Perpetrators Of Genocide Research Articles

From Child to Genocide Perpetrator: Narrative Identity Analysis Among Genocide Prisoners Incarcerated in Muhanga Prison, Rwanda.

BackgroundThis article focuses on the narrative identity of eight convicted genocide perpetrators in Rwanda, who participated in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Narrative identity is the internalised and evolving story of the self that a person constructs to make sense and meaning out of his life. This study focused on the key autobiographical memories, present day experiences and the anticipated future of genocide perpetrators by exploring the self-perception of genocide perpetrators, in the context of their psychosocial rehabilitation.MethodsThe Biographic Narrative Interpretive Methods (BNIM) were used for the collection and analysis of life stories of the eight genocide prisoners in Muhanga Prison.ResultsThe narratives of the respondents converged into five main themes: (a) the childhood experience of abandonment, (b) the process of ethnic self-discovery and positioning, (c) the perpetrator narrative, (d) the imprisoned self and (e) the imagined future self. Two main feelings from their narratives were outlined. Those feelings were the feeling of the abandoned and the feeling of the abandoner in the context of making sense and meaning out of their lives. Results revealed that the positioning of genocide perpetrators through their narratives can influence positively or negatively their rehabilitation. What is important in this article is the exploration of the account of the self-perception of the convicted genocide perpetrators throughout pre- and post-genocide Rwanda and the way they project their future self. Two main feelings from their narratives were outlined: the feeling of the abandoned and the feeling of the abandoner in the context of making sense and meaning out of their lives. Results revealed that positioning of genocide perpetrators through their narratives can influence positively or negatively their rehabilitation.ConclusionGenocide perpetrators in the context of Rwanda continuously work on ways to acknowledge, rationalise or justify those acts as part of their biography. Interventions enabling their self-discovery can have a positive impact on their self as prisoners, their families and the community at large in post-genocide Rwanda.

Los marcos sociales del mal. Notas para el estudio de los perpetradores de genocidios

Nuestro trabajo se enmarca en una investigación en torno a los debates sociológicos acerca del genocidio, encontrándonos en esta etapa en el estudio sobre los perpetradores.Actor polémico en las investigaciones sobre la temática, las primeras aproximaciones, al calor de los Juicios de Nuremberg entre 1945 y 1946, tendieron a asociar y a exponer a los perpetradores a partir de explicaciones que los ubicaron bajo parámetros de anormalidad y de sadismo, atribuyéndoles al mismo tiempo características demoníacas. En la década de 1960 se produjo un giro sustancial a partir del desarrollo del juicio a Adolph Eichmann, responsable de la Solución final nazi, como también en el campo de la psicología experimental. De este modo, y a pesar de los debates y controversias que generaron en su momento, la obra pionera de Hannah Arendt (2005) así como los experimentos llevados adelante por Stanley Milgram (1969) permitieron un cambio sustancial en el análisis de los perpetradores, siendo uno de sus aportes fundamentales la comprensión del carácter “normal” de estos.Relegada en las décadas sucesivas, en los últimos años ha habido un creciente interés en el estudio de esta figura, en parte debido a la reiteración de casos de genocidios y otros tipos de violencia en masa, y se han hecho diversas investigaciones tanto en el campo de la psicología como en el de la sociología.En el desarrollo de nuestra investigación, hemos pensando la noción de marcos sociales del mal para comprender cómo la gente común puede convertirse en genocida. En esa dirección, este artículo tiene dos objetivos: por un lado, nos proponemos explorar y presentar algunas de las diversas perspectivas con las que se ha analizado esta figura; por el otro, al partir de la posibilidad de analizar al genocidio como una acción social, nos aventuramos a reparar en los posibles aportes que puede hacer la teoría de Alfred Schutz al análisis de esta cuestión. Si bien el sociólogo de origen austríaco no reflexionó sobre la temática, creemos que sus escritos pueden aportar a la comprensión sociológica del genocidio.

