Current Status Although there is �The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide�, which was adopted and accepted by the U.N., there are still many acts of genocide currently going on. The event that drew attention to the problem was the Holocaust of WWII. This is when Hitler�s Nazi Germany killed 10 million people in a period of less than six years because of their ethnicity, religion and/or nationality. In Cambodia between April 1975 and January 1979, at least 1.7 million people died because a �massive disregard for human life� and �stands as one of the worst human tragedies of the modern era�. (Cambodian Genocide Program, www.yale.edu/cpg) The reason this genocide is so unique is that for a great number of years, the hateful actions of the Khmer Rouge were hidden and undocumented. People were forced out of their houses and cities and made to move to the countryside because of the fear that capitalism thrived in the city. Religion, money and private ownership were banned, there was no communication with the outside world and all previous rights and responsibilities were gone. The Khmer Rouge often said � 2000 years of Cambodian history had now come to an end; April 17 was the beginning of the Year Zero for the new Cambodia: Democratic Kampuchea.� (From Sideshow to Genocide: The Khmer Rouge Years, http://edweb.gsn.org/sideshow/khmeryears/index.html ) Another event that currently has the media and the minds of many full of thoughts of genocide is the conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. Between April and July in 1994, more than 800,000 mostly Tutsi civilians were �brutally slaughtered in a genocidal campaign organized by Hutu hardliners.� (Rwanda: My Trip to the underworld, June 1997, www.rudyfoto.com/RwandaPage.html) As opposed to earlier thoughts, the genocide was not tribal violence but was political in a well-planned campaign. The Hutu wanted to kill off as much of the Tutsi population as they could, and they almost succeeded. Still in 1997, more acts of hatred were being brought to the attention of the media and although there was less killing then in 1994, it was still killing. Link to Analysis |