The Anthropology Of Genocide - WNLibrary

70 modernity’s edges
other indigenous associations and groups have not been so fortunate, as can be seen
in the cases of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, in Indonesia, and in
Burma. It is important to note that of the 120-plus wars that were going on in 1993,
80 percent of them involved Fourth World nations resisting state military forces
(Neitschmann 1994:233).
According to representatives of indigenous groups speaking at international forums
on indigenous peoples and human rights, people defined as indigenous have
experienced mass killings, arbitrary executions, torture, mental and physical mistreatment,
arrests and detentions without trial, forced sterilization, involuntary relocation,
destruction of their subsistence base, and the removal of children from
their families (Ismaelillo and Wright 1982; Veber et al. 1993; Wilmer 1993; Churchill
1997). Some of these actions have been described as genocidal, others as pregenocidal
or as situations that potentially could lead to genocide if allowed to continue
without any attempts at intervention or alleviation.
Cases claiming genocide of indigenous peoples have been brought before the
United Nations, but generally they have brought little result, in part because government
representatives claimed that there had been no intent to destroy indigenous
peoples as such, and that the groups were never eliminated “as an ethnic or
cultural group” (Kuper 1985:12–13). Governments and other agencies usually state
that the deaths of indigenous people were an “unintended consequence” of certain
actions, such as colonizing remote areas, and that there were no planned efforts
to destroy people on the basis of who they were. Indigenous groups in numerous
countries, including Guatemala and Bangladesh, have stressed that
violations of the right to life in many countries has had a distinctly ethnic or culturally
targeted character, no matter what government officials claim.
Military repression of indigenous peoples that resist state-building efforts is not
the only context in which conflict-related genocide occurs. Some states have conscripted
members of indigenous groups into their armed forces, sometimes at gunpoint.
The United States drew upon the services of the Montagnards of Vietnam,
while the South African Defense Force drafted members of !Kung, Khwe, and
Vasakela San groups in the war against the South West Africa People’s Organization
(SWAPO) in Angola and Namibia in the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, the San of
southern Africa have been described as “the most militarized ethnic group in the
world” (Gordon 1992:2). Although the San have been treated poorly throughout
their history (see ibid.; Hitchcock 1996), they did sometimes engage in violent actions
against other people. The point here is that indigenous peoples have been and
are on both sides of the genocide equation. Simply because one is indigenous does
not mean that she or he is incapable of genocidal behavior.
An assumption is sometimes made that hunter-gatherers tended not to engage
in genocide. Chalk and Jonassohn (1990:36), for example, state, “It seems unlikely
that early man engaged in genocide during the hunting and gathering stage.” One
of the reasons for this position is that it is assumed that hunter-gatherers tend to be
peace-loving peoples and that they preferred to have amicable relations with their