The History of Genocide

Wednesday, 06 February 2008
The Kurdish Globe
By Hazhar Aziz Surme

Kurds now understand more than any other nation the Armenian genocide. Kurds know how they were manipulated by the Young Turks to participate in the Armenian genocide. Armenians have long forgiven the Kurds because they have realized their mistake. What will it take Turkish nationals to gain the same understanding as the Kurds?

Genocide had been introduced to many nations in practical terms.

Before including the term 'Genocide' into the international dictionaries, and before the disciplines and rules concerning genocide were set; before international communities dealt with it and punished the criminals of genocidal crimes and considering it as an obvious phenomenon, genocide had been introduced to many nations in practical terms and the history of it goes back to the centuries before the Christ.

Here, we study the historical examples of genocide:

The genocide as a phenomenon in history:

In 615 B.C., the Babylons had murdered Assyrians in a massacre, and murdered most of them, and destroyed the city of Nineveh, to the extent when the Greek leader (Xenophon) in (427-335 BC), after two centuries, passed through the Nineveh city, he did not note that once upon a time people lived in the city.

It is also worth mentioning that in 596 B.C., Abu Khuznasri, the Chaldean King (605-562 B.C.), brought down the city of Yahooda in Israel, and put an end to two Israeli revolutions, but in 539 B.C., the Persian King (Cyrus 1) freed the Jewish people by destroying the Babel city.

In February 1258, the Mongols and Tatters, led by Holako, attacked the city of Baghdad, and then killed children, women, detained and disabled people (Mongols made no difference between those who stood against them and those who surrendered themselves to them, both were murdered). Aa a result, they killed 80000 people of Baghdad's residents in a period of 40 days.

When America was discovered in 1492, the original residents were Indians, a people of millions, but after the mass-migration of Europeans to the Americas, the Indians became foreigners in their own land, furthermore, their number, centuries later, were fewer than ever. If they were not annihilated, where to did they disappear?!!

Another kind of genocide, that is taken place in a different way, is that of British Imperialism spreading opium in China of 19th century, having negative influence on the Chinese community. Chinese youths, as a result were not able to stand up for their country, as addicted consumers of opium, and this indeed was the aim of English colonialism. When China closed the opium stores in the country, it had a negative aspect against the British economy, this is perhaps why, three years later, in 1842, Britain succeeded to set the Treaty of Nanjing that was considered as a blow to China, and then Hong Kong submitted to British demands. This is historically called the Opium War.

With the start of the First World War in 1914, many genocidal operations were taking place against various peoples around Europe, as a result, and millions of people were victims.

During the First World War, In April 22, 1915, the Germans used the Chloral poisonous Gas against the Frenchmen, and soon afterwards, the Englishmen started the first poisonous attack in September 25, 1915.

In April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hammed and the Turkish Youth organization, tried to put an end to the Turkish Armenians (to forbid the separation of Eastern Armenian from Turkey), and created the most infamous massacre against the Armenians. Sultan Abdul Hammed had killed about 300 thousand Armenians on the first hand. Separately, the attacks of the Young Turkey had killed about a million and half of the Armenians and also made 800 thousand others displaced. That's why, the Republic of Armenia, in the most recent years, made this day a memorandum day for the major genocidal events that were taken place against Armenians in history.

In 1933, the Iraqi authority of the time, murdered and annihilated more than 4 thousand Assyrians in the district of (Smel) of the Duhok city.

Franko, the Spanish dictator, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), was the cause of annihilating hundreds of thousands of people, especially in the Jernica town, that became the source of Pablo Picasso's inspiration in his famous painting.

During the Second World War, 1939-1945, 18 million people from Sharistan were annihilated. 70 thousand Jews, and millions of Russians, Polish, hundreds of thousands of French, Dutch and Yugoslavian people?etc. were also murdered.

In 1948, Israel in Deer Yaseen, in a mass killing, murdered 252 people. In 1979, Bokasa, a brutal dictator, in the Central African Republic, was in charge of beheading approximately 100 children.

Clearly, there are many more examples of genocide and annihilation that the racialist dictators committed against other nations. Examples of these dictators like: Troilus, Chowchesku, Saddam, Castro and Radovan Kardchic. The latter, under the name of racism, annihilated and murdered many peace-lover Bosnians, especially in the city of Srebrenitsa, where 40 thousand people became victims and were murdered.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.