Civil wars and genocide: Paths and circles

Abstract

Is it "genocide or civil war?" the editor asks. But this is the wrong question. For it is often war--international and internal--and genocide. Genocide virtually always occurs within a context of war, and sometimes triggers war or the renewal of war. Further, the prevalence of genocide in Asia, Africa, and the Mideast between 1945 and 1988 has increased threefold, and its use only increased during war. 1 The links between genocide and war are manifold. War releases aggression, allows the perpetrator to mask the crime and to blame the victim for the war; indeed, the victim group may be the enemy. Wars lead to crises that destabilize society and may lead to the rise of revolutionary elites with genocidal ideologies which seek to reconstruct the society to fit the new order imposed by the state. Lost wars may lead to a sense of grievance, which is exploited by ideologies justifying genocide and using war as an opportunity to fulfill pre-war agendas (in the German and Turkish cases). 2 Further, refugees from genocide may become warriors determined to overthrow the state in order to go home again; sometimes these are victims, but in the case of Rwanda the descendants of both former victims and contemporary perpetrators aimed to overthrow the state between 1990-1993 and after 1995 respectively. 3 It is widely believed that there are virtually no more international wars and that all the wars in the last twenty to thirty years have been internal. But it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between internal war and international war, e.g., Afghanistan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kashmir, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Besides direct intervention, cM1 or internal wars are fueled by major power military assistance, arms transfers, training of guerrillas, and the permissive toleration of invading armies in adjacent countries. So for this article, I will focus on modern and contemporary internal wars, noting international linkages, and the framing and recognition of genocide. The editor's guiding question is not just a problem for social science, but is related to a dilemma of vast public uncertainty. Public recognition and the response of political leaders are often filtered through media framing--war, war crimes, "ethnic conflict,'"ethnic cleansing," genocide, massacre, atrocity. The print media is sometimes believed to be more responsible than television