Alexander Rivenburgh Lesson Plan: genocide 11/16/13

Rationale: Learning about genocide and similar atrocities will introduce the nasty history of the world. It will help them understand why certain things happen and why people decide to start genocide. Curriculum Frameworks: WHII.18 NCSS 5: Individuals, Groups and Institutions; This is the best theme for this lesson because we go over an event that happens in a country due to divisions between groups. These divisions are based on group characteristics and effect the individuals of the groups. It highlights the negative interactions between groups who have a history of oppression, both politically and physically, and who have shared a common land for a very long time. It enlightens the students on how common people can be influenced by their group to commit acts so horrible that they are hard to speak about, and acts a person may never do outside of that group. Genocide is a difficult topic and I believe it is best represented by this theme. Learning Objectives: Students will be able to define genocide and the 8 steps of genocide. Students will be able to identify a few different possible genocides that have occurred (Armenia, Sudan, Rwanda) Teaching Methods: Reading, Primary sources, Group learning Procedure: Definition: The deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, caste, religious or national group. Actions include: Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Creating living conditions of the group with the intent to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Opener: The Wall(10 min) o Genocide written on the board before the walk in. o Give them 10 minutes to think about what they know about genocide: countries, statements, words, questions, anything they think of Video: http://vimeo.com/32754080 (6-10Min) o Explain the KWL chart and what we are doing with it. Use the video and the questions and words that people have put on the board to help you fill out the first two squares.

Hand out a: K-W-L Chart (What do you know about Genocide?- What do you want to know? What have you learned?) Will also be exit ticket. (5 minutes) o Have students write for a few on what they know about genocide and what they would like to know about genocide. Provide them with the above definition of genocide. (5-8 min) o There are specific components to genocide: Acts, intent, destruction(whole inpart), group of people, Specific characteristics Hand out Convention resolution on genocide( read for homework night before.)(10 min) o Go over it shortly: o What does it say? What is its purpose? Who is being targeted in it? o What type of things does it allow states to do? Or compel them to do? o What are the mandatory actions that states must take? Are there any? Go over readings on the 8 Stages of Genocide: o Classification, Symbolization, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarization, Preparation, Extermination, Denial o Talk about the important points in each of these. The first two or three sentences in each paragraph is the definition of each. Explain the next activity (30 Min) o Group them into 6 groups each group gets one article and they read it and discuss it with each other. As they discuss they will label as many of the steps as they can find in the article. The goal of this is to have them see that these are very broad things, but are very important to predicting and hopefully stoping future genocides. Divide Groups: 6 groups of 3 Hand out Readings on Darfur, Rwanda, Armenia o After each group reads and talks about their articles, Split them up again so that they can learn about and Teach each other the other articles. o After this shorter together time we will come back together and discuss them as a group for a while. (10 Min) Fill out L of KWL and hand it in as an exit ticket( 5 Minutes)

Assessment: KWL exit ticket to see what they have learned to determine if I need to go over more of it or not. Materials: http://www.choices.edu/resources/documents/genocide_lesson.pdf, http://vimeo.com/32754080 KWL Chart. Articles on Armenia, Darfur and Rwanda.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Article 1
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:

(a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide.

Article 4
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

Article 5
The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.

Article 6
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.

Article 7
Genocide and the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition. The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.

Article 8
Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.

Article 9
Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.

Powell declares genocide in Sudan

The US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the killings in Sudan's Darfur region constitute genocide. Speaking before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr Powell said the conclusion was based on interviews with refugees who had fled Darfur. He spoke as the UN Security Council prepared to debate a second resolution threatening Sudan with sanctions.

Up to 50,000 people in Darfur may have died and a million have been made homeless during the conflict. Mr Powell blamed the government of Sudan and pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias for the killings. DARFUR CONFLICT More than 1m displaced Up to 50,000 killed More at risk from disease and starvation Arab militias accused of ethnic cleansing Sudan blames rebels for starting conflict "We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility and genocide may still be occurring," Mr Powell said. Mr Powell's conclusion is based on evidence collected by state department investigators, who interviewed more than 1,800 refugees. Their testimonies, Mr Powell said, showed a pattern of violence which was co-ordinated, not random. Three quarters of them said the Sudanese military had been involved in the violence, working with the Janjaweed. The Sudanese foreign affairs minister, Najib Abdul Wahab, rejected the accusation of genocide. He said that neither the European Union nor the African Union had used such strong language to describe events in Darfur. The BBC's state department correspondent Jill McGivering says the use of the word genocide does not legally oblige the US to act, but it does increase the moral and political pressure. Ten years ago the UN was accused of failing to stop genocide in Rwanda. The Sudanese government says it does not believe its allies within the UN will agree to any sanctions. Oil threat A previous UN resolution was passed in July, calling for the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias to be disarmed. The new draft resolution - put forward by Washington - says Sudan has failed to fully comply. If Khartoum has still not complied by the proposed new deadline, sanctions may be introduced "including with regard to the petroleum sector". Sudan currently produces about 320,000 barrels of oil per day. The resolution also calls for:

the expansion of the number and mandate of the current 300 African Union troops in the country international over flights in Darfur to monitor what is happening, and an end to Sudanese military flights there UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to assess whether acts of genocide have been carried out and identify the perpetrators.

