Genocides and Politicides from 1955 to 2001 From No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust?, Barbara Harff, 2003, [1]. Note that most estimates for mass murder are more or less disputed.
Sudan
10/56-3/72
400,000-600,000
South Vietnam
1/65-4/75
400,000-500,000
China
3/59-12/59
65,000
Iraq
6/63-3/75
30,000-60,000
Algeria
7/62-12/62
9,000-30,000
Rwanda
12/63-6/64
12,000-20,000
Conogo-K
2/64-1/65
1,000-10,000
Burundi
10/65-12/73
140,000
Indonesia
11/65-7/66
500,000-1,000,000
China
5/66-3/75
400,000-850,000
Guatemala
7/78-12/96
60,000-200,000
Pakistan
3/71-12/71
1,000,000-3,000,000
Uganda
2/72-4/79
50,000-400,000
Philippines
9/72-6/76
60,000
Pakistan
2/73-7/77
5,000-10,000
Chile
9/73-12/76
5,000-10,000
Angola
11/75-2001
500,000
Cambodia
4/75-1/79
1,900,000-3,500,000
Indonesia
12/75-7/92
100,000-200,000
Argentina
3/76-12/80
9,000-20,000
Ethiopia
7/76-12/79
10,000
Congo-K
3/77-12/79
3,000-4,000
Afghanistan
4/78-4/92
1,800,000
Burma
1/78-12/78
5,000
El Salvador
1/80-12/89
40,000-60,000
Uganda
12/80-1/86
200,000-500,000
Syria
4/81-2/82
5,000-30,000
Iran
6/81-12/92
10,000-20,000
Sudan
9/83-2003
2,000,000
Iraq
3/88-6/91
180,000
Somalia
5/88-1/91
15,000-50,000
Burundi
1988
5,000-20,000
Sri Lanka
9/89-1/90
13,000-30,000
Bosnia
5/92-11/95
225,000
Burundi
10/93-5/94
50,000
Rwanda
4/94-7/94
500,000-1,000,000
Serbia
12/98-7/99
10,000
20th century democides causing more than one million deaths. From Death by Government, Rummel, 1987 [2]. Several estimates have been revised after this date
[3][4][5].Note that Rummel's estimates for mass murder do not necessarily have broad academic acceptance.
Bloodiest dictators for the millennium.Rummel, [7][8][9]. Note that Rummel's estimates for mass murder do not necessarily have broad academic acceptance.
According to Rummel, genocide has 3 different meanings. The ordinary meaning is murder by government of people due to their national, ethnical, racial, or religious group membership. The legal meaning of genocide refers to the international treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This also includes nonlethal acts that in the end eliminate the group, such as preventing births or forcibly transferring children out of the group to another group. A generalized meaning of genocide is similar to the ordinary meaning but also includes government killings of political opponents or otherwise intentional murder. It is to avoid confusion regarding what meaning is intended that Rummel created the term democide for the third meaning.[10]
Rummel defines democide as "The murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder". For example, government-sponsored killings for political reasons would be considered democide. Democide can also include deaths arising from "intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life"; this brings into account many deaths arising through various neglects and abuses, such as forced mass starvation. Rummel explicitly excludes battle deaths in his definition. Capital punishment, actions taken against armed civilians during mob action or riot, and the deaths of noncombatants killed during attacks on military targets so long as the primary target is military, are not considered democide. More exact details can be found here: [11]
He has further stated: "I use the civil definition of murder, where someone can be guilty of murder if they are responsible in a reckless and wanton way for the loss of life, as in incarcerating people in camps where they may soon die of malnutrition, unattended disease, and forced labor, or deporting them into wastelands where they may die rapidly from exposure and disease."
Some examples of democide include the Great Purges carried out by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, the deaths from the colonial policy in the Congo Free State, and Mao's Great Leap Forward resulting in a famine which killed millions of people. These were not cases of genocide, because those who were killed were not selected on the basis of their race, but were killed in large numbers as a result of government policies. Famine is classified as democide if it fits the definition above.
As an example, Rummel until recently did not classify the Great Leap Forward as democide. He believed that Mao's policies were largely responsible for the famine, but he was misled about it, and finally when he found out, he stopped it and changed his policies. Thus not an intentional famine and thus not a democide. New information from states that Mao knew about the famine from the beginning and didn't care. Eventually he had to be stopped by a meeting of 7,000 top Communist Party members. Thus the famine was intentional and a democide.[12]
Accusations of mass killings by a government are relatively common. Less common are well-documented cases with enough evidence to support the accusation. Almost all accusations are disputed to some degree, although the evidence in some cases is stronger than in others.
Rummel's sources include scholarly works, refugee reports, memoirs, biographies, historical analyses, actual exhumed body counts, records kept by the murderers themselves, and so on. In short his data are all estimates available in English for all nations over a period of a century, and available in the libraries he worked in, including the Library of Congress.
He provides the most probable death toll along a low and a high count that are meant to be the most unlikely low and high number of deaths, and thus to bracket the probable true count. It is to determine these lows and highs that he includes what some others might consider absurd estimates. His published books do not include new research and new sources available after the publication date.
Rummel's counts 43 million deaths due to democide during Stalin's regime inside and outside the Soviet Union. This is much higher than an often quoted figure of 20 million. Rummel has responded that this is based on a figure from Robert Conquest's book The Great Terror from 1968 and that Conquest's qualifier "almost certainly too low" is usually forgotten. Conquest's calculations excluded camp deaths after 1950, and before 1936; executions 1939-53; the vast deportation of the people of captive nations into the camps, and their deaths 1939-1953; the massive deportation within the Soviet Union of minorities 1941-1944; and their deaths; and those the Soviet Red Army and secret police executed throughout Eastern Europe after their conquest during 1944-1945. Moreover, the Holodomor that killed 5 million in 1932-1934 is not included.[13]
His research shows that the death toll from democide is far greater than the death toll from war. After studying over 8,000 reports of government caused deaths, Rummel estimates that there have been 262 million victims of democide in the last century. According to his figures, six times as many people have died from the inflictions of people working for governments than have died in battle.
One of his main findings is that liberal democracies have much less democide than authoritarian regimes.[14] He argues that there is a relation between political power and democide. Political mass murder grows increasingly common as political power becomes unconstrained. At the other end of the scale, where power is diffuse, checked, and balanced, political violence is a rarity. According to Rummel, "The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom." Rummel concludes: "Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth."
Several other researchers have found similar results. " Numerous researchers point out that democratic norms and political structures constrain elite decisions about the use of repression against their citizens whereas autocratic elites are not so constrained" "Once in place, democratic institutions-even partial ones-reduce the likelihood of armed conflict and all but eliminate therisk that it will lead to geno/politicide"[15]
For books, articles, data, and analyses regarding democide, see Rummel's website.[16] In particular, he has an extensive FAQ.[17] He has also made his many sources and the calculations used, from a pre-publisher manuscript of his book Statistics of Democide, available online.[18] Researchers often give widely different estimates of mass murder. They use different definitions, methodology, and sources. For example, some include battle deaths in their calculations. Matthew White's website has compiled some of these different estimates.[19]
* The Definition of Democide by R.J. Rummel, from his book Death by Government. * Rummel's website Power Kills * Never Again International youth genocide prevention orgnanization; organized the 2004 Rwanda Forum at the Imperial War Museum in London. * Never Again Wiki
