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"These Saiyans are proving to be quite a thorn in my side. It seems the more they fight, the stronger they become. Of course, I'm still much more powerful than they are, but if they keep multiplying their strength, then who knows what they might be capable of in the future? Best to eliminate them now, before they get any stronger."
— Frieza, Dragon Ball
"It's simple; even a single Coordinator is a threat to the Earth's survival, and our goal here is to get rid of them all!"
— Muruta Azrael, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
Comic Books
"Ten percent of the Mon Calamari population are to be executed. Effective immediately. We will start with the Mon Calamari at hand. All surviving Mon Calamari in the galaxy will be interred in work camps! Any who seek to evade us will be hunted down and killed! The Mon Calamari will have time to suffer and reflect on their crimes until all are extinct. I will purge the galaxy of their culture and history. Such will be the fate of all who defy the Sith!"
— Darth Krayt, Star Wars (EU): Legacy
Fan Works
"They say that there is no one who isn't salvageable. Repent, for we are all children of God and belong in his grace. You, however, are not. You are not children of God, descended from Adam, crafted from clay of the Mother Earth. You crawled your way out of the rotting flesh of the Titan, an undignified, heretical creature. No amount of repentance or prayer, or conversion to the faith will ever save your souls, if you ever had one to begin with. You were born evil, and you will die evil. You only exist to corrupt the hearts of good men. Your magic is a threat I will not tolerate. No, you witches can join the devils of Hell where you belong, and burn for eternity for the sin of being born."
— Emperor Belos, A Blight on Bonesborough
Absolute power really did corrupt absolutely. Even an entire civilization with good intentions was not immune. The Time War proved that no person or people was meant to have as much power as the Time Lords did.
The Time War had many names. The Time War, the Great Time War, the Third War in Heaven, or simply the War.
But the Renegade knew what it would be called afterwards. What it had to be called. It would be the Last Great Time War. It could not ever be repeated. And there was only one way that was going to happen. Only one way to end it for good.
The War would only end when there was no one left alive who could fight it.
The Time War had many names. The Time War, the Great Time War, the Third War in Heaven, or simply the War.
But the Renegade knew what it would be called afterwards. What it had to be called. It would be the Last Great Time War. It could not ever be repeated. And there was only one way that was going to happen. Only one way to end it for good.
The War would only end when there was no one left alive who could fight it.
— The War Doctor decides to use the Moment, The Last Great Time War
Film — Animated
"Mandible's insane! He — he keeps talking about 'washing away the filth' and... and 'changing history.'"
— Bala, Antz
Frollo: The gypsies live outside the natural order. Their heathen ways inflame the people's lowest instincts. And they must be stopped.
Phoebus: I was summoned from the wars to capture fortune-tellers and palm readers?
Frollo: Ah, the real war, Captain, is what you see before you.
Phoebus: I was summoned from the wars to capture fortune-tellers and palm readers?
Frollo: Ah, the real war, Captain, is what you see before you.
"You Hebrews have been nothing but trouble. My father had the right idea of how to deal with your people. And I think it's time I finished the job! And there shall be a great cry in all of Egypt, such as there never has been or ever will be again!"
"Attention, Springfield! Your government has realized that sealing you inside this dome was a terrible mistake. Therefore, we're commencing Operation: Soaring Eagle. (crowd cheers) ...which involves killing you all." (crowd groans)
—Russ Cargill, The Simpsons Movie
Film — Live Action
"It's unimaginable. The Jews aren't being expelled, as we thought. They're exterminated. I just got back from the camps in Poland. They're exterminating Jews. The strongest are pressed into forced labor. The others, the women and children... are gassed. I saw it with my own eyes."
— Kurt Gerstein, Amen
Kill defectives, save the nation and see The Black Stork.
—Tagline for The Black Stork. Seriously.
"You people don't deserve to exist. Some peoples have no right to a future. Inferior races spread the microbe of communism. You people must be exterminated. We'll carry out this mission. If not today, then tomorrow."
— SS-Obersturmfuhrer, Come and See
"We will not sterilize every Jew and wait for them to die. We will not sterilize every Jew and then exterminate the race. That's farcical. Dead men don't hump, dead women don't get pregnant. Death is the most reliable form of sterilization, put it that way."
"Nothing gets back till everything on this planet is dead."
— Sarge, Doom
"I will unfurl one thousand years of Kree justice on Xandar and burn it to its core!"
— Ronan the Accuser, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Ronan the Accuser: [The Xandarians] and your culture are a disease.
Nova Corpsman: You will never rule Xandar.
Ronan: No. I WILL CURE IT! [proceeds to murder Nova Corpsman}
Nova Corpsman: You will never rule Xandar.
Ronan: No. I WILL CURE IT! [proceeds to murder Nova Corpsman}
"Gentlemen, I'm afraid I have decided to cancel the war. Kill them. Kill them all."
— Captain Hook, Hook
"Listen to me, good people of Rwanda! Terrible news, horrible news! Our great president is murdered by the Tutsi cockroaches! They tricked him to sign their phony peace agreement, and then they shot his plane from the sky! It is time to clear the brush, good Hutus of Rwanda. We must cut the tall trees! Cut the tall trees now!"