'Not enough aid' Critics point out that Colin Powell first demanded Khartoum stop the violence at the beginning of July. Two months later, they say, the government still has not met key demands, yet the US is proposing allowing it another 30 days. The US House of Representatives had already declared the violence genocide, but the state department has until now argued that the word is a legal definition and that the data had not been available. Meanwhile, aid agencies including Oxfam, Care International and Save the Children have accused three nations of failing to give enough aid to Darfur. The agencies criticised Japan, France and Italy for giving only $6m, $9.6m and $10.8m respectively. "These are some of the richest countries in the world and they have been some of the poorest donors," an Oxfam spokeswoman said. The US contributed $206m in 2004-5, and the UK gave $94m. The European Union as a whole is a large donor, but the agencies point out that a UN appeal for $531m to carry out humanitarian work in Darfur in 2004 has raised only $276m.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/3641820.stm Published: 2004/09/09 19:37:44 GMT BBC 2013

Rwanda: How the genocide happened

Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days. Most of the dead were Tutsis - and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus. Even for a country with such a turbulent history as Rwanda, the scale and speed of the slaughter left its people reeling. The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994. A French judge has blamed current Rwandan President, Paul Kagame - at the time the leader of a Tutsi rebel group - and some of his close associates for carrying out the rocket attack. Mr Kagame vehemently denies this and says it was the work of Hutu extremists, in order to provide a pretext to carry out their well-laid plans to exterminate the Tutsi community. Whoever was responsible, within hours a campaign of violence spread from the capital throughout the country, and did not subside until three months later. But the death of the president was by no means the only cause of Africa's largest genocide in modern times. History of violence Ethnic tension in Rwanda is nothing new. There have been always been disagreements between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, but the animosity between them has grown substantially since the colonial period. The two ethnic groups are actually very similar - they 6 April: President Habyarimana killed speak the same language, inhabit the same areas and in plane explosion follow the same traditions. April - July: Some 800,000 Tutsis and However, Tutsis are often taller and thinner than Hutus, with some saying their origins lie in Ethiopia. moderate Hutus killed During the genocide, the bodies of Tutsis were thrown July: Tutsi-led rebel movement RPF into rivers, with their killers saying they were being sent captures the capital Kigali back to Ethiopia. When the Belgian colonists arrived in 1916, they July: Two million Hutus flee to Zaire, produced identity cards classifying people according to now DR Congo their ethnicity. The Belgians considered the Tutsis to be superior to the Q&A: Search for justice Hutus. Not surprisingly, the Tutsis welcomed this idea, and for the next 20 years they enjoyed better jobs and educational opportunities than their neighbours. Resentment among the Hutus gradually built up, culminating in a series of riots in 1959. More than 20,000 Tutsis were killed, and many more fled to the neighbouring countries of Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda.
1994: RWANDA'S GENOCIDE

When Belgium relinquished power and granted Rwanda independence in 1962, the Hutus took their place. Over subsequent decades, the Tutsis were portrayed as the scapegoats for every crisis. Building up to genocide This was still the case in the years before the genocide. The economic situation worsened and the incumbent president, Juvenal Habyarimana, began losing popularity. At the same time, Tutsi refugees in Uganda - supported by some moderate Hutus - were forming the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Mr Kagame. Their aim was to overthrow Habyarimana and secure their right to return to their homeland. Habyarimana chose to exploit this threat as a way to bring dissident Hutus back to his side, and Tutsis inside Rwanda were accused of being RPF collaborators. In August 1993, after several attacks and months of negotiation, a peace accord was signed between Habyarimana and the RPF, but it did little to stop the continued unrest. When Habyarimana's plane was shot down at the beginning of April 1994, it was the final nail in the coffin. Exactly who killed the president - and with him the president of Burundi and many chief members of staff - has not been established. Whoever was behind the killing its effect was both instantaneous and catastrophic. Mass murder In Kigali, the presidential guard immediately initiated a campaign of retribution. Leaders of the political opposition were murdered, and almost immediately, the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus began. Within hours, recruits were dispatched all over the country to carry out a wave of slaughter. The early organisers included military officials, politicians and businessmen, but soon many others joined in the mayhem. Encouraged by the presidential guard and radio propaganda, an unofficial militia group called the Interahamwe (meaning those who attack together) was mobilised. At its peak, this group was 30,000-strong. Soldiers and police officers encouraged ordinary citizens to take part. In some cases, Hutu civilians were forced to murder their Tutsi neighbours by military personnel. Participants were often given incentives, such as money or food, and some were even told they could appropriate the land of the Tutsis they killed. On the ground at least, the Rwandans were largely left alone by the international community. UN troops withdrew after the murder of 10 soldiers. The day after Habyarimana's death, the RPF renewed their assault on government forces, and numerous attempts by the UN to negotiate a ceasefire came to nothing. Aftermath Finally, in July, the RPF captured Kigali. The government collapsed and the RPF declared a ceasefire. As soon as it became apparent that the RPF was victorious, an estimated two million Hutus fled to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). These refugees include many who have since been implicated in the massacres. At first, a multi-ethnic government was set up, with a Hutu, Pasteur Bizimungu as president and Mr Kagame as his deputy.

