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Dump the “ethnic cleansing” jargon, group implores
May 31, 2007
Special to World Science
A team of researchers is urging doctors and scientists to lead the world in
closing the book on the phrase “ethnic cleansing,” which has become common in the past two decades. Former U.S. Secretary of
State Colin Powell's State Department led an epidemiogical
study that determined in 2004 that acts of "genocide" were occuring in Sudan's
Darfur region. A subsequent U.N. probe overturned the finding, missing
a possible opportunity to save lives, researchers claim. Send us a comment
on this story, or send
it to a friend
Call mass ethnic killing what it is—genocide, the researchers declared in an
indignantly-toned paper in the May 18 advance online issue of
The European Journal of Public Health.
The curious phrase “ethnic cleansing,” first popularized by accused Serbian genocide mastermind Slobodan
Milosevic, is now applied to all sorts of massacres, they wrote; but
it masks the problem’s urgency and thus helps excuse
inaction.
Moreover, they argued, the term—while sometimes used well-intentionedly—offers a perverse hat-tip to
the murderers’ own twisted worldview, in which victims are filth to be scrubbed away.
The insidious catchphrase has found its way into the official language of diplomacy
and international law, even into medical journals, the researchers
wrote. They analyzed the term’s bizarre and, in their view, blood-stained history in the paper, entitled
“‘Ethnic cleansing’ bleaches the atrocities of genocide.”
Although never recognized as a legal term, many have taken “ethnic cleansing” to mean a campaign of forced expulsions, as distinct from one of killing. But in practice the two things often go together, the researchers said, and users of the term seldom make such distinctions either.
The scientists analyzed use of the term in The New York Times
for 1990-2005; U.N. press statements; international legal literature; and statements from human rights groups. They concluded that the choice of term “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” was unrelated to actual death tolls from various events.
The choice is critical because “genocide” requires nations to take steps to stop the killing under the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, wrote the researchers.
The issue is also partly a scientific one, said report co-author Elihu Richter of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at Hebrew University-Hadassah, Jerusalem.
That’s because official decisions to call something a “genocide” can be based on epidemiological investigations. One such “flawed” probe by the U.N. led to a decision not to call the current massacres in Sudan’s Darfur region a genocide, Richter said
in an email. A previous U.S. State Department study had concluded
with the opposite choice.
U.N. officials did not respond to requests for comment. This month, U.S. President George Bush did declare the Sudan killings a genocide.
That earned plaudits from some newspapers, which editorialized
that this could pave the way for finally stopping the deaths.
The four
European Journal authors, who also include scholars from University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va. and
from Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem, wrote that the “ethnic cleansing” euphemism “may well have become one more tactic to preempt public recognition of genocide.”
The phrase’s history begins with Serbian commanders in the Bosnian genocide of the early 1990s,
who used code words such as etnicko ciscenj (“cleansing of the region”)
to mean “leaving nobody alive,” the researchers wrote. Such phrases, they added, echoed an earlier Nazi catchword,
Judenrein (“Jew-free.”)
“From July 1991, journalists and politicians began adopting the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ which gradually penetrated the official language of diplomacy and international
law,” apparently to denote events where genocidal intent was hard
to legally establish, the researchers wrote.
The U.N. used the phrase in seven Security Council Resolutions,
they added; interestingly,
U.N. documents at first put the words in quotation marks, then dropped
them. “The term, often used without quotation marks, has already penetrated the medical literature,” including the prestigious journal
The Lancet, they wrote.
But if the “ethnic cleansing” talk is to stop, what should one call a
campaign that really does consist mainly of forced expulsions, rather than
killing? Just call it what it is, Richter advised in an email; for instance, “forced mass expulsions.”
“We call on the medical world,” the team concluded in its
paper, “to lead the way in expunging the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ from use by the media, national and international governmental agencies, diplomats, legal bodies and human rights” groups.
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A team of researchers is urging doctors and scientists to lead the world in ending the use of the term “ethnic cleansing,” which has become common in the past two decades. Call the mass killing what it is—genocide, the researchers declared in an indignantly-toned paper in the May 18 advance online issue of The European Journal of Public Health. The curious phrase “ethnic cleansing,” first popularized by accused Serbian genocide mastermind Slobodan Milosevic, has been widely adopted to denote all sorts of massacres, they continued. But the new jargon masks the problem’s urgency and gives the world an excuse to avoid action, they added. They analyzed term’s bizarre and—in their view—blood-stained history in the paper, entitled “‘Ethnic cleansing’ bleaches the atrocities of genocide.” Although never recognized as a legal term, some scholars have taken “ethnic cleansing” to mean a campaign of forced expulsions, as distinct from one of killing. But in practice the two things often go together, the researchers said, and users of the term seldom make such distinctions either. The scientists analyzed data on use of the term in the New York Times, U.N. press statements, international legal literature and statements from human rights groups. They concluded that the choice of term “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” was unrelated to actual death tolls from various events. The choice is critical because “genocide” requires nations to take steps to stop the killing under the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, wrote the researchers. The issue is partly a scientific one, they added, because official decisions to call something a “genocide” can be based on epidemiologic investigations. One such “flawed” probe by the U.N. led to a decision not to call the current massacres in Sudan’s Darfur region a genocide, said report co-author Elihu Richter of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at Hebrew University-Hadassah, Jerusalem. U.N. officials did not respond to requests for comment on the paper. This month, U.S. President George Bush did declare the Sudan killings a genocide. That earned plaudits from newspapers such as the Christian Science Monitor, which editorializes in its June 1 issue that Bush finally called “a spade a spade” after much hemming and hawing by most governments. The “ethnic cleansing” euphemism “may well have become one more tactic to preempt public recognition of genocide,” added four European Journal writers, who also include scholars from University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Va. and Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem. In addition, they wrote, the term—while sometimes used with good intentions—gives a perverse hat-tip to genocide perpetrators’ twisted worldview, in which victims are filth to be scrubbed away. Serbian commanders in the Bosnian genocide of the early 1990s used the code words “‘etnicko ciscenj’ (‘cleansing of the region’) and ‘ciscenje prostor’ or ‘terena’ (‘cleaning the territory’) for leaving nobody alive,” wrote the researchers. These echoed an earlier Nazi catchword, Judenrein (“Jew-free.”) “From July 1991, journalists and politicians began adopting the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ which gradually penetrated the official language of diplomacy and international law—with the implication that it applied to scenarios which somehow could not satisfy the legal requirement for proof of intent to commit genocide,” the researchers wrote. The United Nations referred to the ‘new term’ of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in 1993,” they added, “using it in seven subsequent Security Council Resolutions.” Interestingly, U.N. documents at first put quotation marks around the phrase, then dropped them, the researchers wrote. “The term, often used without quotation marks, has already penetrated the medical literature,” including the prestigious journal The Lancet, they added. “What would happen if a peer-reviewed article in a medical journal would have used the word ‘Judenrein’ without quotation marks just once as part of an objective technical description of the killing and expulsion of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II?” “We call on the medical world,” they concluded, “to lead the way in expunging the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ from use by the media, national and international governmental agencies, diplomats, legal bodies and human rights” groups.