Jorge Gonzlez Zavala

12/10/17

Genocides in History
1. Rwandan Genocide:
The Rwandan Genocide, as its name says happened in Rwanda from April
7th, 1994 to July of the same year.
In this genocide over 70% of Tutsis were killed by the Hutus, both are
ethnic groups from Rwanda. This 70% of Tutsis conformed almost 20% of
the total population in Rwanda.
Some Hutus that caused the genocide were captured, but many of them
were unfairly declared as innocents.
2. Guatemalan Genocide:
In the Guatemalan Genocide the victims were the Mayans. It occurred in
1982. The Guatemalan government used their resources: like police,
military infantry and every other resource which caused force, to
exterminate Mayan communities with the excuse that they were in favor of
a communist community.
626 Mayan villages were attacked killing children, women, men and elder
people. But they werent only killed, they were tortured and some children
were left to die, as well as men which were burnt or impaled so they died
slowly. Pregnant women were cut in their wombs to kill them and their
babies. It was a terrible massacre.
3. Holocaust:
The holocaust is, by far, the most famous genocide in the world. It started
the 30th of January, 1933. The principal victims were the Jewish people,
but after some time every non-Aryan was also restricted and even
murdered.
It started when Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, at first he
seemed as a good candidate, but then, after he legally achieved to
establish the Enabling Act, he transformed his government into a
dictatorship.
He used his government and resources to emit many laws that detracted
the Jews and non-Aryan people from their rights. From now on, the
concentration camps, the murders, the kills, the gas chambers and the
fights in the 2nd World War led to more than 20 million deaths.
4. Armenian Genocide:
It is also known as Seyfo which means sword in Assyrian. It occurred
because the Ottoman Empire wanted to conquer this lands of nowadays
Turkey. The Ottomans practically exterminated the Armenians, they were
killed 75% of the total Armenians.
As the Ottomans also performed the Assyrian and Greek Genocides at the
same time of the Armenian, the word genocide was formed.
Nowadays Turkey denies a genocide like this happened.
5. Cambodian Genocide:
 In the Cambodian Genocide the Khmer Rouge were the authors. Pol Pot,
who was the Khmer leader, actually a dictator, wanted to create an
agrarian type of socialism forcing the Cambodian population by torturing
them, executing them, blocking the food sources causing starvation and
by forcing them to work.
Pol Pots ideas of the socialism were inspired by Joseph Stalin and the
communist party of the Chinese Mao Zedong.
6. European colonization of the Americas:
The Spanish people came to the Americas thinking it was India, of course
when entering the continent and seeing the territory and its inhabitants,
they realized it wasnt India and that it was another land, from which they
could explode natural resources.
The Spanish crown sent some troops to conquer the Americas, but Hernan
Cortes also went by himself to become rich by this lands.
At first the Spaniards thought the native people were devil creatures and
they started killing them, but then they realized they were people with
different beliefs so they brought the friars and preachers to evangelize.
This was by the crown, but Hernan Cortes kept his practices of killing
natives, he even killed Spaniards to achieve his goals. He killed natives by
fighting them with his military forces, by torturing them until they died and
by contaminating the water of their channels.
7. The Great Leap Forward:
The Great Leap Forward happened in China and was led by the
Communist representative Mao Zedong. It started in 1958 by a campaign
that Mao Zedong established and which purpose was to change from an
agrarian economy to an advanced communist society.
He tried to achieve it by industrializing China, but his campaign failed and
caused famine and diseases. This caused a massive deaths range that
estimated from 18 million deaths to 32 million.
8. Holodomor
Holodomor occurred in Ukraine and its founder was Joseph Stalin, who in
1932 established a totalitarian control and dictatorship over the Soviet
Union. He didnt kill the Ukrainians, Russians and the other people from
the USSR by himself. He made policies that caused a really big famine
along the whole Soviet Union.
With the famine many people started to die, up to the point that almost 8
million people died. Of course what was happening wasnt an unknown
event, though Stalin blocked the news about the famine telling that they
were betrayal propaganda against the USSR.
Listzomania. (s.f.). Recovered on October 2017, from http://www.listzomania.com/10-worst-
genocides-in-history
Peace Pledge Union. (s.f.). Recovered on October 2017, from
http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_guatemala1.html
United to End Genocide. (s.f.). Recovered on October 2017, from
http://endgenocide.org/learn/past-genocides/the-holocaust/