Chapter 7 Key Issue 4

Why do Ethnicities engage in Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide?

ethnic cleansing: a process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region

  • ethnic cleansing tries to create a single ethnic group that are the sole inhabitants
  • rather than a war in which male soldiers fight each other, ethnic cleansing removes every member of the less powerful ethnicity, including women, men, children, adults, elderly, and youth
  • the largest forced migration happened during WWII, where Jews were sent to concentration camps
  • after WWII, country boundaries changed and many people had to migrate

Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans

  • Balkans includes Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania, and countries that once comprised Yugoslavia

Multiethnic Yugoslavia

  • after WWI, the allies created Yugoslavia to unite Balkan ethnicites that spoke similar South Slavic languages
  • Josip Broz Tito governed Yugoslavia for a long time
  • a saying went around: “Yugoslavia has 7 neighbors, 6 republics, 5 nationalities, 4 languages, 3 religions, 2 alphabets, and 1 dinar”
  • 7 neighbors   * Austria   * Greece   * Italy   * Albania   * Bulgaria   * Hungary   * Romania
  • 6 republics   * Bosnia and Herzegovina   * Croatia   * Macedonia   * Montenegro   * Serbia   * Slovenia
  • 5 nationalities   * Croats   * Macedonians   * Montenegrens   * Sebs   * Solevenes
  • 4 languages   * Croatian   * Macedonian   * Serbian   * Slovene
  • 3 religions   * Romanic Catholic     * in the north     * Croats and Solvenes   * Orthodox     * in the east     * Sebs and Macedonians   * Islam     * in the south     * Bosnians and Montenegrens
  • 2 alphabets   * Roman     * Croatian and Slovene   * Cyrillic     * Macedonian and Serbian
  • 1 dinar   * national unit of currency
  • Yugoslavia brought stability to the unstable Balkan Peninsula
  • once Tito died, unrest came back and the country broke up into   * Bosnia and Herzegovina   * Croatia   * Macedonia   * Slovenia   * Montenegro   * Serbia
  • Yugoslavia’s fall troubled ethnic groups that weren’t officially recognized as nationalities

Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia

  • population of Bosnia and Herzegovina   * Bosnian Muslims - 48%     * considered an ethnicity rather than nationality   * Serbs - 37%   * Croats - 14%
  • Serbs fought to join Serbia and Coats fought to join Croatia
  • Serbs and Croats ethnically cleansed Bosnian Muslims, creating a large Serb domination rather than serveral discontinuous ones
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into 3 parts for each ethnicity   * Bosnian Serbs     * 1/2 of the land, though they comprised 1/3rd of the population   * Bosnian Croats     * 1/4th of the land, though they comprised 1/6th of the population   * Bosnian Muslims     * 1/4th of the land, though they comprised 1/2 of the population before ethnic cleansing

Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo

  • Serbia remained a multiethnic country after Yugoslavia
  • the province of Kosovo was 90% Albanian
  • Serbia ethnically cleansed Albanians in Kosovo through these 4 steps:
  1. move military equipment and personnel into a village that has no strategic value
  2. round up all people in the village and herd the men together with the others
  3. force the people to leave the village
  4. destroy the village by setting it fire
  • NATO attacked Serbia and left only once it withdrew all its soldiers from villages
  • Kosovo declared independence, but Russia and Serbia oppose it

Balkanization

balkanized: a small geographic area that could not successfully be organized into one or more stable states because it was inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long-standing antagonisms toward each other

balkanization: the process by which a state breaks down trhoguh conflicts among its ethnicities

  • balkanization led to WWI
  • Balkans continues to have conflict, and if it finds peace, it will be because of ethnic cleansing working

Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in Sub-Saharan Africa

genocide: the mass killing of a group of people in an attempt to eliminate the entire group from existence

Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in Northeastern Africa

Sudan
  • civil wars have raged between the Arab-Muslim government and other ethnicities
  • South Sudan   * Black Christians and animists resisted conversion to one nationality through a long war with 1.9 million dead   * South Sudan was recognized as a separate state after that war, but they never agreed on boundaries, creating more unrest
  • Darfus   * black Aricans rebelled because of discrimination and neglect   * Marauding Arab nomads (janjaweed) crushed the rebellion and killed almost 500,000 people   * 2.8 people have to live in dire conditions in the harsh desert   * war crimes have been filed against Sudan’s leaders
  • Eastern front   * eastern ethnicities fought the government with the help of Eritrea because of the profits from oil
Ethiopia and Eritrea
  • Ethiopia and Eritrea gained independence from Italy after WWII
  • the UN gave Eritrea to Ethiopia
  • Ethiopia dissolved Eritrean legislature and banned the use of its major language
  • Eritreans rebelled and became their own independent state
  • more conflict flared up because of dispute over the border, and Ethiopia took possession of the disputed areas
  • Eritrea is half Christian and half Muslim, and the ethnic groups are Tigrinya and Tigre
Somalia
  • Somalis are mainly Sunni Muslims and speak Somali
  • divided into clans and subclans
  • after a dictatorship collapsed, clans and subclans claimed control over portions of the country   * Somaliland   * Puntland   * Galmudug
  • US sent troops after many women and children died from famine and warfare among clans
  • peace talks collapsed and the US withdrew
  • Islamist militias took control and the US sent air strikes due to them being terrorists
  • conflict has been worsened due to a drought

Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in Central Africa

  • there is conflict between Hutus and Tutsis even though they are very similar
  • Hutus are farmers who grow crops
  • Tutsis are cattle herders
Rwanda
  • once Rwanda became an independent country, Hutus took power and ethnically cleansed and undertook genocide against Tutsis
  • Tutsis invaded and an agreement to share power was made
  • however, Hutu presidents were shot, and Hutus launched genocide against Tutsis
  • Tutsis gained control and began ethnically cleansing Hutus
Congo
  • Tutsis overthrew Congo’s president
  • the new president relied on Tutsis and allowed them to kill some Hutus
  • eventually, the president split with the Tutsis and they tried to help rebels to overthrow the government
  • the president was supported by Hutus and the Mayi Mayi
  • the president was assassinated and his son followed him, and created an accord with the rebels
  • however, conflicts still continue
Colonial Legacy
  • ethnic conflict in Africa is due to political boundaries not matching the ethnic boundaries
  • European countries made Africa into a collection of colonies without caring about ethnicity
  • once colonies became independent states, tribes were heavily divided

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