— RTLM Broadcaster, Hotel Rwanda
Georges Rutaganda: Soon, all the Tutsis will be dead.
Paul Rusesabagina: You do not honestly believe that you can kill them all?
Rutaganda: And why not? Why not? We are halfway there already.
Paul Rusesabagina: You do not honestly believe that you can kill them all?
Rutaganda: And why not? Why not? We are halfway there already.
The Bug: Y'know, I've noticed an infestation here. Everywhere I look, in fact. Nothing but undeveloped, unevolved, barely conscious pond scum, totally convinced of their own superiority as they scurry about their short, pointless lives.
Zap-Em Man: Well, yeah. Uh... don't you want to get rid of 'em?
Bug: Ah... in the worst way.
Zap-Em Man: Well, yeah. Uh... don't you want to get rid of 'em?
Bug: Ah... in the worst way.
"The time has come. Execute Order 66."
— Palpatine, ordering the Jedi Purge, Revenge of the Sith
Thor: You can't kill an entire race!
Loki: Why not?
Loki: Why not?
— Thor
"There was a mountain troll territory up in Strynefjell. Back in the '70s, they decided to build tunnels through that troll-rich area. Both the TSS and I tried to object, but to no avail. I was given the task of going in and exterminating all the trolls. Every last one. Pregnant females. Kids. Newborns that hadn't even learned to walk. It was a massacre."
— Hans, The Troll Hunter
"The weapons had evolved, but our orders remained the same: Hunt them down and kill them off, one by one."
— Selene, Underworld (2003)
"The people selected for extermination by the Nazis were herded into concentration camps located all over Eastern Europe. The life expectancy of prisoners in the camps was only 270 days. They were worked, starved, tortured, and when they couldn't work anymore they were exterminated in gas chambers and their remains were disposed of in ovens. In all the Nazis exterminated over 10 million men, women and children in these concentration camps."
— Ben Ross, The Wave (1981)
Literature
But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.
"Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan;
Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:"
Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:"
"T'ey killed everybody. Mama. My little brot'er. My little sister. Everyone but me. The houses v'ere burned, the flocks v'ere slain. T'ey filled in the v'ell v'it' butchered bodies. And v'en it v'as done - t'ey left. I v'ass alone v'it' the corpses and the flies. All my people v'ere dead. All of them."
—Sandhri, The Fangs of K'aath
"Exterminate all the brutes!"
—Kurtz, Heart of Darkness
"Make red your claws with human blood.
Obliterate the human filth.
Torch the humans like a wood.
The rebellion is coming!"
Obliterate the human filth.
Torch the humans like a wood.
The rebellion is coming!"
—Song of the dragon rebellion, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword
The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him'.
—Sahih Muslim 41:6985
The first thing I saw in the moonlight was the placard with its legend in large, block letters: 'I defiled my race.' Above the placard leered the horribly bloated, purplish face of a young woman, her eyes wide open and bulging, her mouth agape. Finally I could make out the thin, vertical line of rope disappearing into the branches above... There are many thousands of hanging female corpses like that in this city tonight, all wearing identical placards around their necks. They are the White women who were married to or living with Blacks, with Jews, or with other non-White males.
—Earl Turner, The Turner Diaries
Live-Action TV
"This is not war. This is pest control!"
— Dalek Sec, Doctor Who, "Doomsday"
"Karidian": [reading] The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives means slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered. Signed, Kodos, governor of Tarsus Four.
Kirk: I remember the words; I wrote them down. You said them like you knew them. You hardly glanced at the paper.
Kirk: I remember the words; I wrote them down. You said them like you knew them. You hardly glanced at the paper.
Female Changeling: I want the Cardassians exterminated.
Weyoun: Which ones?
Female Changeling: All of them. The entire population.
Weyoun: ...That will take some time.
Female Changeling: Then I suggest that you begin at once.
Weyoun: Which ones?
Female Changeling: All of them. The entire population.
Weyoun: ...That will take some time.
Female Changeling: Then I suggest that you begin at once.
Yuto Sakurai: Zein controls all kinds of matter. I thought its goal was to expunge malice within people.
Nico Saiba: Are you saying that you're going to use Kamen Rider Chronicle on humans?
Nico Saiba: Are you saying that you're going to use Kamen Rider Chronicle on humans?
Music
Waiting for the final solution
To strengthen the strain.
Waiting for the worms
Waiting to turn on the showers
And fire the ovens.
Waiting for the queers and the coons
and the reds and the Jews.
Waiting for the worms
To strengthen the strain.
Waiting for the worms
Waiting to turn on the showers
And fire the ovens.
Waiting for the queers and the coons
and the reds and the Jews.
Waiting for the worms
When freedom burns,
The Final Solution!
Dreams fade away,
And all hope turns to dust.
When millions burn,
The curtain has fallen!
Lost to the world
As they perish in flames.''
The Final Solution!
Dreams fade away,
And all hope turns to dust.
