This research is about Mai kadra massacre that happened on Nov. 9 2020 during the Ethiopian National Defense Force law enforcement operation against the Tigray regional state. The massacre has ended with two conflicting narratives. This short research is therefore to clearly analyze secondary data collected (sources) against the two narratives of the massacre. Though there were difficulties to get as many documents as possible, the already collected data with some additional sources were used to answer the research questions and to give solutions for the research problems. At the beginning, this study presented the details of all the main documents to explain what claims about the Mai kadra massacre have raised. Secondly, claimed reasons about the massacre have discussed to answer one of the research questions (why the massacre has happened?) based on the secondary data collected and some other related documents. At last, the different themes formed have been analyzed against the two opposing narratives of this study. In relation to data analysis, thematic analysis under qualitative approach is used. Significant and essential theme ideas are drawn out from the data collected and organized in to different themes. All the themes are described and summarized according to their position about the two conflicting narratives in order to give clear information for readers. Opinions of the researcher are also added.

La République de Bosnie-Herzégovine choisit en mars 1992 de déclarer son indépendance plutôt que de rester au sein de la Yougoslavie. Un mois plus tard, la Communauté européenne reconnaît l’indépendance de la Bosnie. Or, depuis cette reconnaissance, l’avenir de la Bosnie en tant qu’État indépendant et souverain ne cesse d’être remis en question. A travers cinq parties et dix-sept chapitres, cette thèse expose les facteurs menaçant la pérennité de l’État bosnien. Tout d’abord, elle révèle que la genèse du territoire bosnien et de ses communautés n’a pas facilité le développement d’une identité citoyenne commune à tous les groupes ethno-nationaux de Bosnie. Ensuite, cette thèse permet d’appréhender le processus d’indépendance de la Bosnie et de comprendre que lors de la reconnaissance de cet État, il n’existait pasde volonté collective de la part des populations bosniennes d’appartenir à un même État. Troisièmement, cette thèse montre que le nouvel espace national bosnien n’a pas produit un seul et unique territoire politique transcendant les différences ethno-nationales entre les communautés bosniennes. Quatrièmement, elle expose les facteurs à la fois endogènes et exogènes menaçant l’unité et la souveraineté de la Bosnie sur son propre territoire. Enfin, la dernière partie, consacrée au District de Brčko, permet de mieux saisir, par des exemples détaillés, le lien existant entre le territoire bosnien et ses communautés. En résumé, cette thèse tend à montrer que le territoire bosnien, au cours de l’histoire, aplutôt été le mode privilégié de la « ghettoïsation » des cultures bosniennes, au lieu de dépasser les différences culturelles au sein des communautés de Bosnie. / The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1992 chose to declare independence rather than stay in Yugoslavia. A month later, the European Community recognized the independence of Bosnia. However, since this recognition, the future of Bosnia as an independent and sovereign State continues to be threatened. Through five parts and seventeen chapters, this thesis discusses the factors threatening the sustainability of the Bosnian state. First, it reveals that the genesis of the Bosnian territory and its communities has not facilitated the development of a common civic identity for all ethno-national groups in Bosnia. Then this thesis allows us to comprehend the process of independence of Bosnia and understand that upon recognition of this state, there was no collective will to belong to the same state within the Bosnian population. Third, this thesis shows that the new Bosnian national space has not produced a single political territory transcending ethno-national differences in the Bosnian communities. Fourth, it discusses the factors both endogenous and exogenous threatening the unity and sovereignty of Bosnia in its own territory. Finally, the last part, on the Brčko District, allows us to understand better, with detailed examples, the link between the Bosnian territory and its communities. In summary, thisthesis suggests that the Bosnian territory in the course of history has been the preferred mode of "ghettoization" of Bosnian cultures, instead of transcending cultural differences between Bosnian communities.