A Three-Dimensional Model for Perpetrators of Genocide

Over the seven decades since the passing of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNGC), our understanding of both genocide as a crime and perpetrator motivation has evolved. The definition of genocide as a punishable crime and the typologies of its perpetrators have become increasingly varied and complicated; as such, scholars have provided a number of new approaches for categorizing these individuals. However, these rigid typologies do not account for the nuances of human nature and social involvement. This paper argues that the understanding of perpetrator motivation must consider organizational, political, and social contexts by taking a closer look at the applicability of existing perpetrator typologies to international crimes, such as genocide, and by examining where specific types of perpetrators have been overlooked. With the UNGC’s legal power and an increasing focus on both past and present crimes, it is pertinent that perpetrator typologies continue to be refined and their applicability improved.

‘Forgiveness is something that can be seen from behind’. Visualizing a conversation with a perpetrator and a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in a reconciliation village

ABSTRACT In November 2018, the authors spent five days in Rwanda, visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial (KGM) and undertaking a paid tourist day trip to regional memorials and a ‘reconciliation village’ near the border with Burundi, to conduct creative research by using the established, institutional network of post-genocide and reconciliation education and tourism in Rwanda. The authors collaborated to produce a visual essay that would focus purely on peripheral visual and aural impressions. They refrained from attempting to photograph exhibits or interview witnesses but rather took still images around external areas of the memorials as well as street views around Kigali. They were granted permission to audio record a conversation with a survivor and a perpetrator of the 1994 Rwandan genocide at the reconciliation village. This visual essay is presented as an assemblage of incidental photographs and fragments of the verbatim text of the taped conversation with the villagers. KGM workers explained that reconciliation villages exist throughout Rwanda as part of a state-sponsored reconciliation and peace building programme by virtue of which selected genocide perpetrators serving prison terms receive an official pardon, are trained in peace building, and are given resources to join genocide survivors in the construction of village infrastructure and community.

O Caso Plan de Sánchez e a tutela dos direitos fundamentais da Etnia Maia Achí na Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos

Nesse artigo será analisado o caso do massacre de cerca de 268 pessoas da Etnia Maia Achí, em Plan de Sánchez, na República de Guatemala, ocorrido em 1982 e o julgamento daquele Estado pela Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos realizado em 2004. Na sua sentença, a Corte, por unanimidade, responsabilizou o Estado, determinou reparações materiais e o estabelecimento de uma política de respeito aos direitos fundamentais no país. Contudo, a punição dos responsáveis, apesar dos esforços, ficou aquém do esperado, ressaltando a sensação de impunidade dos autores desse genocídio. Utilizou-se na pesquisa o método dedutivo-normativo, com técnica histórica.

Ubwiyunge Mubikorwa (reconciliation in action): Development and Field Piloting of Action-Based Psychosocial Reconciliation Approach in post-Gacaca Rwanda

Reconciliation is a “hazy” construct that calls for further systematic understanding efforts. The purpose of the present study was to illuminate and understand authentic and idiographic processes of interpersonal reconciliation between survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. An original interpersonal reconciliation approach termed action-based psychosocial reconciliation approach (ABPRA) was developed and implemented in two remote villages of Rwanda. Lived experiences of reconciliation dyads (consisting of survivors and their direct perpetrators) who participated in ABPRA were collected employing a postsession, semistructured interview. Thematic content analysis of the data revealed five major themes representing the beneficial impacts of ABPRA. This paper introduces an overview of ABPRA and reports the results from the field pilot study. The reporting features a collection of participant reported narratives highlighting the beneficial effects of ABPRA on their healing and reconciliation process. The paper concludes with the implications of the study to enhance further efforts to support the interpersonal reconciliation process in Rwanda. Key implications for practice The study explored the beneficial impact of a novel interpersonal approach to post-Genocide community reconciliation in Rwanda. The study illuminated the lived experiences of Genocide survivors and perpetrators engaged in the process of interpersonal reconciliation. The study developed a piece of research evidence for a practical, economical and sustainable interpersonal reconciliation programme.

