The term genocidal massacre was created by South African sociologist Leo Kuper (1908–1994) to describe an event where mass murder targeting an ethnic or a religious group happens, but with fewer deaths than a genocide typically causes. Some historians say the 1994 Rwandan genocide was a genocidal massacre, while others call it a genocide.
This is a list of academic definitions of genocidal massacre.
| Date | Author | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Leo Kuper | The annihilation of a section of a group—men, women and children, as for example in the wiping out of whole villages. |
| 1994 | Israel Charny | Mass killing as defined [...] in the generic definition of genocide, but in which the mass murder is on a smaller scale, that is, smaller numbers of human beings are killed. |
| 2007 | Ben Kiernan | Shorter, limited episodes of killing directed at specific local or regional community, targeted because of its membership in a larger group. |
In his book Blood and Soil, Australian historian Ben Kiernan stated that imperial powers have often committed genocidal massacres to tame difficult minorities within their empires. For instance, he described the actions of two Roman legions sent to Egypt in 68 AD to stop rioting Jews in Alexandria.[source?] The Roman governor Tiberius Julius Alexander ordered the legions to massacre everyone who lived in the Jewish part of the city. 50,000 had been killed when Alexander, listening to the pleas of some yet to be killed, felt pity for them and ordered an end to the killings.
Kiernan pointed out that governments are not the only ones to commit genocidal massacres (or genocides). For example, in 1577, members of the Clan MacLeod from the Isle of Skye formed a raiding party and attacked the Isle of Eigg. In the Cave of Frances, they killed everyone who lived on the island. Members of the Clan MacDonald retaliated in 1578 by burning a congregation full of MacLeods to death in Trumpan Church. Both were examples of genocidal massacres, according to Kiernan. Almost immediately afterward, the Battle of the Spoiling Dyke followed.
Kiernan also gave a more recent example. On February 27, 2002, there was an argument between a group of Hindu pilgrims on a train and Muslim vendors at the platform where it had stopped. This was followed by a suspected arson that killed 59 people. Over the next three days, riots in Gujarat killed 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims.
Canadian human rights expert William Schabas made the point that genocidal massacres are criminal offences under international law as a crime against humanity, and in an armed conflict under the laws of war.[source?]
However, he pointed out that international prosecutions for individual acts were not covered by the Rome Statute, which had created the International Court of Justice (ICC), because crimes against humanity must be "widespread or systematic" and war crimes usually have to have a threshold above the individual crime "in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes".
American sociologist Irving Louis Horowitz was critical of Kuper's approach. He cited Kuper's use of the term genocidal massacre to describe the inter-communal violence during the partition of India and during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Hirsh[who?][clarification needed] stated, "to speak of [these] as genocidal in a context of religious competition and conflict risks diluting the notion of genocide and equating it with any conflict between national, religious, or racial groups."
Published online: 06 Sep 2010
Published online: 22 Jan 2007