Copied from Stop Genocide on Burma‘s Muslim!!! by Soe Myat
By Gregory H. Stanton, President, Genocide Watch
Classification Symbolization Dehumanization Organization Polarization Preparation Extermination Denial
Genocide is a process that develops in eight stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.
1. CLASSIFICATION: All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most likely to have genocide. The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions. The Catholic church could have played this role in Rwanda, had it not been riven by the same ethnic cleavages as Rwandan society. Promotion of a common language in countries like Tanzania has also promoted transcendent national identity. This search for common ground is vital to early prevention of genocide.
2. SYMBOLIZATION: We give names or other symbols to the classifications. We name people “Jews” or “Gypsies”, or distinguish them by colors or dress; and apply the symbols to members of groups. Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to the next stage, dehumanization. When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups: the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule, the blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone in Khmer Rouge Cambodia. To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden (swastikas) as can hate speech. Group marking like gang clothing or tribal scarring can be outlawed, as well. The problem is that legal limitations will fail if unsupported by popular cultural enforcement. Though Hutu and Tutsi were forbidden words in Burundi until the 1980’s, code-words replaced them. If widely supported, however, denial of symbolization can be powerful, as it was in Bulgaria, where the government refused to supply enough yellow badges and at least eighty percent of Jews did not wear them, depriving the yellow star of its significance as a Nazi symbol for Jews.
3. DEHUMANIZATION: One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on hate radios is used to vilify the victim group. In combating this dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. Genocidal societies lack constitutional protection for countervailing speech, and should be treated differently than democracies. Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen. Hate radio stations should be shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished.
4. ORGANIZATION: Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility (the Janjaweed in Darfur.) Sometimes organization is informal (Hindu mobs led by local RSS militants) or decentralized (terrorist groups.) Special army units or militias are often trained and armed. Plans are made for genocidal killings. To combat this stage, membership in these militias should be outlawed. Their leaders should be denied visas for foreign travel. The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations, as was done in post-genocide Rwanda.
5. POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Laws may forbid intermarriage or social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center. Moderates from the perpetrators’ own group are most able to stop genocide, so are the first to be arrested and killed. Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups. Assets of extremists may be seized, and visas for international travel denied to them. Coups d’état by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions.
6. PREPARATION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional alliances, or the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its self-defense. Otherwise, at least humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees to come.
7. EXTERMINATION begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral genocide (as in Burundi). At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. (An unsafe “safe” area is worse than none at all.) The U.N. Standing High Readiness Brigade, EU Rapid Response Force, or regional forces — should be authorized to act by the U.N. Security Council if the genocide is small. For larger interventions, a multilateral force authorized by the U.N. should intervene. If the U.N. is paralyzed, regional alliances must act. It is time to recognize that the international responsibility to protect transcends the narrow interests of individual nation states. If strong nations will not provide troops to intervene directly, they should provide the airlift, equipment, and financial means necessary for regional states to intervene.
8. DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin, unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them. The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav or Rwanda Tribunals, or an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or an International Criminal Court may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some may be brought to justice.
© 1998 Gregory H. Stanton. Originally presented as a briefing paper at the US State Department in 1996.
Tags: Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma, Burma Politics, Genocide, History, Islam in Burma, Muslim, Rohingya people
Dr Ko Ko Gyi's Blog 
June 4, 2012 at 11:46 am |
Myanmar government must stop the widespread anti-Muslim HATE CAMPAIGN by radical Buddhists: Many Bamas are swallowing the hook, line, and sinker….https://drkokogyi.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/many-bamas-are-swallowing-the-hook-line-and-sinker/
June 4, 2012 at 11:51 am |
@ Daungkhit Burma who wrote: you should be appreciate the first step of conflict.Who are start engine?
I replied: YES your RADICAL BAMAS’ A Myo Pyoke Hmar Soe Kyauk Par Thee HATE CAMPAIGN is the BASIC CULPRIT. This book writing, distribution without control CAUSE these killings. STOP the CHARADE. Read the number 8. You are now committing the No 8 of GENOCIDE friend. i.e. DENY!!!
June 4, 2012 at 12:33 pm |
Planned Massacre and Early Indication of Mass Genocide in Arakan State of Burma by Nay San Lwin @ http://www.rohingyablogger.com/2012/06/planned-massacre-and-early-indication.html
Ten Burmese Muslims were killed by Rakhine Buddhist extremists in Taung Gote township of Arakan State in Burma on 3rd June, 2012 in the afternoon. The victims were on the bus on their way to former capital Yangon from Thandwe township of Arakan State. The bus was forcibly stopped by about 300 Rakhine Buddhist extremists at La Wa Ka (immigration) gate in Taung Gote township.
The extremists were shouting “come down if any Kalar passenger is there, we want to kill”. (Kalar is a derogatory term use by Buddhist to called people of Islamic Faith [Muslims] in Burma that carries the meaning of inferior and subclass).
The bus in-charge woman closed the door while the conductor came down from the bus and apologizing the extremists not to attack any passenger. But they didn’t listen to the conductor’s pleas and open the door by force to get on the bus.