The Image of the United States of America in the Polish Newsreels (PKF) 1948–1953

The Polish version of the article was published in Roczniki Humanistyczne 59 (2011), issue 2.
 This article analyzes the contents of sections of Polish Newsreel (PKF) of the years 1948–1953 concerning the United States of America in the context of political, international, military, economic and social issues. The image of the USA shown in Polish Newsreel did not have a lot in common with reality and it was part of the vision of the world created for propaganda needs. The propaganda machine, a part of which Polish Newsreel was, in order to achieve the aims that it had set out, used a whole palette of propaganda techniques and rules: selecting the prepared footage, generalizations, the use of characteristic clusters of ideas (“warmongers”, “American perpetrators of genocide”, “the new SS”, “the bondage of the dollar”), combining information with interpretation. All of this was done with the use of the modern medium, that is, film. Joining the layers of pictures, sound and commentary, as well as the particular conditions encountered during screenings of Polish Newsreel shows gave the viewer the possibility to deeply experience the scenes presented, to get emotionally involved in them, and, hence, to identify with the imposed interpretation of the viewed material.

The act of documenting: Joshua Oppenheimer’sThe Act of Killing

The case study considered by the authors of this article is a peculiar example of a documentary that intervened in the landscape of democratization conflicts in the opaque context of current democracy in Indonesia. Half a century after the genocide, the film reopens the memory of a terrible and non- elaborated past, questioning the impact of the genocide in a difficult democratization process. Is it possible to move from an authoritarian regime that infected and corrupted all aspects of civil coexistence to a new and supposedly more democratic era without working through its traumatic legacy? What role might remorse and forgiveness play in the foundation of a possible new democratic pact? Joshua Oppenheimer’s film, The Act of Killing, confronts all these questions through the documentary use of the Indonesia genocide perpetrators’ words, body images, silences and denials. Engaging the images of this film through a semiotic perspective, the authors interrogate the relationship between aesthetic texts and political emancipating processes, as well as the role of traumatic memory elaboration in the foundation of democratization. Essential for their analysis is the investigation of how moving images are implicated in the imagination and actions of perpetrators, including their possible functions and effects in relation to the audience.

Cartographies of Genocide

Cartographies of Genocide

Occupation in the East: The Daily Lives of German Occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939–1944 by Lehnstaedt Stephan (review)

