10 STAGES TO GENOCIDE
This revised list replaces the previous 8 stages of Genocide based on Gregory H
Stanton of Genocide Watch - Source: Genocide Watch http://genocidewatch.net/
1. The differences between people are not respected. There is a division of ‘us’
CLASSIFICATION and ‘them’ - German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi.
2. To the classification, names or symbols are used to distinguish between
SYMBOLISATION people such as forcing Jewish people to wear the yellow star (and other
symbols) under Nazi rule and the blue scarf for people to identify those the
Khmer Rouge planned to murder.
3. The dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights
*NEW* of other groups. Examples include the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in Nazi
DISCRIMINATION Germany, which stripped Jews of their German citizenship, and prohibited
their employment by the government and by universities. Denial of
citizenship to the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma is a current example.
All human rights are stripped away. People are equated with animals,
4. vermin, insects or diseases. The Nazis referred to Jews as ‘vermin’ and during
DEHUMANISATION the genocide in Rwanda, Tutsis were referred to as ‘cockroaches’. At this
stage, hate propaganda in print and on radios are used to vilify the victim
group.
5. Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to
ORGANISATION provide deniability of state responsibility. Special army units or militias are
often trained and armed.
6. Propaganda continues to be spread by hate groups. The Nazis used the
POLARISATION newspaper Der Stürmer to spread and incite messages of hate about Jewish
people.
National or perpetrator group leaders plan the “Final Solution” to the
7. Jewish, Armenian, Tutsi or other targeted group “question.” They often use
euphemisms to cloak their intentions, such as referring to their goals as
PREPARATION
“ethnic cleansing,” “purification,” or “counter-terrorism.”
Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious
identity. Death lists are drawn up. In state sponsored genocide, members of
victim groups may be forced to wear identifying symbols (symbolisation).
8.
Their property is often expropriated. Sometimes they are even segregated
*NEW* into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-
PERSECUTION struck region and starved. They are deliberately deprived of resources such
as water or food in order to slowly destroy them. Programs are implemented
to prevent procreation through forced sterilization or abortions. Children
are forcibly taken from their parents. They are acts of genocide because
they intentionally destroy part of a group. The perpetrators watch
for whether such massacres meet any international reaction. If not, they
realize that that the international community will again be bystanders and
permit another genocide.
Extermination begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called
9. “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe
EXTERMINATION their victims to be fully human. Already dead bodies are dismembered;
rape is used as a tool of war to genetically alter and eradicate the other
group.
The perpetrators of genocide deny that they committed any crimes, and
10. often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the
crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they
DENIAL
flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin,
unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them.