When millions burn,
The curtain has fallen!
Lost to the world
As they perish in flames.''
— Sabaton, The Final Solution
Ali Hassan Al-Majid
Wants Kurdistan to be emptied
Genocide of populace
Wiping out the Kurdish race
Wants Kurdistan to be emptied
Genocide of populace
Wiping out the Kurdish race
— The Monolith Deathcult, Wrath of the Ba'ath
White — White — White Revolution!
Mass murder is the only solution!
Worldwide genocide, death to all the Jews!'
Heil! White pride! White man rules!
Israel's on fire, as the Jewish race falls!
In the name of Hitler, we kill for the cause!
Kikes make me sick, I hate them to the core!
Wipe out the vermin — more and more!
A people of mud, a people of lies!
I laugh hard as poor Jew cries!
[...]
Let's shoot the fuckheads and gouge out their eyes!
I won't fuckin' rest 'til every Jew dies!
Show no mercy to these worms as they cower!
Blow out their brains and laugh, "White Power!"
This is my dream, so glad it's coming true!
Negro, you're next! We haven't forgotten about you!
Mass murder is the only solution!
Worldwide genocide, death to all the Jews!'
Heil! White pride! White man rules!
Israel's on fire, as the Jewish race falls!
In the name of Hitler, we kill for the cause!
Kikes make me sick, I hate them to the core!
Wipe out the vermin — more and more!
A people of mud, a people of lies!
I laugh hard as poor Jew cries!
[...]
Let's shoot the fuckheads and gouge out their eyes!
I won't fuckin' rest 'til every Jew dies!
Show no mercy to these worms as they cower!
Blow out their brains and laugh, "White Power!"
This is my dream, so glad it's coming true!
Negro, you're next! We haven't forgotten about you!
— Hate music group Ethnic Cleansing, Piles Of Dead Jews
"Watch 'em begging for their lives
They scream, they plead and they cry
Why should a vermin race survive?
I'm mean, see the gleam in my eyes
Watch 'em begging for their lives
I'mma set their world on fire
Why should a vermin race survive?
Wipe 'em clean, make way for my empire!"
They scream, they plead and they cry
Why should a vermin race survive?
I'm mean, see the gleam in my eyes
Watch 'em begging for their lives
I'mma set their world on fire
Why should a vermin race survive?
Wipe 'em clean, make way for my empire!"
—RUSTAGE, "Empire"
Tabletop Games
"Our time will come again, Eldrad has promised us. Once more you upstart Mon-keigh shall kneel before our power! This time we will not be so lenient! We will exterminate you, every world, every vessel, every one of you! Eldrad has seen the stars stained red with your blood, and it pleases him!
— Unnamed Eldar Ranger shortly before his execution, Warhammer 40,000
After ten years of relentless shelling, the hive is reduced to rubble and dust, two years after all signs of life from the hive ceased and five years after the hive issued its unconditional surrender.
For each alien destroyed is a soul freed from eternal bondage. Each mortal alien life extinguished is a human soul raised to glory. Thus our eternal destiny is written in the blood of the alien.
With sword and spear destroy the alien. With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars. With tooth and fist and hammer blows, with axe and shell and poison-bombs, with VIRUS-CHARGE and THERMAL MINE!
KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL!
With sword and spear destroy the alien. With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars. With tooth and fist and hammer blows, with axe and shell and poison-bombs, with VIRUS-CHARGE and THERMAL MINE!
KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL!
— The Commandments of Holy Terra, Warhammer 40,000
Theatre
"Let Jewish blood dye ev'ry hand
Nor age, nor sex I spare
Raze, raze their temples to the ground
And let their place no more be found."
Nor age, nor sex I spare
Raze, raze their temples to the ground
And let their place no more be found."
—Haman, Esther
Video Games
The Detective: Who got shot in the head?
Joyce: Those would be the communists. Generally speaking, 40 million people got shot in the head during the World Revolution. But the communists — they all got shot in the head.
Empathy: She's not gloating. It's a relieved celebration.
Joyce: Oh, and the anarchists too! They shot them well. So well one forgets they even existed.
Conceptualization: She likes the totality of it.
The Detective: You could say they got totally shot in the head.
Joyce: Indeed. They piled them in mass graves in Ozonne and, well — that's the last anyone heard of those people.
Joyce: Those would be the communists. Generally speaking, 40 million people got shot in the head during the World Revolution. But the communists — they all got shot in the head.
Empathy: She's not gloating. It's a relieved celebration.
Joyce: Oh, and the anarchists too! They shot them well. So well one forgets they even existed.
Conceptualization: She likes the totality of it.
The Detective: You could say they got totally shot in the head.
Joyce: Indeed. They piled them in mass graves in Ozonne and, well — that's the last anyone heard of those people.
— Disco Elysium, after Joyce has said that every hundred years or so, there is a struggle over who gets the mineral rights and who gets shot in the head
"Make your peace with the galaxy. The rachni are a dead race."
— Commander Shepard, Mass Effect
The extermination squads are efficient. The dissolution of entire populations naturally takes time, but they get the job done.
