Democide

Democide is a term created by political scientist R. J. Rummel in order to create a broader concept than the legal definition of genocide. Genocide, for example, does not take into account government murder for political or ideological reasons. It is defined as large-scale murder by a government, similar to a genocide or ethnic cleansing. The twentieth century has seen massive democides motived by various ideologies, some atheistic, some religious, some Communist, some Fascist, including the Holocaust.

Examples

• The Great Purge of the Soviet Union was the largest purge in a series of purges lasting eighty years (1917-1987), which left over 60 million people dead.
• The Holocaust by Nazi Germany was a democide.
• Operation Keelhaul. Estimated two million Soviet POW's repatriated to the Soviet Union exterminated beginning 1945.
• In Iraq, Saddam Hussein the former Iraqi dictator, was hanged in 2007 for his crimes against humanity, his killing of hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen.
• In Iran, the Islamic regime of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeni (1970-1989) is believed to have killed some 30,000 political prisoners in 1988.
• The Khmer Rouge-instigated murder in Democratic Kampuchea (now Cambodia) caused the death of ¹/₃ of the Cambodian population.
• In Chile, Augusto Pinochet's regime (1973-1990) murdered several thousand Chileans
• In Guatemala, Efrian Rios Montt's regime (1982-1983)is estimated to have murdered over 10,000 Guatelmalans.

Sources

• Death by Government,By R.J. Rummel, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
• Islamic "Democide" in Iran, Amil Imani, New Media Journal, May 24, 2007.
• [1],c-span.org/resources