SEER, 97, 3, JULY 2019 580 Lehnstaedt, Stephan. Occupation in the East: The Daily Lives of German Occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939–1944. Translated by dbmedia. Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, 2016. xi + 306 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $130.00: £92.00. Stephan Lehnstaedt’s study of the German-Nazi occupations in the eastern reaches during the Second World War is an innovative and complex examination of the daily lives (Alltagsgeschichte) of the thousands of Germans sent to Warsaw in Poland and Minsk in Belorussia — captured on 28 September 1939 and 28 June 1941 respectively. This was a far from homogenous society fragmented according to different institutions (p. 20), burdened with administering a repressive and violent German occupation while pursuing Nazi racial and territorial goals in alien and dangerous territories (Minsk especially because of active Russian partisans). Valuable though his evidence is, Lehnstaedt, nevertheless, goes too far in seeking out the perpetrators of genocide and violence in a ‘collective enterprise marked by the division of labour. […] the participants included not only those people who directly ordered the murders or physically carried them out, but also those who […] contributed to maintaining German occupational rule’ (p. 6). Commonsense dictates the opposite of this latter generalization: not every single German occupier, man or woman, actually witnessed violence against the occupied, much less actively participated in it. Based on a wide range of sources, especially diaries, memoirs and letters of the participants described as ‘ego’ documents, plus testimony provided to postwar German criminal investigators, the intention is to provide insights into how the German occupiers — administrators, policemen, private individuals and members of the SS and the Wehrmacht — understood their roles and duties when serving the Reich in such foreign and hostile environments. These involved daily interactions with colleagues within the same institution, and relations with other and often competing German institutions. Key to everything were German attitudes and behaviour towards the subject Poles and Belorussians. The absolute of Nazi rule was to create as much separation between the superior occupiers and ‘subhuman’ occupied, manifested by the constant violence meted out to the locals. Nevertheless — reinforcing a point made above — Lehnstaedt suggests that ‘one cannot speak of a uniform or normed prejudice among the occupiers. The images of the Germans varied, depending on their level of education, place of deployment, type of job, and social experiences’ (p. 172). Human behaviour is such that these ideals of ‘total separation’ could never be complete. Most German institutions employed locals in which ‘normal’ collegiate working relationships needed to be established. Also, given the essential material shortcomings affecting both REVIEWS 581 occupiers and occupied, Germans were also forced to deal with locals to obtain various means of sustenance: ‘Robbing the locals was often combined with black-market activities’ (p. 136). Some Germans even extended such activity to the officially out of bounds Jewish ghetto (p. 139), euphemistically noted as the ‘Jewish Residential District’ (p. 41). Morale among the occupiers was a perennial problem for Reich officials since ‘the greatest problem that the various office directors had to confront was the homesickness of the occupiers’ (p. 128). Given that spouses were discouraged from travelling east, practical sexual issues for the occupiers often led to ‘the so-called Eastern marriage — that is the relationship of a German with a woman from a racially lower-class ethnicity (normally prohibited) — [which] was by no means rare and could be observed in both cities from the start of the occupation’ (p. 188). An SS judges’ conference in May 1943 was forced to admit that ‘sexual relations with members of the population of other races was customary for around half of all members of the SS and police’ (p. 188). Thus, whilst ‘normal’ emotional and sexual relationships with female members of the occupied was out of the question as constituting ‘racial defilement’, paid sex with ‘good looking Polish girls’ was approved of in officially established brothels (p. 189). Lehnstaedt’s study provides valuable new insights into the nuanced nature of the German-Nazi occupations in Warsaw and Minsk. However, one gets the distinct impression that his findings exist in a vacuum since there is hardly any chronological historical context his evidence...

Recovery After Genocide: Understanding the Dimensions of Recovery Capital Among Incarcerated Genocide Perpetrators in Rwanda.

Utilizing survey data from 302 men and women incarcerated in the Rwandan correctional system for the crime of genocide, and structured interviews with 75 prisoners, this mixed methods study draws on the concept of recovery capital to understand how individuals convicted of genocide navigate post-genocide healing. Genocide smashes physical and human capital and perverts social and cultural capital. Experiencing high levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms with more than two-thirds of the sample scoring above typical civilian cut-off levels, raised levels of depression, and high levels of anxiety, and failing physical health, the genocide perpetrators require multiple sources of recovery capital to foster internal resilience as they look forward to rebuilding their own lives.

Wounds and Words: The Traumatic Memory in Omar El Akkad’s Dystopian Novel

This paper discusses the literary portraying of personal trauma in Omar El Akkad’s dystopian novel American War. The purpose of this research is twofold:  (1) identify the way in which the traumatic memory of war victims is transmitted from the first generation to next generation and (2) understand how the narrator constructs his discourse about the future of America and the world. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative. The researcher uses Christa Schönfelder’s theory on postmodern trauma texts. This research shows that the main narrator’s choice to positioning Sarat as a war victim, not a perpetrator of biological genocide, makes the narrative of Sarat’s traumatic memory political. It exposes that the first generation’s desire for personal narration becomes unnaratable, and that there is second/third generation’s urge for a future beyond trauma. The conclusion proves that American War contains the quest for stability out of disruptive experiences, constituting a crucial aspect of the need for narrative in the face of a dystopian future.

Does Education Lead to Pacification? A Systematic Review of Statistical Studies on Education and Political Violence

Does more education lead to less political violence, and may education thus be a tool for peace? This article provides the first systematic review of the existing quantitative literature on education and political violence. Looking at arguments pertaining to levels, expansion, inequality, and content of education, we identify 42 quantitative studies from the time period 1996 to 2016 that test the relationship between various measures of education and political violence. An emerging scholarly consensus seems to be that education has a general pacifying effect. However, this general conclusion is challenged by recent evidence showing above-average levels of education among terrorists and genocide perpetrators. This, as well as other findings, underscore that the relationship between education and political violence is complex and multidimensional, depending on type of political violence, mediating factors, and level of analysis. We conclude with policy implications from our findings and discuss directions for future analysis.