“Here are Kalars, here are Kalars” they shouted when they found the Muslims on the bus. At the same time many extremists got into the bus and started beating the Muslims. The Muslims were forcefully taken out of bus as they were being beaten. Eight victims were killed right on the spot. Soon the extremists found that the bus conductor was also a Muslim, then they also killed him at same place.
Again the extremists figured out that the bus in-charge woman is also a Muslim. The woman tried to escape by running into back side of the bus but she couldn’t. She was caught by them on the bus and they said that they will kill her by raping. They pulled her from her hairs and took her out of the bus. The extremists men took off all of her clothes. Then the extremists women started beat her legs, hands, waist and neck with sticks and the men pushed into her sex organ with sticks. The men also beats her breast. Later she was taken onto the road and beaten with sticks on her neck continuously till she died.
The bus’s registration plate number is 7 (Ga) 7868 and it was also burnt. The dead bodies were kept aside off the road and the extremists threw alcohol bottles, urinate and vomit on the dead bodies.
Six victims are from Taung Twin Gyi township of Mandalay Division, two are from Myaung Mya township of Ayeyarwaddy Division and two are from Thandwe township of Arakan State. Eight victims are identified as they were on religious visit to Thitsar Mosque of Thandwe township and the Tachan Pai Mosque in Yangon has visitors record. The remaining two, the conductor and the bus in-charge cannot be identified by names but believed to be from Thandwe township.
The eight victims are:
1. U Ne Pwe, 58 years old, NRC No. 8/Ta Ka Ta (N) 095548, Taung Twin Gyi –
2. U Maung Ni, 65 years old, NRC No. 8/Ta Ka Ta (N) 095530, Taung Twin Gyi –
3. U Aye Lwin, 52 years old, NRC No. 8/Ta Ka Ta (N) 093573, Taung Twin Gyi –
4. U Aung Myint, 50 years old, NRC No. 8/Ta Ka Ta (N) 094557, Taung Twin Gyi –
5. Tayzar Myint, 28 years old, NRC No. 8/Ta Ka Ta (N) 189815, Taung Twin Gyi –
6. Tin Maung Htwe, 21 years old, NRC No. 8/Ta Ka Ta (N) 231084, Taung Twin Gyi –
7. Aung Bo Bo Kyaw, 21 years old, NRC No. 14/Ma La Na (N) unknown no., Myaung Mya and
8. Zaw Nyi Nyi Htut, 33 years old, 14/Ma La Na (N) 148133, Myaung Mya.
June 5, 2012 at 10:41 am |
If that is not a Genocide then what is the meaning of Genocide.In the Quran killing one innocent person is equal to killing the whole humanity.
June 8, 2012 at 9:31 am |
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/6/5/worldupdates/2012-06-05T133105Z_1_BRE8540PH_RTROPTT_0_UK-MYANMAR-PROTEST&sec=Worldupdates
Myanmar Muslims protest over mob killings
YANGON (Reuters) – Scores of Myanmar Muslims held a rare protest in the country’s biggest city on Tuesday to demand justice for nine pilgrims killed by a Buddhist mob in an attack that has stirred communal tension.
The demonstration at a mosque in central Yangon was peaceful and ended by early evening, but at least six trucks loaded with police close by.
Some demonstrators showed pictures of the bloodied and beaten bodies of the nine Muslims who were killed on Sunday in Taunggoke in western Rakhine state, when anger erupted over the reported rape and murder of a Buddhist woman by a gang of young Muslims.
Myanmar is predominately Buddhist and many members of the majority community resent members of minority groups descended from people from South Asia, most of whom are Muslim.
The Muslim demonstrators demanded justice, some shouting “religious freedom” and “eradicate terrorism”, referring to the attack on the bus full of Muslims, which happened after leaflets were handed out urging retribution for the young woman’s death.
Human rights activists and some Taunggoke residents said on Sunday those killed were Muslim pilgrims visiting Rakhine, with no connection to those blamed for killing the woman.
Protests are rare in Myanmar, where dissent was suppressed under the military’s five-decade rule, which ended 15 months ago when a reformist, civilian-led government took office.
Demonstrations have since been legalised, albeit with numerous restrictions, and are taking place more often over issues like land ownership and power shortages, emboldening activists and testing the restraint of security forces.
Police Lieutenant-Colonel Thet Lwin, the officer in charge of handling the Tuesday protest, said police were mobilised to prevent any disturbance.
“The issue in question is nothing to do with race. All citizens are entitled to equal rights,” he told reporters.
Sunday’s killing of the Muslims and the reported murder of the woman come as tension between Buddhists and Rakhine state’s Muslim minority simmers.
Official media’s reporting of the incident has also been contentious, causing upset on Internet social media among Buddhists as well as Muslims.
Media used a slang word “kalar” to refer to Muslims. The word means guest and is considered derogatory to people of South Asian descent in Myanmar, many of whose ancestors entered the county from the Indian subcontinent under British colonial rule.
Ko Mya Aye, a Muslim who was jailed for his part in a 1988 pro-democracy student uprising against the then military junta, urged the protesters to disperse to avoid confrontation.
“We should not do anything that will make the present situation reverse and go back to square one,” he said, adding that the media’s choice of words in reporting the incident was “adding fuel to the fire”.
The Information Ministry, which oversees state media, had removed the contentious term from its website by early evening.
(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Editing by Martin Petty and Robert Birsel)
Copyright © 2012 Reuters