— When a species to be purged in Stellaris is set to the "Extermination" purge mode.
There were other [species name] cultures, once, diluting the purity of our society with their weakness. These renegades were dealt with, one after the other, until our world had been utterly cleansed of their taint. Today only the pure remain.
— The starting blurb of a Fanatic Purifier, Stellaris
Webcomics
Diane: There were werewolves?
Noah: A werewolf killed Pandora's husband, so... werewolves are past tense, yes.
Noah: A werewolf killed Pandora's husband, so... werewolves are past tense, yes.
"That's how the Jews became extinct, why China is full of zombies, and why red hair became a death sentence. Two thirds of the world's population died because of bigotry, insanity, or ancestral hatred. Because of ideas. There's only one way to kill an idea: you have to kill every person who holds it. Genocide is the answer, the antithesis of every idea. Today's ideas are dangerous enough to threaten the entire human race. That's why genocide is now law enforcement's number one tool."
— Jacob Doe, Genocide Man
Western Animation
"For generations, the Huntsclan have hunted magical creatures. And for generations, dragons have stood in their way. But no more. Once we locate the scarab, we will use its life-giving powers to revive past generations of the Huntsclan. Hundreds shall be reborn and become my army — an army which will wipe out dragons forever!"
— The Huntsman, American Dragon: Jake Long
"We'll be invading a medieval world called Earth. You must exterminate the savages there so that we could mine their planet for its resources."
— King Aldrich, Amphibia
Real Life
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
—Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)
Abkhazia War
When they [Abkhaz] entered Gagra, I saw Shamyl Basaev's battalion. I have never seen such a horror. They were raping and killing everyone who was captured and dragged from their homes. The Abkhaz commander Arshba raped a 14-year-old girl and later gave an order to execute her. For the whole day I only could hear the screams and cries of the people who were brutally tortured. On the next day, I witnessed the mass execution of people on the stadium. They installed machine guns and mortars on the top and placed people right on the field. It took a couple of hours to kill everybody.
Mikhail Demianov, Russian military observer, describing the fall of Gagra
The [Abkhaz] separatist forces committed widespread atrocities against the Georgian civilian population, killing many women, children, and elderly, capturing some as hostages and torturing others ... they also killed large numbers of Georgian civilians who remained behind in Abkhaz-seized territory ... The separatists launched a reign of terror against the majority Georgian population, although other nationalities also suffered. Chechens and other north Caucasians from the Russian Federation reportedly joined local Abkhaz troops in the commission of atrocities ... Those fleeing Abkhazia made highly credible claims of atrocities, including the killing of civilians without regard for age or sex. Corpses recovered from Abkhaz-held territory showed signs of extensive torture.
U.S. State Department Country Report on Conflict in Abkhazia
Afghanistan
At Yakaolang, as in other such massacres, the Taliban, ethnic Pashtuns of the Sunni sect of Islam, particularly targeted ethnic Hazaras, who belong to the Shiite sect. "These are the same type of war crimes as were committed in Bosnia” and should be prosecuted in international courts, said a UN official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
—Newsday, Confidential UN report details mass killings of civilian villagers
American Indian Wars
Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! ... I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians. ... Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.
—John Chivington, perpetrator of the Sand Creek Massacre
I heard Colonel Chivington give no orders in regard to prisoners. I tried to take none myself, but killed all I could…I think and earnestly believe the Indian to be an obstacle to civilization and should be exterminated.
—Jacob Downing, Major, 3rd Colorado Cavalry, United States Volunteers
The most revolting, shocking cases of assassination, arson, murder and manslaughter that have crimsoned the pages of time have been done by the Indians, in former days and recently—nevertheless we are opposed to anything which looks like a treaty of peace with the Indians…. The season is near at hand when they can be chastised and it should be done with no gentle hand,
—William N. Byers, The Rocky Mountain News, September 28, 1864
First clear off the buffalo, then clear off the Indian. We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux even to their total extermination—men, women and children.
—William Tecumseh Sherman, advice to Ulysses S. Grant on how to handle the Native Americans
Kill every buffalo you can. Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.
—Richard Irving Dodge, aide-de-camp to General Sherman
You will not receive overtures of peace or submission from Indians, but will attack and kill every male Indian over 12 years of age.
—Patrick Connor, Brigadier General, US Army
The only good Indian I ever saw is a dead Indian.
—Philip Sheridan, General, US Army
[T]he so-called Chivington or Sandy Creek Massacre, in spite of certain most objectionable details, was on the whole as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier.
—Theodore Roosevelt, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, Volume 8 (1924)
The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are.
—L. Frank Baum, Saturday Pioneer (December 20 1890)
Anfal
Throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, although women and children vanished in certain clearly defined areas, adult males who were captured disappeared in mass...It is apparent that a principal purpose of Anfal was to exterminate all adult males of military service age captured in rural Iraqi Kurdistan.