But the pair later fell out and Bizimungu was jailed on charges of inciting ethnic violence, while Mr Kagame became president. Although the killing in Rwanda was over, the presence of Hutu militias in DR Congo has led to years of conflict there, causing up to five million deaths. Rwanda's now Tutsi-led government has twice invaded its much larger neighbour, saying it wants to wipe out the Hutu forces. And a Congolese Tutsi rebel group remains active, refusing to lay down arms, saying otherwise its community would be at risk of genocide. The world's largest peacekeeping force has been unable to end the fighting.

UN debate on genocide asks: protect or intervene?

By JOHN HEILPRIN (AP) July 21, 2009

UNITED NATIONS Out of genocides past and Africa's tumult a controversial but seldomused diplomatic tool is emerging: The concept that the world has a "responsibility to protect" civilians against their own brutal governments. At the U.N. General Assembly, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pushed Tuesday for more intervention for the sake of protection. "The question before us is not whether, but how," Ban told the assembly, recalling two visits since 2006 to Kigali, Rwanda. The genocide memorial he saw there marks 100 days of horror in which more than half a million members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and moderates from the Hutu majority were slaughtered. "It is high time to turn the promise of the 'responsibility to protect' into practice," Ban said. Rwanda's genocide began hours after a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down as it approached Kigali on the evening of April 6, 1994. The slaughter ended after rebels, led by current President Paul Kagame, ousted the extremist Hutu government that had orchestrated the killings. "We still find ourselves in a world that has so far been maybe willing, but less likely committed to stop genocide and similar crimes," said Jacqueline Murekatete, a human rights activist who was 9 years old in Rwanda when she lost her entire family to the genocide. Among those questioning the concept has been General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a leftist Nicaraguan priest and former foreign minister who organized a two-day debate starting Thursday. He issued a four-page "concept note" that made clear his reservations.

"Colonialism and interventionism used responsibility to protect arguments," says the paper issued by d'Escoto's office. "National sovereignty in developing countries is a necessary condition for stable access to political, social and economic rights, and it took enormous sacrifices to recover this sovereignty and ensure these rights for their populations." William Pace, executive director of the World Federalist Movement's Institute for Global Policy, said d'Escoto's views are a "political misuse of the GA presidency" since they contradict the General Assembly's 2005 endorsement of the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine. "It is not a synonym for military intervention," Pace added. The idea that the world should take responsibility if nations fail to protect their own population was first promoted by Ban's predecessor, Kofi Annan, in 1999, citing conflicts in Angola, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and East Timor. It gained huge momentum with the African Union's endorsement in 2000. The General Assembly backed it in 2005, though a budget committee has yet to provide funding for a special adviser's office. In 2006, the U.N.'s most powerful body, the 15-nation Security Council, threw its weight behind the idea in two legally binding resolutions. Proponents have recently pushed to implement it in places like Darfur, Congo, Kenya, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. In May 2008, for example, the council discussed a proposal by France to authorize the U.N. to enter Myanmar and deliver aid without waiting for approval from the nation's ruling military junta. China and Russia, citing issues of sovereignty, blocked the idea. And in July 2008, Russia and China vetoed U.S.-proposed sanctions on Zimbabwe's leaders, rejecting an attempt by the global community to take action against an authoritarian regime widely criticized for a violent and one-sided presidential election. At her first appearance before the Security Council in January, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice used the occasion to emphasize that the Obama administration takes the concept seriously. Earlier this month, at the Group of Eight summit in Italy, President Barack Obama called it "one of the most difficult questions in international affairs." There is no "clean formula" for when to act, Obama said, but there are "exceptional circumstances in which I think the need for international intervention becomes a moral imperative, the most obvious example being in a situation like Rwanda where genocide has occurred." Ban advised limiting U.N. action under the 'responsibility to protect' concept to safeguarding civilians against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. He acknowledged the possibility of some nations "misusing these principles" as excuses to intervene

unnecessarily, but said the challenge before the U.N. is to show that "sovereignty and responsibility are mutually reinforcing principles." "Military action is a major last not first resort," he said. "No part of the world has a monopoly on wisdom or morality." Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.