Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing

Genocide is "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos ("race," "tribe," or "nation") and the Latin cide ("killing"), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II."

Ethnic cleansing is "the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing sometimes involves the removal of all physical vestiges of the targeted group through the destruction of monuments, cemeteries, and houses of worship."

Incidents of ethnic cleansing:

• The Assyrians in the 9^th and 7^th centuries BC
  
• Mass executions of Danes by the English in 1002
  
• Czechs removing Germans from their territories in the Middle Ages
  
• Expulsion of Jews from Spain in the 15^th century
  
• Forced displacement of Native Americans by the white settlers in America in the 18^th and 19^th centuries
  
• Armenians by the Turks in 1915-1916
  
• Nazi holocaust against the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.
  
• Expulsion of Germans from Polish and Czechoslovak territories after World War II
  
• Soviet deportation of Tatars from Ukraine to Central Asiatic republics during World War II
  
• The treatment of the Palestinians by the Jews in Israel since 1948, especially after the Six-Day War in 1967.
  

ethnic cleansing." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 1  Feb.  2008  <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9390062>.