—Iraq's Crime of Genocide, Human Rights Watch for Middle East
You can kill half a million Kurds in Erbil, but it wont change anything, it will still be Kurdish, but killing 50,000 Kurds in Kirkuk will finish the Kurdish cause forever.
—Major General Wafiq al Samarrai
Within their jurisdiction, the armed forces must kill any human being or animal present in these areas.
—Ali Hassan al-Majid, cousin of Saddam Hussein, order regarding the persecution of Kurds.
Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians
See Quotes.The Armenian GenocideAsiatic Vespers
In the meantime Mithridates built a large number of ships for an attack on Rhodes, and he wrote secretly to all his satraps and magistrates that on the thirtieth day thereafter they should set upon all Romans and Italians in their towns, and upon their wives and children and their domestics of Italian birth, kill them and throw their bodies out unburied, and share their goods with himself. He threatened to punish any who should bury the dead or conceal the living, and offered rewards to informers and to those who should kill persons in hiding, and freedom to slaves for betraying their masters. To debtors for killing money-lenders he offered release from one half of their obligations.
—Appian, The Mithridatic Wars
Bengalis
Kill three million of them, and the rest will eat out of our hands.
—Pakistani President General Yahya Khan (February 22, 1971)
Here in Decca we are mute and horrified witnesses to a reign of terror by the Pak[istani] Military. Evidence continues to mount that the MLA authorities have list of AWAMI League supporters whom they are systematically eliminating by seeking them out in their homes and shooting them down
[...]
[...]
Moreover, with the support of the Pak[istani] Military. non-Bengali Muslims are systematically attacking poor people's quarters and murdering Bengalis and Hindus.
— U.S. Consulate (Dacca) Cable "Selective genocide" by diplomat Archer Blood (March 27, 1971)
Beothuk genocide
Viewed by some settlers as savages, less than human, and as a threat to the safety of their settlements, the Beothuk were systematically hunted with the intent to eradicate all of them from [Newfoundland].
— Bob and Cynthia F. Joseph, Working Effectively with Indigenous Peoples
Black War
Self-defence is the first law of nature. The government must remove the natives—if not, they will be hunted down like wild beasts, and destroyed!
—The Colonial Times, 1826.
Boxer Rebellion
Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.
—Kaiser Wilhelm II (July 27, 1900)
Support the Qing government and exterminate the foreigners.
—Boxer slogan
Carthage
"Carthago delenda est."Translation
— Common saying in Rome around the 3rd century BC, made famous by the statesman Cato
California Genocide
That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected. While we cannot anticipate this result but with painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power or wisdom of man to avert.
—Peter Burnett, first Governor of California (January 6, 1851)
Cathars
"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."Translation
— Arnaud Amalric during the 1209 siege of Beziers, on being asked how to tell the Christians from the heretics (allegedly)
Circassians
"We need the Circassian lands, but we don't have any need of the Circassians themselves."
—General Aleksey Yermolov (around 1840)
"I am killing the Circassians as my heart pleases."
—General Grigory Zass
"These Circassians are just like your American Indians—as untamable and uncivilized... and, owning to their natural energy of character, extermination only would keep them quiet or...to employ their wild and warlike tastes, against others"
—Prince Kochubei, governor of Circassia, to visiting American George Ditson, 1857
In this year of 1864 a deed has been accomplished almost without precedent in history: not one of the mountaineer inhabitants remains on their former places of residence, and measures are being taken to cleanse the region in order to prepare it for the new Russian population.
—Main Staff of the Caucasian Army (1864)
Darfur
Those interviews indicated: ... a consistent and widespread pattern of atrocities: Killings, rapes, burning of villages committed by jingaweit and government forces against non-Arab villagers.
[...]
[...]
We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring. We believe that the evidence corroborates a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part.
—Colin Powell, (September 21 2004)
Human Rights Watch spent 25 days in West Darfur and the vicinity, documenting abuses in rural areas that were previously populated by Masalit and Fur communities. Since August, wide swathes of their homelands, among the most fertile in the region, have been burned and depopulated. With rare exceptions, the countryside has now been emptied of its original Masalit and Fur inhabitants.
—Human Rights Watch, Sudan: Government Commits ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ in Darfur (May 7 2004)
Dzungars
Show no mercy at all to these rebels. Only the old and weak should be saved. Our previous military campaigns were too lenient. If we act as before, our troops will withdraw, and further trouble will occur.
If a rebel is captured and his followers wish to surrender...it is undoubtedly a trick. Tell Tsengünjav to massacre these crafty Zunghars. Do not believe what they say.
If a rebel is captured and his followers wish to surrender...it is undoubtedly a trick. Tell Tsengünjav to massacre these crafty Zunghars. Do not believe what they say.
—Qianlong Emperor
To repress bandits is the way to give rest to the people. To sweep away barbarians is the way to bring stability to the interior.
—Qianlong Emperor
El Salvador
You Germans were very intelligent. You realized that the Jews were responsible for the spread of Communism and you began to kill them.
—Roberto D'Aubuisson talking to German journalists
[D'Aubuisson] openly talked about the need to kill 200,000 to 300,000 people to restore peace in El Salvador.