The discovery of two mass graves in England in 2010 containing the remains of Scandinavian men in their prime from the Viking age against the historical backdrop of Anglo-Saxon England has elicited questions as to whether or not they were victims of ethnic cleansing. Literature studies combined with the results from the post-excavation analyses render the conclusion that the victims in the grave, most likely, were not subjected to ethnic cleansing. It is more plausible that they were Scandinavian mercenaries who were executed during an intense period where a failing England was desperately paying for its own conquest with the Danegeld. The historical documents give the impression that a nation-wide genocide against Danes took place, however the archaeological material and analyses do not fully support this scenario. / Mot bakgrunden av den anglosaxiska perioden i England har upptäckten 2010 i England av två massgravar innehållande kvarlevor av vikingatida skandinaviska män väckt frågor om huruvida offren var utsatta för etnisk rensning. Resultat från analyser av materialet från utgrävningarna i kombination med litteraturstudier leder till slutsatsen att individerna i graven sannolikt inte var offer för etnisk rensning. Det förefaller mer troligt att männen var legosoldater vilka avrättades under den intensiva period då det skuldtyngda England betalade stora summor danagäld till vikingarna. I de historiska källorna beskrivs hur massmord av daner ägde rum över hela landet, dock finns det inget i det arkeologiska materialet eller i analysresultaten som stöder en sådan händelseutveckling.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence have been used against civilian populations since the advent of armed conflict. However, recent scholarship within the last few decades proves that rape is not a byproduct of war or a result of transgressions by a few “bad apples,” rather, rape and sexual violence are used as strategic, systematic, and calculated tools of war, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Rape has also been used as a means of preventing future generations of children of “undesirable” groups from being born. Rape and sexual violence are also used with the purpose of intimidating women and their communities, destroying the social fabric and cohesion of specific groups, and even as a final act of humiliation before killing the victim. In each conflict that is examined in this thesis, sexual violence is used against civilian populations for the specific purpose of genocide.

The Rohingya population of Myanmar have been called one of the most persecuted ethnic minorities on earth. Beyond the systemic discrimination and ongoing violations of basic human rights, Tatmadaw operations against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State in recent years have amounted to ethnic cleansing, if not genocide. Reports of widespread sexual violence by security forces have garnered significant international attention, increasing our collective awareness of how rape is used as a weapon of war. In light of Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar’s report recommending that investigation take place to establish an evidence base for future prosecutions, it is critical that sexual and gender-based violence crimes be adequately factored into documentation strategies. This strategy will send a message that abuses upon women’s bodies are no longer regarded as mere inevitable ‘spoils of war’, but instead belong among the gravest of crimes, worthy of international resources and expertise to address. In order to minimize further intrusion into the lives of Rohingya survivors, it is necessary to consider the various possible justice mechanisms that may be used, and the different methods and standards of documentation that may be required for each. While early documentation efforts are encouraged so that relevant evidence is not lost, these considerations call for careful research, planning and ethical reflection. In order to contribute to this process, this thesis explores how law may operate to bring about justice for sexual and gender-based violence, and provides guidance on how to document evidence to be used for this purpose. At the same time, it recognizes that the form of justice international criminal trials can offer is inherently limited in scope. It further explores how “justice”, a contested concept, is not always defined or achieved through the punishment of perpetrators alone. It therefore draws on critiques of international criminal justice to imagine other ways that justice might manifest, and then identifies the methods of documentation possible to facilitate these efforts. / Graduate / 2019-09-07

