8 – Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide – Armenia, Cambodia and Bosnia

CAMBODIA: When the Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government in 1975, they declared the beginning of a new age dedicated to a peasant-oriented society. Instead, after outlawing education, religion, healthcare and technology, the Khmer Rouge ordered the evacuation of Cambodia’s cities and forced these residents to labor without adequate food or rest. Those who were unable to keep up were often summarily executed. At the same time, the Khmer Rouge began to target suspected political dissidents. These citizens, including doctors, teachers and those suspected of being educated were singled out for torture at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison. In four years, between 1.7 and 2 million Cambodians died in the Khmer Rouge’s ‘Killing Fields.’

BOSNIA: Beginning in 1991, Yugoslavia began to break up along ethnic lines as political leaders such as Slobodan Milosevic began to use nationalist sentiment as a political tool. While Slovenian independence was relatively bloodless, Croatia’s declaration sparked a civil war between the province and the Yugoslav government. Troops from the mostly Serb Yugoslav army entered Croatian territory and committed widespread human rights abuses, including the siege of Vukovar and the shelling of Dubrovnik.

In 1992, the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia) also declared independence and the region quickly became the central theater of fighting between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). During the wars in the former Yugoslavia, all belligerents committed abuses against the civilians.  Soldiers and paramilitaries used rape, torture, forcible displacement, and summary executions to “ethnically cleanse” areas under their control. The actions of Serbian units, including the Bosnian Serb army and paramilitaries, were particularly notorious for committing atrocities, including the massacres at Foca, Tuzla, Visegrad, and Srebrenica. At Srebrenica, Bosnian Serb forces under General Radko Mladic overran a U.N. safe-area and executed at least 7,500 Bosniak men and boys who were sheltering with Dutch peacekeeping troops.

Due to the nature of the attacks on civilians during the Bosnian and Croatian wars, the United Nations created the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in 1993. This tribunal is tasked with prosecuting offenders who contributed to the deaths of at least 96,000 people.