Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.The danger of overstretching the term can be avoided...The goal of ethnic cleansing is to permanently remove a group from the area it inhabits...There is a popular dimension to ethnic cleansing because there are people needed to threaten with violence, to evict homes, organize mass transports, and to prevent the return of the unwanted...The main goal of ethnic cleansing was the removal of a group from a certain territory The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History. (2012). United Kingdom: OUP Oxford. Both the definition and charge of ethnic cleansing are often disputed, with some researchers including and others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group, or calling it a euphemism for genocide or cultural genocide.
Although scholars do not agree on which events constitute ethnic cleansing, many instances have occurred throughout history. The term was first used to describe Albanian nationalist treatment of the Kosovo Serbs in the 1980s, and entered widespread use during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Since then, the term has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism. Although research originally focused on deep-rooted animosities as an explanation for ethnic cleansing events, more recent studies depict ethnic cleansing as "a natural extension of the homogenizing tendencies of nation states" or emphasize security concerns and the effects of democratization, portraying ethnic tensions as a contributing factor. Research has also focused on the role of war as a causative or potentiating factor in ethnic cleansing. However, states in a similar strategic situation can have widely varying policies towards minority ethnic groups perceived as a security threat.
Ethnic cleansing has no legal definition under international criminal law, but the methods by which it is carried out are considered crimes against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention.
Etymology
An antecedent to the term is the Greek word "" (; lit. "enslavement"), which was used in ancient texts. e.g., to describe atrocities that accompanied the Athenian general Chares and his seizure and destruction of Sestos in 353 and Alexander the Great's conquest of Thebes in 335 BCE. The expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain between 1609 and 1614 is considered by some authors to be one of the first episodes of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing in the modern Western world. Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide," considered the displacement of Native Americans by American settlers as a historical example of genocide. Others, like historian Gary Anderson, contend that genocide does not accurately characterize any aspect of American history, suggesting instead that ethnic cleansing is a more appropriate term. The Circassian genocide, also known as "Tsitsekun," is often regarded by various historians as the first large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign launched by a state during the 19th-century industrial era. Imperial Russian general Nikolay Yevdakimov, who supervised the operations of Circassian genocide during the 1860s, dehumanised Muslim Circassians as "a pestilence" to be expelled from their native lands. The Russian objective was the annexation of land, and the Russian military operations that forcibly deported Circassians were designated by Yevdakimov as "ochishchenie (cleansing).
In the early 1900s, regional variants of the term could be found among the Czechs (), the Poles (), the French (), and the Germans (). A 1913 Carnegie Endowment report condemning the actions of all participants in the Balkan Wars contained various new terms to describe brutalities committed toward ethnic groups.
During the Holocaust in World War II, Nazi Germany pursued a policy of ensuring that Europe was "cleaned of Jews" (). The Nazi called for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of most Slavic people in central and eastern Europe for the purpose of providing more living space for the Germans. During the Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, the euphemism ("cleansing the terrain") was used by the Croatian Ustaše to describe military actions in which non-Croats were purposely systematically killed or otherwise uprooted from their homes. The term was also used in the December 20, 1941, directive of Serbian Chetniks in reference to the genocidal massacres they committed against Bosniaks and Croats between 1941 and 1945. The Russian phrase (; lit. "cleansing of borders") was used in Soviet documents of the early 1930s to refer to the forced resettlement of Polish people from the border zone in the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. This process of the population transfer in the Soviet Union was repeated on an even larger scale in 1939–1941, involving many other groups suspected of disloyalty.
In its complete form, the term appeared for the first time in the Romanian language () in an address by Vice Prime Minister Mihai Antonescu to cabinet members in July 1941. After the beginning of the invasion by the Soviet Union, he concluded, "I do not know when the Romanians will have such a chance for ethnic cleansing." In the 1980s, the Soviets used the term "etnicheskoye chishcheniye", which literally translates to "ethnic cleansing", to describe Azerbaijani efforts to drive Armenians away from Nagorno-Karabakh.Allen, Tim, and Jean Seaton, eds. The media of conflict: War reporting and representations of ethnic violence. Zed Books, 1999. p. 152Cox, Caroline. "Nagorno Karabakh: Forgotten People in a Forgotten War." Contemporary Review 270 (1997): 8–13: "These operations were part of a policy designated `Operation Ring, comprising the proposed ethnic cleansing (a word used in relation to Azerbaijan's policy before it became familiar to the world in the context of the former Yugoslavia) of all Armenians from their ancient homeland of Karabakh." It was widely popularized by the Western media during the Bosnian War (1992–1995).
In 1992, the German equivalent of ethnic cleansing (, ) was named German Un-word of the Year by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache due to its euphemistic, inappropriate nature.
Definitions The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 defined "ethnic cleansing" as:
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."Hayden, Robert M. (1996) "Schindler's Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers" . Slavic Review 55 (4), 727–48. As a category, ethnic cleansing encompasses a continuum or spectrum of policies. In the words of Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, "ethnic cleansing ... defies easy definition. At one end it is virtually indistinguishable from forced emigration and population exchange, while at the other it merges with deportation and genocide. At the most general level, however, ethnic cleansing can be understood as the expulsion of a population from a given territory."Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, "A Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing" , Foreign Affairs 72 (3): 110, Summer 1993. Retrieved May 20, 2006.
Terry Martin has defined ethnic cleansing as "the forcible removal of an ethnically defined population from a given territory" and as "occupying the central part of a continuum between genocide on one end and nonviolent pressured ethnic emigration on the other end."Martin, Terry (1998). "The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing" . The Journal of Modern History 70 (4), 813–861. p. 822
Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, has criticised the rise of the term and its use for events that he feels should be called "genocide": because "ethnic cleansing" has no legal definition, its media use can detract attention from events that should be prosecuted as genocide.Douglas Singleterry (April 2010), "Ethnic Cleansing and Genocidal Intent: A Failure of Judicial Interpretation?", Genocide Studies and Prevention 5, 1 Ethnic cleansing has also been used as a euphemism for 'ethnocide' or 'cultural genocide'.
As a crime under international law There is no international treaty that specifies a specific crime of ethnic cleansing; however, ethnic cleansing in the broad sense—the forcible deportation of a population—is defined as a crime against humanity under the statutes of both the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)."Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court" , Article 7; Updated Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia , Article 5. The gross human rights violations integral to stricter definitions of ethnic cleansing are treated as separate crimes falling under public international law of crimes against humanity and, in certain circumstances, genocide. There are also situations, such as the expulsion of Germans after World War II, where ethnic cleansing has taken place without legal redress (see Preussische Treuhand v. Poland). Professor of law, Timothy W. Waters, argues that similar ethnic cleansing might go unpunished in the future.Timothy V. Waters, "On the Legal Construction of Ethnic Cleansing" , Paper 951, 2006, University of Mississippi School of Law. Retrieved on 2006, 12–13
Mutual ethnic cleansing Mutual ethnic cleansing occurs when two groups commit ethnic cleansing, within their territories, against members of the other group. For instance, in the 1920s, Turkey expelled its Greek minority, and Greece expelled its Turkish minority following the Greco-Turkish War. Other examples where mutual ethnic cleansing occurred include the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and the population transfers by the Soviets of Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians after World War II.
Causes