CrimePsych

Genocide might be a simple word to remember, but the act of genocide is a despicable abhorrent behaviour, that unfortunately, exists and continues to exist the world over. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, genocide is the act of systematically killing or exterminating a group of people because they belong to a particular national, political, racial or cultural group.

This includes, albeit is not limited to, such demonstrable events as the persecution and annhilation of the Jews (and other groups) by Adolf Hitler and his Nationalist Socialist party, the Khmer Rouge’s regime in Cambodia or the extermination of the minority Tutsi’s in Rwanda.

These three situations alone cost an estimated 12.2 million people their lives – a staggering and mind blowing number by anybodies standards. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the same number of people as the Axis lost in the entire length of World War II (6 years, to the day almost).

Over the next few articles we are going cover some of the more severe acts of genocide that have occurred in our world, including one of my favourites, although not really the right word to describe it, that of Somalia. (Having been a Special Forces Commando for a period of time my section commander was actually involved in peace keeping operations there, where he witnessed events that eventually got him a psychological discharge due to PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). This is also the same location where the famous ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident took place. On that note, i must say, Ridley Scott captured the realism and extreme nature of peace keeping (making) operations – likely due in some respect to the fact that he used real operatives to conduct the majority of the stunts in the movie, realism i will touch on at a later date.