Transitional Justice and the Legacy of Nuremberg: The Promise and Problems of Confronting Atrocity in Post-Conflict Societies

It's been over 70 years since the Nuremberg trials helped establish the primacy of legal mechanisms to deal with international human rights abuses, especially for genocide. Since then, we have seen a proliferation of courts and tribunals focused on bringing to justice perpetrators of genocide. In this paper, we critically examine the ways in which Nuremberg shaped and influenced these responses to genocide and to our understanding of the nature of justice in post-conflict societies. In an era when genocides and mass atrocity crimes continue to occur, it is important to understand the benefits and limitations of legal strategies for post-conflict societies and how they influence other transitional justice mechanisms. We bring to light the clear tension between the different goals of international criminal justice, namely punishment, prevention, and peace, and show that increased reliance on punishment does not necessarily brings about peace. To sustain peace and stability in post-conflict era, countries have also turned to truth and reconciliation commission, lustration, and reparation.

Editor's Introduction

Editor’s Introduction Catherine Chatterley, Founding Editor-in-Chief In this, our third consecutive, issue we turn our attention to three countries in east central Europe—Slovakia, Latvia, and Hungary—to investigate contemporary forms of antisemitism. Which attitudes continue to linger in these complex post-Soviet societies, and what new forms of anti-Jewish hostility, if any, exist today? How is antisemitism affected by Europe’s migrant crisis, for example? Has the upsurge in ethno-nationalism made Jews into targets once again? In all three countries, the Jewish population is a tiny fraction of what it was before World War II, and those same communities were reduced again after the fall of the Soviet Union. Despite small numbers of Jews, however, antisemitism persists and is recognizable by its familiar themes. Blaming Jews for the crimes of Soviet communism is a recurrent trope among antisemites but the general assumption of a close association between Jews and communism in this part of the world is perhaps even more common than most people assume. So much so, that this accusation, summed up by the compound phrase “Judeo-Bolshevism,” requires further study and analysis by scholars. Also present, and sometimes connected to this accusation, is the relationship to the Holocaust and the resentment it provokes, especially given the fact that EU membership for former Soviet states was dependent upon implementing Holocaust memorialization and educational programming designed to Western standards. The fact of the matter remains that in many countries in central and eastern Europe, to celebrate those who defended the nation and the goal of independence—positive and respectable actions by definition—is to also celebrate those who allied themselves with Nazi Germany (against the Soviet Union) and who participated in antisemitic activities, and even in the perpetration of genocide. This paradox, unique to this region of Europe, [End Page 1] continues to divide these societies internally and to isolate parts of the population from mainstream opinion. This is also a part of the world untouched by Vatican II (1961–1965) and the changes it dictated with regard to the Jewish people and how they are to be understood and represented by the Catholic Church after the Holocaust. The suppression of religion in the Soviet Union and its powerful reappearance in many places after the collapse of communism created a very different reality for Jewish-Christian relations in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic worlds than that of the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities of the West. The Internet is the most powerful vehicle for the transmission and dissemination of antisemitism across the planet, and this is also true in east central Europe. The anonymity of the Web allows people to express honest feelings of hatred and to connect with others who share the same sentiments, emboldening groups of people who had previously been isolated in their silence. Hatred for Jews, homosexuality, and Muslims have formed a new triad against which traditional ethno-nationalists feel the need to organize and defend themselves. In a classic antisemitic framework, Jews are sometimes depicted as orchestrating the migrant crisis and the “homosexual agenda” to undermine traditional societies and to perpetrate a so-called “white genocide.” What is astonishing at this late date is to know how long Jews have been residents of Europe and to see that in so many ways they are still thought to be outsiders and not members of these nations. They are still Jews rather than Slovaks, Latvians, and Hungarians, and they are not even offered the option of a hyphenated identity. In this issue, Nina Paulovičová provides a valuable overview of Slovakia’s history from the Nazi period to the present day, focusing on the nation’s changing relationship to the Holocaust under communism and after independence. A masterful analysis of the complex layers of Latvian society is provided by Matthew Kott, who explains the changing position of Jews in the Latvian imagination and how the Holocaust—and the memory of the Rumbula Massacre in particular—impacts current thinking. Contemporary [End Page 2] Hungary is examined by Ferenc Laczó, who uses three case studies to analyze current attitudes toward Jews in a cultural and political context of growing ethnic nationalism. All three...

