In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
A. Killing members of the group;
B. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
C. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
D. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
E. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
→ The second is Symbolization, when we give names to those classifications like Jew and Aryan, Hutu and Tutsi, Turk and Armenian. Sometimes the symbols are physical, like the Nazi yellow star. Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to dehumanization.
→ The third is Dehumanization, when perpetrators call their victims rats, or cockroaches, cancer, or disease; so eliminating them is actually seen as “cleansing” the society, rather than murder.
“አማራ ቆማጣ!” “Down Down Amhara!” “Down Down ነፍጠኛ!” የሰሞኑ መፈክር።
→ The fourth is Organization, when hate groups, armies, and militias organize.
→ The seventh stage is Extermination, what we legally define as genocide, the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
→ Denial. It is actually a continuation of the genocide, because it is a continuing attempt to destroy the victim group psychologically and culturally, to deny its members even the memory of the murders of their relatives.
Denial has a profoundly negative impact on everyone concerned. Denial harms the victims and their survivors.