Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

AFGHANISTAN, GENOCIDE IN
Adana. Region and city on the Mediterranean coast of the Ottoman Empire, situated
in approximately the same location as the former province of Cilicia. In April 1909, widespread
massacres of Armenians took place in Adana, masked by civil strife accompanying
the Young Turk revolution and involving attempts by defenders of the deposed Sultan
Abdul Hamid II (1842–1918; reigned 1876–1909) to reestablish his autocratic rule.
Taken as a whole, the massacres throughout the city of Adana and its hinterland numbered
up to thirty thousand Armenians and can be seen both as an afterword to the
Hamidian Massacres of 1894–1896 and as a precursor of the more extensive Armenian
genocide that began in April 1915. First-person accounts and other documentation have
variously implicated supporters both of the sultan and of the Young Turks for the massacres,
and it can be said that this outbreak of destructive anti-Armenian savagery was
perpetrated by elements on both sides. Despite this, the most important legacy of the massacres
was the further reinforcement of murderous violence as a means of action toward
the Armenian population of the empire. The socialization of the Turkish population into
an acceptance of mass killing authorized by the state, which began at the end of the nineteenth
century, was maintained and extended as a result of the Adana massacres, preparing
for the much greater cataclysm that was to come in the form of the infamous Ottoman
Turk-perpetrated Armenian genocide between 1915 and 1923. Certain Armenians, for
their part, realized henceforward that the new Turkey inaugurated by the Young Turks had
only a limited role for them to play and that this role was not likely to embrace full and
equal participation in the future of the empire.
Administrative Measures. The term administrative measures was a euphemism used by
the Soviet authorities during the 1932–1933 man-made Ukraine famine and was “used to
mean brute force applied in an arbitrary fashion” (Commission on the Ukraine Famine,
1988, p. 229).
Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention. The Advisory Committee on Genocide
Prevention, which was formed in May 2006, was the brainchild of UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan (b. 1938). The committee was established in order to provide support to the
secretary general’s special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Juan Mendez (b. 1944). Its
mandate is to meet at least twice a year. It initially comprised a wide range of experts, including
those on conflict prevention, human rights, peacekeeping, diplomacy, and mediation.
Among the members of the initial Advisory Committee were: Senator Romeo Dallaire (b.
1946) of Canada (who served as head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
[UNAMIR] prior to and during the 1994 Rwandan genocide); Nobel Peace Prize recipient
Bishop Desmond Tutu; Gareth Evans of Australia, president of the International Crisis
Group and former minister for foreign affairs of Australia; and Sadako Ogata of Japan,
cochair of the Commission on Human Security and former high commissioner for refugees.
Aegis Trust for the Prevention of Genocide. Aegis Trust is a nonsectarian, nongovernmental
organization genocide prevention initiative that aims to promote a fundamental
change in the response to genocidal situations, moving away from reactive
measures to policies of prevention. It is based in Nottinghamshire, England.
Afghanistan, Genocide in. In April 1978, a communist government seized power in
Afghanistan and immediately set about the task of remaking society in order to entrench its
rule. During the first eighteen months of the regime, the precommunist intelligentsia was
wiped out in the tens of thousands, and scores of thousands more fled to countries in the
West. As Afghanistan seemed to be sliding toward chaos, troops from the USSR invaded in
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