The Crime of All Crimes: Toward a Criminology of Genocide

314 Pages·2016·2.63 MB·English

by  Nicole Rafter

The Crime of All Crimes
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The Crime of All Crimes
Toward a Criminology of Genocide
Nicole Rafter
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
© 2016 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
ISBN: 978-1 - 4798-5 948- 1
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Library of Congress.
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Also available as an ebook
For my beloved friend Susan Erony, who has spent
much of her life painting images of genocide,
and in memory of another dear friend,
Christine Margaret Alder,
of Melbourne, Australia, 1950– 2015
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
1. Genocide, Criminology, and Evolution of the
“Crime of Crimes” 1
The Katyn Forest Genocide, 1940
2. What Kind of a Crime Is Genocide? 24
Capsule Summaries of Eight Genocides
3. The Big Picture: The Macro Dynamics of Genocide 54
The Herero Genocide, 1904–1 907
4. The Emotional Dynamics of Genocide: Meso- Level Analyses 80
The Indonesian Genocide, 1965–1 966
5. Extermination Up Close and Personal:
Genocide on the Micro Level 106
The Cambodian Genocide, 1975–1 979
6. Mobilization for Destruction 131
The Armenian Genocide, 1915–1 923
The Nazi Genocide of the Disabled, 1939–1 945
7. Gender and Genocide 152
The Rwandan Genocide, 1994
8. How Do Genocides End? Do They End? 181
The Guatemalan Genocide, 1981–1 983
9. Treating Genocide as a Crime 202
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viii | Contents
Appendix A: Twentieth- Century Genocides 229
Appendix B: Case- Study Questions 235
Notes 239
References 267
Index 291
About the Author 299
Illustrations
Figure 1.1. Twentieth-c entury genocides by location
and frequency 7
Figure 1.2. Mass Grave at Katyn, Russia, 1943 14
Figure 1.3. Locations of genocides discussed in depth in
this book 19
Figure 2.1. Relationship of the three atrocity crimes 29
Figure 3.1. Military portrait of Lothar von Trotha 59
Figure 3.2. Germans hanging 312 Herero in Southwest Africa,
probably 1904 61
Figure 3.3. Captured Herero in chains 62
Figure 4.1. The Pancasila Monument 84
Figure 4.2. Seductive women on the Pancasila Monument 85
Figure 4.3. More of the Suharto narrative on the
Pancasila Monument 87
Figure 5.1. Prisons and mass graves in Cambodia, 1975– 1979 123
Figure 5.2. Tuol Sleng prison 126
Figure 6.1. Ethnic cleansing during the Armenian genocide 136
Figure 6.2. Body of an Armenian woman 137
Figure 6.3. Handicapped Jewish prisoners 140
Figure 6.4. Document authorizing Katyn Massacre 150
Figure 7.1. Schoolteacher killed during Rwandan genocide 159
Figure 7.2. Jean- Paul Akayesu 177
Figure 8.1. Guatemala dead, 1982 190
Figure 8.2. Exhumation in the Ixil Triangle, Guatemala 193
ix