And don't forget ...

[David Barnhart]

genocidaire, jen uh seye DAIR /d¥en c sYi’der/, n. {W}  1. a person who
participates in crimes of genocide; genocidist. Compare war crime (OEDs:
1906) and crime against humanity (OEDs: 1944).  Standard (used in contexts
dealing especially with crime; frequency?)

 

There are about 1,000 Tutsi survivors living in Kibuye town.  Today they are
outnumbered by the number of freed killers on the streets.  “They live in
the neighbourhood. They drink in the bars. We saw what they did with our own
eyes. We live in fear because they are free,” says Madalena.  The government
began releasing the genocidaire nearly two years ago.  The nation’s jail
population had swelled to 120,000 and the established court system would
have taken more than a century to try them. Chris McGreal, “‘It’s so
difficult to live with what we know’,” The Guardian [England] (Google News),
March 29, 2004, 

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1179968,00.html>

 

In one passage from the book, Dallaire describes a visit to a village he had
hoped had not been wiped out by the genocidaire.  In the book, Dallaire
describes the scene on a hill, where even the peace had been murdered.  ...
As the death toll mounted, General Dallaire submitted a detailed plan for a
Rapid Reaction Force. He needed 5,000 soldiers to dismantle the killing
machine of the genocidaire and to stop the Hutu power movement. The UN
Security Council rejected the plan. The United States even refused to
acknowledge the genocide to avoid any legal obligations to help.  Carol Off,
“In Depth: Romeo Dallaire,” CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] News
(Google), Oct. 24, 2003, 

<http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/dallaire/>

 

2. Attributive use.

 

And to top it all off, the United States, the country I find myself a
citizen of, has recently declared its support for the DRC’s government.
Sympathy for the Rwandans?  Glad the Rwandese Patriotic Front smashed the
genocidaire government to pieces?  If the US begins to aid the DRC
government, financially or militarily, the troops that stopped the genocide
in 1994 will be fighting against -US-, now!  Jerry Ku [Houston, Texas] in a
letter to WGBH [PBS], “The Triumph of Evil; Discussion,” Frontline (Google),
1999 [the program was aired on Jan. 26, 1999], 

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/talk/>

 

1996.  Loan word (borrowing): from French genocidaire, meaning “a person who
attempts to commit genocide” [ultimately from English genocide (1944),
coinded by Raphaël Lemkin (Duke U.)].

F The pronunciation given above is Anglicized.  In French it is pronounced:
zhen uh si: DAIR /¥ã nc si:’der/.  The older term is genocidist (1977?).
The new form has been adopted recently especially by human rights activists.


 


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