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How Puppet Masters Create Genocide: A Study In The State-Sponsored Killings In Rwanda And Cambodia, Joel H. Feigenbaum

University of Miami National Security & Armed Conflict Law Review

This paper calls on the United States to assess where its true interests lie in evaluating genocide and mass killings. Through an examination of the social and political factors which were paramount in bringing about the atrocities in Cambodia in the late 1970s and Rwanda in the mid-1990s, the U.S. is urged to take heed of the tried-and-true methods used by ruthless regimes throughout history in bringing about the destruction of their own citizenry. Consideration of the psychological imperatives necessary for ordinary men or women to depart from the standard boundaries of civilized society and butcher their neighbors and countrymen …