—Loren Jenkins, journalist, Washington Post
Ethiopia
Comrades, today is the day when we should show our devotion to our Viceroy by reacting and destroying the Ethiopians for three days. For three days I give you carte blanche to destroy and kill and do what you want to the Ethiopians.
—Guido Cortese, (February 19, 1937)
It was thus that, as from the end of January 1936, soldiers, women, children, cattle, rivers, lakes, and pastures were drenched continually with [chemical weapons]. To systematically kill all living creatures, to more surely poison waters and pastures, the Italian command made its aircraft pass over and over again. That was its chief method of warfare.
—Haile Selassie
The Franco Regime
It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do. There can be no cowardice. If we hesitate one moment and fail to proceed with the greatest determination, we will not win. Anyone who helps or hides a Communist or a supporter of the Popular Front will be shot.
—General Emilio Mola
Now I hope you understand what we mean by the regeneration of Spain...Our program consists of exterminating a third of the Spanish male population
—Gonzalo de Aguilera
The repressive policy against Catalan identity, not only against political Catalanism, can be considered an aggression toward a community, toward an identity, and this idea is also applicable to the repression against the Basque and Galician identities. Some historians have qualified this policy of repression as an open attempt at cultural genocide.
—Borja de Riquer
Guatemalan Genocide
We know of your PROCOMMUNIST attitude...We know by experience that all labor organizations and cooperatives always fall into the power of Communist Leaders infiltrated into them. We have the organization and the force to prevent this from happening again... There are THIRTY THOUSAND CLANDESTINE PEASANT GRAVES TO BEAR WITNESS....
—Mano Blanca, in a mimeographed letter sent to Guatemala City cooperatives
Haitian Whites
"Leave nothing white behind you.."
—Jean-Jacques Dessalines
"For our declaration of independence, we should have the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen!"
—Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Hamidian Massacres
"What I myself saw this Friday afternoon [November 1] is forever engraven on my mind as the most horrible sight a man can see. I went with one of the cavasses [guards] of the English Legation, a soldier, my interpreter, and a photographer (Armenian) to the Gregorian Cemetery ....Along the wall on the north, in a row 20 ft wide and 150 ft long, lay 321 dead bodies of the massacred Armenians. Many were fearfully mangled and mutilated. I saw one with his face completely smashed in with a blow of some heavy weapon after he was killed. I saw some with their own necks almost severed by a sword cut. One I saw whose whole chest had been skinned, his fore-arms were cut off, while the upper arm was skinned of flesh. I asked if the dogs had done this. "No, the Turks did it with their knives." A dozen bodies were half burned. All the corpses had been rifled of all their clothes except a cotton undergarment or two....To be killed in battle by brave men is one thing; to be butchered by cowardly armed soldiers in cold blood and utterly defenseless is another thing."
—William Sachtleben, American journalist, in a letter to The Times
'"[Sultan Abdul-Hamid] decided to pursue a policy of severity and terror against the Armenians, and in order to succeed in this respect he elected the method of dealing them an economic blow... he ordered that they absolutely avoid negotiating or discussing anything with the Armenians and that they inflict upon them a decisive strike to settle scores."
—Private secretary to Sultan Abdul-Hamid II
My brother, if you want news from here we have killed 1,200 Armenians, all of them as food for the dogs... Mother, I am safe and sound. Father, 20 days ago we made war on the Armenian unbelievers. Through God’s grace no harm befell us... .There is a rumour afoot that our Batallion will be ordered to your part of the world—if so, we will kill all the Armenians there. Besides, 511 Armenians were wounded, one or two perish every day. If you ask after the soldiers and bashi bozouks [wild irregulars], not one of their noses has bled... May God bless you....
—Letter dated November 23, 1895
I killed [the Armenians] like dogs... .If you ask news in this manner, we slew 2,500 Armenians and looted their goods.
—Letter dated December 23, 1895
Herero and Namaqua
I, the great general of the German soldiers, send this letter to the Herero. The Herero are German subjects no longer... The Herero nation must now leave the country. If it refuses, I shall compel it to do so with the 'long tube'note . Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun or cattle, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. Such are my words to the Herero people.
—Lothar von Trotha (October 2nd, 1904)
“The Nama who chooses not to surrender and lets himself be seen in the German area will be shot, until all are exterminated. Those who, at the start of the rebellion, committed murder against whites or have commanded that whites be murdered have, by law, forfeited their lives. As for the few not defeated, it will fare with them as it fared with the Herero, who in their blindness also believed that they could make successful war against the powerful German Emperor and the great German people. I ask you, where are the Herero today?”
—Lothar von Trotha (April 22, 1905)
This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast, the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.
—Der Kampf (German General Staff official publication)
Tensions reached a head in January 1904, when in protest at their treatment, the Herero launched an uprising in Okahandja during which more than 100 Germans were killed. Despite their wish to avoid further confrontation, the Herero were ruthlessly suppressed six months later by Germans troops under an explicit "annihilation order" issued by General Lothar von Trotha. The Herero were ultimately defeated in a battle at Waterburg and forced into the Kalahari Desert to die of thirst and starvation.
