![]() In this climate, when private attacks on a vulnerable community occur, the government may fail to condemn, let alone prosecute, the offenders. The resulting differential in status can breed violent resentment on one hand while inciting, or being seen to excuse, more violent forms of repression on the other. ![]() In some cases, discrimination that favors a dominant group, or marginalizes a minority from full participation in the society, creates a climate of mutual suspicion and intolerance, and the illusion that one group "deserves" more rights than another. ![]() The governmental role can take several forms. Rather, time after time, proximate cause of communal violenceis governmental exploitation of communal differences. While communal tensions are obviously a necessary ingredient of an explosive mix, they are not sufficient to unleash widespread violence. Some members of the international community have also conspired in this view, since inaction in the face of communal violence is more easily excused if the source of that violence is understood to be beyond control.īut the extensive Human Rights Watch field research summarized in this report shows that communal tensions per se are not the immediate cause of many of today's violent and persistent communal conflicts. Governments presiding over communal violence may also promote this view, since if "ancient animosities" are seen as the "cause", then communal violence takes on the appearance of a natural phenomenon which outsiders have no right to condemn and no hope to prevent. At times, this view is promoted by journalists who lack the time or inclination to trace more complex causes. Condemning these official actions as human rights abuses, and treating them as dangers with international significance, must be central to any plan for preventing the outbreak of communal violence.Ĭommunal violence is often seen simply as the product of "deep-seated hatreds" or "ancient animosities" that have been unleashed by the collapse of authoritarian structures that had previously contained them. Among policies that fuel communal violence are those that reinforce intolerance and excuse harassment of targeted communities, as well as active governmental promotion or direction of violence against those communities. Yet because the international community often has not recognized when conflicts framed in ethnic or religious terms are the products of calculated government policies, it has failed to expose and confront those policies early, before their violent consequences explode. ![]() There is broad recognition that early warning and prevention of communal violence are preferable to later, more expensive and generally less effective actions like the U.N. 1 The murder of unarmed civilians based on their ethnic, racial or religious affiliations, the forcible displacement of ethnic and religious communities, and the burden that this tragedy places on international humanitarian agencies and donor nations, are now central issues of international relations. The current epidemic of communal violence-violence involving groups that define themselves by their differences of religion, ethnicity, language or race-is today's paramount human rights problem. Nandi Rodrigo provided production assistance. Aziz Abu-Hamad, Cynthia Brown, Holly Cartner, Rachel Denber, Alison Des Forges, Christopher George, Eric Goldstein, Jeannine Guthrie, Farhad Karim, Bronwen Manby, Ivana Nizich, Binaifer Nowrojee, Christopher Panico, Ken Roth and Karen Sorenson.Ĭynthia Brown and Farhad Karim edited the report.
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