From: CurtAdams@aol.com
Date: Thu Apr 18 2002 - 14:44:26 MDT
In a message dated 4/18/02 12:23:36, extropy@unreasonable.com writes:
>It was my understanding that the phrase "ethnic cleansing" referred to a
>comprehensive campaign to remove an ethnic group from a region by any means
>necessary, particularly through terror techniques like mass murder, rape
>squads, death marches, and forced starvation.
>
>While the term "ethnic cleansing", interpreted literally, may be an
>appropriate term for mass eviction, I have only seen it used as a euphemism
>for genocidal activity.
While the Yugoslavian cleansing campaigns were far more reprehensible than
any hypothetical Isreali one, they killed only a small fraction of the
population
of Kosovo and the disputed Croatian territories. Certainly not genocide.
Recent events in Macedonia have been referred to as ethnic cleansing and
the death tolls there are comparable to the current Israeli-Palestian war.
Rwanda was a whole different ball game. Ethnic cleansing can refer to things
far worse than what's going on in Palestine but I think this is an appropriate
use of the word. Genocide should be referred to as, well, genocide.
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