To begin, I’d like to describe the origins of the research project that ultimately became The Order of Genocide. I first traveled to Rwanda as a journalist in the mid-1990s, and, during my travels there and in what was then Zaire, I became deeply interested in the dynamics that ultimately led to the 1994 genocide. From my perspective as a journalist traveling in the region, the genocide was an ...

The purpose of this study was to analyze whether the way that survivors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi naturally construct genocide testimonies predicts PTSD symptoms 6 years later. One hundred orphaned heads of household (OHH) who were members of a community association gave testimonies about their genocide experiences in 2002. In 2008, PTSD symptoms of 61 of the original OHH w...

The present article critiques the views that (1) modern genocide does not substantially differ from its historical predecessors, (2) that all genocide is a product of imperialism, and (3) that the study of genocide can be reduced to a study of perpetrators and collaborators, while the testimonies of victims and survivors need not be taken into account. In contrast, this article suggests (1) tha...

The recent activity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague concerning the case of President Omar al-Bashir and the crisis in Darfur has set off a firestorm of commentary amongst international lawyers, human rights activists, genocide scholars, experts on Sudan, and journalists, among others. Some argue that the ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, was correct in charging al-Bashi...

Drawing on research on the collapse of compassion and group processes and interrelations, four experiments investigated how labeling a conflict "genocide" affects distant bystanders' support for intervention. The genocide label (compared with no label or the label "not a genocide") weakened Americans' support for intervention in a crisis analogous to Darfur. Ingroup glorification moderated this...

BACKGROUND In Rwanda, an estimated one million people were killed during the 1994 genocide, leaving the country shattered and social fabric destroyed. Large-scale traumatic events such as wars and genocides have been linked to endemic post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidality. The study objective was to investigate whether the 1994 genocide exposure is associated with suicide i...

Despite some ambiguous periods in Russia’s history, its record in affirming the foundations of humanism in international relations is unquestionable. The new democratic Russia, which is faithful to traditions of humanism and mercy, is making strong efforts to defend victims of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The experience of the international community in combating genocide,...

One of the most astonishing discoveries in the history of genocide studies was the Note Relative à la Propagande d’Expansion et de Recrutement (the “Note”), a mimeographed document found in Butare prefecture in the wake of the Rwandan genocide. The Note, which draws from Goebbels, Lenin, and others, is a manual of the rhetorical methods that could be used to inflame ordinary people to attack th...

A number of scholars — notably Tony Barta, Colin Tatz, Dirk Moses1 — have in recent years attempted to apply the concept of genocide to the conflict between European and Indigenous peoples in Australia. The definition of genocide is necessarily central to such analysis, with the definition contained in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ...

Genocide studies is simultaneously an emerging and accepted category of scholarly inquiry. The field is robust and at a critical turning point as more disciplines engage the subject. This article identifies two areas within the field that suggest the need for further scholarly attention. First, it urges a renewed attention to the processional nature of genocide and the implications that flow fr...