What is ethnic cleansing and how is it defined? From the Rohingya Muslims in Burma to the Bosnian war and Rwanda
ETHNIC cleansing is a phrase first popularised as recently as the early 1990s — but it has become synonymous with some of the worst crimes against humanity.
The Nazi's treatment of the Jews, Rohingya Muslims and the brutality meted out by other ultra-nationalist groups, it has been attached to the actions of several bloody regimes and movements — but what exactly does it mean?
What is ethnic cleansing and how is it defined?
Ethnic cleansing first became widely used in the 1990s to describe the actions of the Bosnian Serbs against Muslims during the Bosnian War.
It was specifically used to describe the Srebrenica massacre of March 1995 in which more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered by the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska.
In November 2017, Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb army commander, was jailed for life by a UN court after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The Nazi's industrial scale murder of the Jewish people across Europe has also retrospectively been described as ethnic cleansing.
By definition, ethnic cleansing can be synonymous with genocide except it does not necessarily entail mass murder and it has a particular focus on ethnicity and religion. Genocide, unlike ethnic cleansing, is also a specific charge under international law.
Ethnic cleansing is the mass expulsion or killing of a particular ethic or religious group in an area by another, be it the apparatus of the state like an army or police or a private militia group.
How has the term been used recently?
In November 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May said the ongoing refugee crisis in Myanmar "looks like ethnic cleansing".
She was referring to the tragedy affecting Rohingya Muslims in the country who have been fleeing alleged state-endorsed violence against them.
Villages have been burned down and up to 1,000 people killed as hundreds of thousands flee across the border into Bangladesh.
Theresa May vowed to "step up our efforts to respond to the desperate plight of Rohingyas", adding: "This is a major humanitarian crisis which looks like ethnic cleansing.
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"And it is something for which the Burmese authorities - and especially the military - must take full responsibility."
The UN have said the Rohingya crisis "seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing".
Dr Tom McManus, an expert in international crime, said: "They're trying to remove the Rohingya, they're trying to destroy them as a group.
"If you remove the Rohingya from Rakhine State using violence, terror, murder, rape, destruction of property, that is a genocidal act. You are trying to destroy them as a people."