Ethnic cleansing, international intervention and peace processes

Overview

Ethnic cleansing, peacekeeping and peace enforcement and why effective international intervention is so difficult to achieve.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

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1. 1

   What is ethnic cleansing?

   Model answer

   Ethnic cleansing is the deliberate and systematic removal, by force or by intimidation, of a population identified by its ethnicity, religion or nationality from a defined territory, in order to make that territory ethnically homogeneous. Its defining feature is the objective: not merely the harming of a group, but the emptying of an area of it. It is carried out to secure territorial control, to alter the demographic balance ahead of a settlement or a vote, and to make return impossible.

2. 2

   What methods are used to bring about ethnic cleansing?

   Model answer

   Mass expulsion and forced transfer of populations; killing and mass detention; sexual violence used systematically; the destruction of homes, farms and businesses so that there is nothing to return to; the destruction of places of worship, cemeteries, monuments and records that evidence the group's presence; the removal of place names; and threats and terror sufficient to make the remaining population flee without further force. The destruction of property and heritage is characteristic, because it targets the possibility of return rather than the people alone.

3. 3

   How does ethnic cleansing relate to genocide in international law?

   Model answer

   Ethnic cleansing is not itself a separate crime under that name in international law; it is a descriptive term. However, the acts by which it is carried out, including murder, deportation, persecution, imprisonment and sexual violence committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, constitute crimes against humanity and, in armed conflict, war crimes. Where such acts are committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part, they meet the legal definition of genocide, and international tribunals have convicted individuals on that basis.

4. 4

   Distinguish between ethnic cleansing and genocide.

   Model answer

   The distinction lies in the objective. Ethnic cleansing aims to remove a group from a territory, and is achieved once the area is emptied, whether the people are killed, expelled or frightened into flight. Genocide aims to destroy the group itself, in whole or in part, wherever it is, and it is defined in law by that specific intent. The two overlap in practice, because removal is often pursued through mass killing, and campaigns described as ethnic cleansing have been found by courts to have crossed into genocide in particular places.

5. 5

   How can intimidation produce the effects of ethnic cleansing at the scale of a single city?

   Model answer

   Sustained threats, attacks on homes, arson and the marking of properties can make households from the minority community in a street or estate leave over weeks or months, without any formal expulsion. Once the first families go, those remaining become more exposed and follow. The area becomes uniform, the vacated houses are re-let or reoccupied by the other community, and the boundary shifts. The mechanism is the same as at national scale, and the outcome, a homogeneous territory from which return is effectively impossible, is the same.

6. 6

   Why does forced population movement rarely reverse after a conflict ends?

   Model answer

   Because the conditions that would allow return are seldom restored. Homes have been destroyed, occupied by others or sold under duress, and legal title may be unrecoverable. Those who would return would be a small and exposed minority in an area that is now uniform, with no confidence in local policing. Livelihoods, schooling and social ties have been re-established elsewhere, and children have grown up in the new location. Right-of-return provisions in agreements are therefore commonly agreed in principle and little used in practice.

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