Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing

Ethnic Cleansing is “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas” (Wikipedia). A Committee of Experts on the subject described it as "the planned deliberate removal from a specific territory, persons of a particular ethnic group, by force or intimidation, in order to render that area ethnically homogenous." The literature says ethnic cleansing may be carried out by means of “murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, and wanton destruction of property” and declares that “those practices constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention". Ethnic cleansing is different from genocide, but both exist “in a spectrum of assaults on nations or religio-ethnic groups. Ethnic cleansing is similar to forced deportation or population transfer whereas genocide is the intentional murder of part or all of a particular ethnic, religious, or national group.” According to Wikipedia, "literally and figuratively, ethnic cleansing bleeds into genocide, as mass murder is committed in order to rid the land of a people."!!! The United Nations (UN) defines ethnic cleansing as "rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group." Genocide is "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”. While ethnic cleansing has been primarily associated with ethnic bloodletting unleashed in the former Yugoslavia between Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, genocide has had wider application-against the Jews, in Rwanda and even in the Yogoslav crisis. Genocide is legally defined in Article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." The International Criminal Court (ICC) which was created in 2002 now has authority to try people from states that have signed the treaty. Genocide scholars regard the denial of genocide by its perpetrators and collaboration as a consistent pattern throughout history. Finally Crimes against humanity, are defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum as "particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape; political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion." The point of all these definitions is this-the incidents that are going on in Northern Nigeria, particularly in Barkin Ladi, Riyom and other local governments in Plateau State; in Tafawa Balewa local government of Bauchi State and in parts of Nasarawa and Benue States in Nigeria’s middle-belt appear to have risen to the legal definition of ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity!!! There is little disagreement over the facts-some people (lazily described by media and security agencies as “Fulani Herdsmen”, who bear powerful guns and wear bullet-proof vests) are killing large numbers of people of other ethnic and religious groups often in tens and hundreds in what looks definitely like a deliberate attempt to eliminate those ethnic groups from the areas in question. The attacks clearly have the intention of destroying at least in part if not whole those ethnic groups and have involved killing, maiming and raping members of the targeted ethnic groups. The attacks have eroded the dignity and humanity of the victims and may be organised by elements within local, state or federal governments. There is no doubting the fact that various levels of government have till date tolerated and condoned these acts and that these events are not isolated matters, but part of a consistent, deliberate and systematic strategy. The activities of “Boko Haram” which issued a public notice to all Christians and Southerners to leave Northern Nigeria and has taken actions through terror to execute such expulsion also rise to the level of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. It now remains to call on the UN and the ICC to investigate these events to ascertain whether these grievous activities are truly on-going in Northern Nigeria and to ascertain culpability.