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Ethnic cleansing

Posted by ESC on April 30, 2005

In Reply to: Ethnic cleansing posted by Gary on April 29, 2005

: : The phrase "Ethnic cleansing" was not "originated by Western journalists". It is a translation right?

: What are you suggesting it is a translation of?

ENTHIC CLEANSING - "the mass murder or removal of an ethnic group from an area by another ethnic group. In the late 1980s, this term for genocide was popularized. The Armenians and Azerbaijanis were fighting for control of the autonomous enclave of Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988; according to Serbo-Croatian sources, Soviet officials used this term - in Russian, 'etnicheskie chiski, 'ethnic purges' - to describe the attempts of one group to drive out the other. In an April 1993 news conference, President Clinton was questioned about conflicts in Bosnia. He responded, 'The principle of ethnic cleansing is something we ought to stand up against.' The phrase 'ethnically clean' was first used in Yugoslav politics in an April 1987 speech by Slobodan Milosevic." From Safire's New Political Dictionary by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993). Page 224-225.

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