Genocide means the systematic extermination of people whose main motivation is the differences in nationality, breed, religion and mainly, ethnic differences. It is a practice that aims to eliminate ethnic minorities in a certain region.
The word genocide is derived from the Greek "genos" which means "race", "tribe" or "nation" and from the Latin root term "-city" which means "to kill". The term was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, jurist and adviser to the US War Department during World War II. The attempt of the total extermination of the Jewish people by the Nazis (Holocaust) was a strong motive that led Lemkin to fight for laws that would punish the practice of genocide. The word came into use after 1944.
Genocide is often initiated thanks to feelings of xenophobia and consists of the intention to eliminate wholly or in part a group or community with the same ethnic, racial, religious or Social. Practices such as: serious attack on the physical or psychological integrity of members of this group are also considered genocide; force these people to live in inhumane conditions that can cause their death; forced transition of children from that group to another group.
In December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations defined measures to prevent and suppress genocide through Resolution 260 A (III).
There have been many genocides throughout history. Some examples:
- Jewish Genocide (Holocaust): the Nazi regime killed approximately 6 million Jews;
- Cambodian genocide: execution of about 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, by the communist Khmer Rouge regime, led by Pol Pot;
- Genocide in Rwanda: it was a massacre carried out by the majority Hutus ethnic group against the Tutsis, which took place in 1994;
- Genocide in Bosnia: In the city of Srebrenica in 1995, the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims took place and was perpetrated by the Bosnian Army of Serbia.