ETHNIC CLEANSING

Ethnic cleansing is a premeditated attack done to drive out a specific community of people from a particular area. This means that a place will no longer have any signs of existence of the specific community; the area will no longer have the cultural or physical remains of the community thus effectively ethnically cleansing the area of traces of the specific community. It differs from genocide as the only intention of ethnic cleansing is to push a particular community from the area where genocide aims to completely kill an ethnic community in the area. Ethnic cleansing or forcibly pushing out a community is considered as a crime against humanity and condemned by the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing is done using a wide range of inhuman methods such as rape, executions, assaults or unlawful detention or forceful displacement, threatening civilians and attacking civilian population all these crimes are classified as crimes against humanity.

Ethnic cleansing is ideas that rise when nationalist movements with racist ideologies. The term ethnic cleansing was first used during the war in Yugoslavia where Bosnian Muslims were driven out of the country by Bosnian Serbs who claimed the land as their own. There are many examples of ethnic cleansing; the most radical and extreme is the displacement of Jews with culminated in the mass killing of the Jews. The ethnic cleansing of Jews was tied to the final solution proposed by Hitler which says that the true and real solution to the problems faced by the people of Germany was the Jews and the only way to end it was to deport them or kill them in concentration camps. The Tutsi community in the country of Rwanda was also first raped, its civilian population attacked and unlawful detention this later progressed to a genocide where the Tutsis in the country were violently killed. The most recent example is the Rohingya persecution in Myanmar where Rohingya Muslims were forcefully deported from Rakhine State by Myanmar’s military government. The Rohingya Muslims were denied from getting citizenships thus were considered as illegal immigrants and were driven out of the country to Bangladesh.

Ethnic cleansing occurs during a war which later escalates into genocide. At least this is the usual trend. The reason could be a community’s religion, race or colour which is discriminated in an area. It is accompanied by assault, unlawful deportation and attack on civilian population which is against the Geneva Convention and a war crime. The very idea of ethnic cleansing debases a value of human life and disregards every human right which every person regardless of their nationality is entitled to. The entire idea of ethnic cleansing is inhuman and a disgusting taint on humanity. Political parties tend to take advantage over nationalism to create a common enemy where the majority of the population can relate to it. Ethnic cleansing divides an already fragmented population of a country leading to more problems. There should be more stringent rules from the international laws laid down that condemn ethnic cleansing. Monitoring bodies such as the UN must make ethnic cleansing which occurs in various forms must be recognized.