Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

AUTOGENOCIDE
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exclusive possession of executive, legislative, and judicial power or has the authority to
delegate and rescind such powers according to his or her individual decree. Historically,
autocracy is associated with monarchy, particularly royal absolutism, though even in an
absolutist system the monarch needs the active assistance (or, at the least, the compliance)
of an aristocracy that serves as an enforcement arm of the royal will. In the modern
world, an autocrat can also be a totalitarian political leader such as Josef Stalin
(1879–1953) of the Soviet Union or a military dictator such as Idi Amin
(c. 1925–2003); under such regimes, power concentrated in the hands of a single leader
can be corrupted such that the unimpeded persecution of political, ethnic, racial, or
religious minorities can take place with impunity and without recourse to constitutional
or democratic forms of redress.
Autogenocide. A term used to describe the genocidal events that took place in Cambodia
between 1975 and 1979, under the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot (1925–1998).
It looked as if the regime was practicing genocide on its own people—indeed, as if the
population was killing its own in a kind of genocidal self-imposed civil war. This was
before the various group identities of the victims—ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, Chams,
and others—had become known. The killing of Cambodians by Cambodians seemed
unprecedented, hence the forging of a neologism—autogenocide (or self-genocide)—to
pinpoint the singularity of the genocidal events in what was now called the Democratic
Republic of Kampuchea. Later, this proved to be an oversimplification, as it became
apparent that the lethal policies of the Khmer Rouge were far more complex than originally
thought. All manner of issues were involved. It was a civil war but also much more:
there was anticolonialism, a Marxist revolution, monoethnic nationalism, the autonomy
of ethnic minorities, and romantic utopianism, among others. None of these is conveyed
by the term autogenocide.
AVEGA-AGAHOZO. AVEGA, a name derived from Association des Veuves du
Génocide (Association of Genocide Widows), is a nonprofit organization conceived
and created by fifty widows of the1994 Rwandan genocide. The founders, themselves
all genocide survivors, established the association on January 15, 1995; it received
ministerial approval from the Rwandan government on October 30, 1995. AVEGA-
AGAHOZO was initiated to assist the scores of thousands of widows and orphans produced
by the genocide and to alleviate their sufferings as they struggle to adapt to their
postgenocide situation. Since its inception, AVEGA has expanded its areas of concern
to include not just widows and orphans but also children who have become heads of
households as a result of the genocide; parents who have lost some or all of their children;
the elderly; and the handicapped. After 1997, given the increasing number of
individuals who benefit from AVEGA, the organization adopted a policy of administrative
decentralization. This enables AVEGA to support its client group across the country,
avoiding the possibility of a recurrence of the tribal or regional biases that led to the
genocide in 1994. AVEGA sees its mission as the following: to promote the general
welfare of the genocide victims, to promote solidarity among members of the association,
to carry out activities aimed at helping the widows, to cooperate with like organizations,
to uphold the memory of the genocide victims, to fight for justice, and to
participate in the national reconstruction and reconciliation process of Rwanda.
AVEGA is a good example of the determination of many in Rwanda to act in a positive
way—of coping with the past, in order to build the future.