Based on Hobsbawm’s notion of “invented traditions,” this thesis argues that the Serbian warrior tradition, the hajduk, was formalised from the folk oral epic tradition into official state practices. Using reports from the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, military histories of Yugoslavia’s Second World War, and case files from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), this thesis shows how the hajduk epics were used to articulate war programs and formations, to construct perpetrator and victim identities, and to help encourage and justify the levels of violence during the Yugoslav wars of succession, 1991-1995. The thesis shows how the formalising of the invented hajduk tradition made the epics an important part of political and military mobilisation for at least the last two centuries. During Serbia’s modernisation campaign in the nineteenth century, the epic hajduk traditions were codified by Serbian intellectuals and fashioned into national stories of heroism. While cleansing territories of undesirable populations during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, the hajduks were portrayed in the tradition of nation builders by the Kingdom of Serbia. The hajduk tradition was also mobilised as Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, with both Draža Mihailović’s Četniks and Tito’s Partisans appropriating the historic guerrilla tradition. During the “re-traditionalisation” period under Slobodan Milošević in the 1980s, the invented hajduk tradition was again mobilised in the service of war. As Bosnian Muslim bodies were flung from the Mehmed Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad in 1992, the Serbian perpetrators dreamed of themselves as avenging hajduks thus justifying a modern ethnic cleansing. / Graduate

The thesis consists of two parts: translation of a half of Savage Continent, a book by British historian Keith Lowe, with key topics including the universal destruction of Europe caused by the Second World War and the subsequent wave of vengeance that swept across Europe in its aftermath; and a commentary on the translation, beginning with an introduction of the author and his style, subsequently providing extensive overview of the development of the Czech discourse about the expulsion of Germans, translation analysis of the original English text of a chapter concerning the expulsion of Germans and its position in the discourse, as well as a look t the target reader and reception, and finally describing various translation problems that occurred while translating this chapter, including not only linguistic, but also poetic-ideological problems.

This dissertation examines the role of the United States in the mass expulsion of Germans from East-Central Europe from spring 1945 through 1947. By agreeing to allow Czechoslovakia and Poland to expel their German minority populations in 1943, and again in 1945 under Article XIII of the Potsdam Agreement, the United States permitted approximately 14 million to 16 million Germans to be forcibly relocated into a truncated, war-torn Germany, an incident that is the largest example of ethnic cleansing in world history. Although these expulsions threatened the postwar stability of Europe and were of great concern they were of marginal interest to most people in the United States. Informed discussion of these expulsions occurred among a fairly narrow group of military officials, diplomats, politicians, intellectuals, and immigrants or exiles. In fact there was a dearth of contemporary debate and analysis on all aspects of the United States role in the expulsion of Germans, both within government and in society more generally. Newspaper reports, magazine articles, diplomatic documents, government documents and the personal papers of diplomats and politicians reveal that the expulsion of Germans was a secondary issue to the United States government. Despite considerable media coverage, it seems that most Americans lacked both awareness of and compassion for the plight of the German expellees. These expulsions however, changed the politics and the demographics of Europe forever and made the ethnic cleansing of the minority populations of nations an international legal precedent. Today, the expulsions remain a controversial subject within the region of East-Central Europe where the people of Czechoslovakia, Germany and Poland still debate the expulsions as if they occurred yesterday. In the United States, however, the expulsions have been long forgotten. This dissertation is unique in that examines the involvement of the United States in the planning of the expulsions and the reaction of the American press, intellectuals and policymakers whereas previous literature has focused very sparingly on this aspect of the expulsions.

Burundi became a German protectorate in August 1884. Prior to the establishment of a protectorate, the territory was ruled by Mwamis (kings) who exercised a kind of quasi-divine system of administration. Conflictual relations were quickly dealt with within this complex structure. During the German and later Belgian colonial administrations, these political structures were redefined and a social class structure based on wealth was created. Forced class division became entrenched in the social fabric of Burundian society and the hierarchical system became even more prominent at independence in July 1962. Successive post-colonial regimes have failed to bridge the social gap. The International Community, through initiatives by the United Nations, the Africa Union, Jimmy Carter, Julius Nyerere and Nelson Mandela have attempted to resolve the political impasse. The dissertation is an attempt to reconstruct the causes of the various crises since 1962 and to reassess whether the various facilitators has succeeded in their tasks. / History / M.A.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.