‘Who Was I to Stop the Killing?’ Moral Neutralization among Rwandan Genocide Perpetrators

Genocide represents an extreme form of violence on both the individual and collective level. As such, individuals seek to reframe their participation in violence, drawing from certain “techniques of neutralization.” These techniques may function both as “vocabularies of motive” to ease the violation of moral norms, and as post-facto rationalizations for violence. This paper draws from Gresham Sykes and David Matza’s moral neutralization theory to examine moral neutralization among perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide. It presents an expanded list of ten genocidal techniques of neutralization, which are particularly relevant for the crime of genocide. Each technique is supported by excerpts from the author’s interviews with sixty-eight Rwandan Genocide perpetrators. The article argues that perpetrators use moral neutralization to conform with contemporaneous normative expectations, as well as to maintain their self-image as “good people.”

The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics, and History

The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics, and History

Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide

Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide

Western nightmares: Manifest Destiny and the representation of genocide in weird fiction

Abstract This article focuses on the representation of genocide in Manifest Destiny (Dingess 2013–present), a comic book series loosely based on the 1804–06 Lewis and Clark expedition, replete with fantastical creatures, strange habitats and superhuman acts of heroism. The graphic narrative, published by Skybound/Image Comics, with art by Matthew Roberts and Owen Gieni, tells the story of the Corps of Discovery as they explore a quasi-mythical uncharted land, on the orders of President Jefferson. Their mission is to map and tame the newly purchased Louisiana Territory and prepare it for American settlers by killing the myriad monsters that still populate the strange land (including buffalotaurs, gigantic frogs, sentient anthropomorphic birds and a plant that infects humans and animals, turning their insides to plant-like material and robbing them of their will). By analysing it as a work of weird fiction, I explore how the presence of monstrous creatures creates a number of effects, from the horrific to the unsettling, outlines the killers’ awareness of the moral ambiguity of their actions and encourages readers’ identification with genocide perpetrators. The series, I argue, is grounded upon a formal realism that makes it highly effective in depicting scenes of weird fiction, whose defamiliarizing effect can rely on combining conventional, highly realistic settings, characters or tableaux with strange elements that pervert and yet do not render them unrecognizable. In conversation with critics and writers such as Ian Dawe, Darja Malcolm-Clarke, Simon Spiegel and Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, I attempt to explore the formal strategies adopted by the series in order to create scenes of weird fiction and their ethical implications.

Twenty years later, the cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation in Rwanda.

With this work, we intended to draw a cognitive portrait of openness to reconciliation. No study had yet examined the potential contribution of high-level cognitive functioning, in addition to psychological health, to explaining attitudes towards reconciliation in societies exposed to major trauma such as post-genocide Rwanda. We measured the contribution of general cognitive capacity, analytical thinking, and subjective judgements. Our results show that higher cognitive capacity is not associated with greater openness to reconciliation. On the other hand, proneness to think analytically about the genocide predicts more favorable attitudes towards reconciliation. The latter effect is associated with more tempered judgements about retrospective facts (e.g., number of genocide perpetrators) and prospective events (e.g., risk of genocide reoccurrence). This work establishes the importance of cognitive functioning in the aftermath of political violence: A better understanding of the influence of information processing on openness to reconciliation may help improve reconciliation policies and contribute to reducing risks of conflict reoccurrence.