Ethnic cleansing

Ethnic Cleansing is a term popularized in the 1990s, referring to forcible displacement of ethnic groups during conflict, initially in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia. It refers to a practice seen much more widely, and despite sustained vociferous denials by the perpetrators and their descendants, in modern Middle East of Palestinians by Israelis in 1948-9; of Kurds by the Ba'thist regime in Iraq in the 1980s; of non-Arab minorities in the wars of the Sudan; of Greeks and Armenians from Turkey in the first decades of the twentieth century; and of Turks and other Muslim peoples from the Balkans and around the Black Sea over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The word 'cleansing' has a sinister polysemic character, appearing to stop short of killing or genocide, with mere displacement, but also echoing the twentieth-century word 'purge' - a euphemism, as in Soviet Russia, for mass murder. In all of these cases a significant proportion of those 'cleansed' were actually killed, not least to encourage the others to leave.

Source: Fred Halliday, 100 Myths About the Middle East, Saqi Books (September 2005) ISBN 0520247205.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * civil war in Iraq
 * euphemisms
 * sectarian break-up of Iraq
 * transfer

Profiles

 * "ethnic cleansing" in the Wikipedia.

In Iraq

 * Antonio Castaneda, "Suggestions of ethnic cleansing raised in Iraq," Associated Press (Concord Monitor (NH)), April 19, 2006.
 * Sameer N. Yacoub, "Ethnic cleansing fears fuel clashes in Baghdad," The Herald (UK), April 19, 2006.
 * Anthony H. Cordesman, "Dividing Iraq: First, Think Long and Hard," ABC News, May 1, 2006.
 * Senator Joseph Biden and Leslie H. Gelb, "The Bosnia solution to Iraq. We can maintain united country by decentralizing it," Houston Chronicle, May 6, 2006.
 * David Edwards, "VIDEO - Iraqi Ethnic Cleansing: 'Epidemic' Forces 100,000+ Refugees from Homes. Red Crescent Claims 'Somebody is Behind Highly Organized Ethnic War'," Veredictum.com (Brad Blog), May 6, 2006.
 * Anthony H. Cordesman, "Outside View: Iraq's militia problem," Monsters and Critics (UK), May 18, 2006.
 * James Cogan, "Slaughter and ethnic cleansing accelerates in Iraq," WSWS, May 18, 2006.
 * Patrick Cockburn, "Iraq is disintegrating as ethnic cleansing takes hold," The Independent (UK), May 20, 2006.
 * Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, "Inside Iraq's hidden war," The Guardian (UK), May 20, 2006: "As a new 'national unity' government prepares to take power in Baghdad, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports from behind the lines of a vicious sectarian conflict rapidly spiralling towards civil war."
 * Michael Hirsh, "Washingtonâ??s New Watchword: Containment. As Iraqâ??s weak new government takes shape, the Bush administrationâ??s best hope is for a non-bloodbath," Newsweek (MSNBC), May 22, 2006.