The 13,000 who barely survived, including women and children, were rounded up and placed in concentration camps around the country, where they were beaten and worked to death in squalid conditions. Half of the total Nama population were also killed, many from exhaustion, in disease-ridden death camps such the infamous site on Shark Island, in the coastal town of Luderitz.
The 13,000 who barely survived, including women and children, were rounded up and placed in concentration camps around the country, where they were beaten and worked to death in squalid conditions. Half of the total Nama population were also killed, many from exhaustion, in disease-ridden death camps such the infamous site on Shark Island, in the coastal town of Luderitz.
—The Guardian, The forgotten genocide
The Holocaust
See Quotes/TheHolocaustThe Holodomor
See Quotes/TheHoldomorIndependent State of Croatia
When blood starts to spill it will gush in streams. The blood of the enemy will turn into gushes and rivers, and bombs will scatter their bones like the wind scatters the husks of wheat. Every Ustaša is poised.. to thrust himself upon the enemy, with his body and soul, to kill and destroy it. The dedication, revolvers, bombs, and sharp knives of the Croatian Ustaše will cleanse and cut whatever is rotten from the healthy body of the Croatian people.
—Mijo Babić (1932)
This country can only be a Croatian country, and there is no method we would hesitate to use in order to make it truly Croatian and cleanse it of Serbs, who have for centuries endangered us and who will endanger us again if they are given the opportunity.
—Minister of the NDH Legislative council Milovan Žanić (May 2, 1941)
Increased activity of the bands [of rebels] is chiefly due to atrocities carried out by Ustaše units in Croatia against the Orthodox population. The Ustaše committed their deeds in a bestial manner not only against males of conscript age, but especially against helpless old people, women and children. The number of the Orthodox that the Croats have massacred and sadistically tortured to death is about three hundred thousand.
—Gestapo report to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (February 17, 1942)
Japanese war crimes
These operations targeted for destruction “enemies pretending to be local people” and “all males between the ages of fifteen and sixty whom we suspect to be enemies.” They continued off and on for the next four years, gradually becoming larger in scale, more organized, systematic, and widespread.
—Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
Kill all captives.
—General Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, marking the start of the Rape of Nanking
Even women and children have become guerrillas. All people on the battlefield with the exception of Japanese military personnel, Japanese civilians, and special construction units will be put to death.
—Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi during the Rape of Manila
As they fought their way towards the then capital of China, Nanking, Japanese troops left a trail of brutality behind them. In the city of Suchow on the banks of the Tai Hu Lake, for example, they raped and murdered to such a degree that, according to the Chinese Weekly Review, only 500 people were left in the city out of a pre-war population of 350,000.
—Laurence Rees, Horror in the East: The Japanese at War 1931–1945
We were brought up to kill communists and in this province everybody was communist so these people should all be killed for the emperor. That was the thinking of the ordinary soldiers.
—Japanese WWII veteran Hajime Kondo
Josef Stalin
Did you hear what happened in Germany? Hitler, what a great man! This is the way to deal with your political enemies!
—Attributed by Valentin Berezkhov to Stalin regarding the Night of the Long Knives; likely a justification of the Great Purge
The idea of a concentration camp is excellent.
—In reference to Estonian opposition to Soviet rule
Keep on digging up and cleaning out this Polish filth. Eliminate it in the interests of the Soviet Union.
—Regarding the Polish Operation of the NKVD
Death solves all problems. No man, no problem!
—Attributed to Stalin
''There was an old bastard named Lenin,
Who did two or three million men in.
That's a lot to have done in,
But where he did one in,
That old bastard Stalin did ten in.''
—Robert Conquest, Author of The Great Terror and The Harvest of Sorrow
Kampuchea
We will burn the old grass and the new will grow.
—Pol Pot
In the new Kampuchea, one million is all we need to continue the revolution. We don’t need the rest. We prefer to kill ten friends rather than keep one enemy alive.
—Khmer Rouge slogan
[If every soldier kills 25 Vietnamese] we will need only 2 million troops to crush the 50 million Vietnamese; and we still would have 6 million people left.
—Radio Phnom Penh
The Cham nation no longer exists on Kampuchean soil belonging to the Khmer. Accordingly, Cham nationality, language, customs and religious beliefs must be immediately abolished. Those who fail to obey this order will suffer all the consequences for their acts of opposition...
—Government order (1979)
Cambodia lost a third of its total population in merely 3 years and 8 months of Pol Pot rule, unprecedented in history. Khmer Rouge swiftly ascended to the peak of irrationality after seizing power. Surpassing Stalin's Great Purge in speed, China's Cultural Revolution in breadth, the Holocaust in savagery, and the Rwandan Genocide in destruction... Even nearing the end of his life, Pol Pot claimed "I am not massacring, but fighting."... We can only say it is one madman's challenge to all humans, to the bottom line of humanity. This is a relentless, chanting march into the dark that brings annihilation to humanity and self, an auto-genocide.
