 100,000 non-combatant civilians including women and children;
• destroyed about 4,000 villages (out of 4,655) in Iraqi Kurdistan. Between April 1987 and August 1988, 250 towns and villages were exposed to chemical weapons;
• destroyed 1,754 schools, 270 hospitals, 2,450 mosques, 27 churches;
• wiped out around 90% of Kurdish villages in targeted areas.

Afternoon

In the afternoon, we discussed the genocide in Bosnia the followed the break-up of Yugoslavia.

After Tito's death on 4 May 1980, ethnic tensions grew in Yugoslavia. In June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia each declare independence. With 90% of its population ethnic Slovenians, Slovenia is able to break away with only a brief period of fighting. Because 12% of Croatia's population is Serbian, however, Yugoslavia fights hard against its secession for the next four years. As Croatia moves towards independence, it evicts most of its Serbian population.



In April 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina declares independence while Serbia and Montenegro form the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with Slobodan Milosevic as its leader. The most ethnically diverse of the Yugoslav republics, Bosnia is 43% Muslim, 31% Serbian, and 17% Croatian (according to the 1991 Yugoslavian census). Ethnic tensions strain to the breaking point, and Bosnia erupts into war. Thousands die and more than a million are displaced.

The Siege of Sarajevo was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare, conducted by the Serb forces from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996.

The Serb forces carried out a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing in the parts of the city occupied by them during the siege. The typical claim is that between 1992 and 1995, 150,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Sarajevo, with several thousand killed. Ethnic cleansing refers to various military policies or military practices aimed at achieving security during war through displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory. 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"

During the war, Serb forces systematically raped and sexually abused Muslim Bosnian women in rape camps after being separated from men. Between 20,000 and 44,000 women were systematically raped by the Serb forces. There are claims the rapes occurred with the knowledge and approval of Serbian officials.

The death toll after the war was originally estimated at around 200,000 by the Bosnian government. They also recorded around 1,326,000 refugees and exiles.


Evening

In the evening, we watch a series of films on genocide including excerpts from New Year Baby, A Good Man in Hell, and Welcome to Sarajevo to name a few.