—Yanhuang Chunqiu (Chinese journal)
Kazakhs
Today, the government and people of Kazakhstan commemorate the terror famine Stalin unleashed against the Kazakhs in 1932-33, an action that killed more than 1.5 million members of that nation and qualifies as a genocide because it transformed the ethnic mix of that republic, allowing ethnic Russians to be the dominant group until the 1980s.
—Paul Goble, Eurasia Review, "Another Soviet Genocide – Kazakhstan, 1932-1933 — Coming Back To Haunt Moscow – OpEd"
Libya
We must first of all create a wide and precise territorial separation between rebel formations and submissive populations. I do not hide the scope and gravity of this provision that will mean the ruin of the so-called submissive population. But now the path has been traced to us and we must pursue it even if it were to perish the entire population of Cyrenaica.
—Marshal Pietro Badoglio, governor of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica during Mussolini's pacification of Libya
Mahdist Revolt
Cease to pay taxes to the infidel Turks, and let everyone who finds a Turk kill him, for the Turks are infidels.
—Muhammad Ahmad, the "Mad Mahdi".
He who does not believe in me will be purified by the sword.
—Muhammad Ahmad
Morioris
Morioris were taken prisoners, the women and children were bound, and many of these, together with the men, were killed and eaten, so that the corpses lay scattered in the woods and over the plains. Those who were spared from death were herded like swine, and even killed from year to year.
—Michael King, Moriori: A People Rediscovered
We were terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed, men, women and children indiscriminately.
—Minarapa and Kirapu to government agents (1860s)
Operation Lentil
They [NKVD agents] combed the huts to make sure there was no one left behind... The soldier who came into the house did not want to bend down. He raked the hut with a burst from his submachine gun. Blood trickled out from under the bench where a child was hiding. The mother screamed and hurled herself at the soldier. He shot her too. There was not enough rolling stock. Those left behind were shot. The bodies were covered with earth and sand, carelessly. The shooting had also been careless, and people started wriggling out of the sand like worms. The NKVD men spent the whole night shooting them all over again.
—eyewitness reports of Soviet removal of Chechens, 1944
[T]here are 38 religious groups in Chechnya with membership of at least 20,000 people, who conduct active anti-Soviet work, help the bandits and German saboteurs, and call for armed resistance to the Soviet power.
—NKVD report to Lavrentiy Beria justifying removal of Chechens
Philippine-American War
I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States.
—General Jacob Smith
Rohingya genocide
Since last august, Rajuma and some 700,000 Rohingya have flooded across the border into Bangladesh with harrowingly consistent stories of murder and rape. Authorities in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, barred investigators and journalists from entering northern Rakhine to independently verify refugees’ accounts, but when I arrived in the Bangladesh camps last September, just weeks after the Tula Toli massacre, the physical evidence of genocide against civilians was overwhelming: gaping gunshot wounds, women with shredded limbs, a newborn with a bullet graze on his head, and countless orphans, dazed and hungry from breathless journeys and the raw terror of what they had seen. From the edge of the camps, I could see smoke curdling on the horizon as Burmese soldiers razed more villages to the ground. It was the most rapid human exodus since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
—Jason Motlagh, Rolling Stone
Rwanda
8. Hutus should stop having mercy on Tutsis
—Hutu Ten Commandments (1990)
What tools will we use to defeat the Inyenzinote once and for all?
—Hassan Ngeze alongside an image of a machete, Kangura (November 1991 edition)
These people called Inyenzis are now on their way to attack us.... I am telling you, and I am not lying, it is...they only want to exterminate us. They only want to exterminate us: they have no other aim... Are we really waiting till they come to exterminate us?
—Léon Mugesera (1992 speech)
It is time to clear the brush, good Hutus of Rwanda. We must cut the tall trees. Cut the tall trees now.
—Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, April 6th, 1994
Uganda
A high-ranking Ugandan army officer who held senior post in President Idi Amin's government until he fled to Kenya earlier this month says that "Amin personally gave the order that all Lango and Acholi soldiers should be killed."
...
The officer escaped from Uganda earlier this month after he had been forewarned that his name was on a death list. "They were hunting Christians not because we made mistakes but just for the sake of killing Christians," he said.
...
The officer escaped from Uganda earlier this month after he had been forewarned that his name was on a death list. "They were hunting Christians not because we made mistakes but just for the sake of killing Christians," he said.
—Roger Mann, The Washington Post
Yazidis
Their continual existence to this day is a matter that Muslims should question as they will be asked about it on Judgement Day.
—Dabiq (May 21, 2015)
Yazidi women and children [are to be] divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations … Enslaving the families of the kuffar and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the Prophet … and thereby apostatizing from Islam.
—Dabiq
Not even children were spared. To see history repeating itself, and the calamities of the past unfolding again, spelled out in the eyes of the victims and survivors, was unbearable.
—Widad Akreyi
The Yugoslav Wars
Milošević believes he now has the historic opportunity to, once and for all, settle accounts with the Croats and do what Serbian politicians after World War I did not - rally all Serbs in one Serbian state.
—Belgrade newspaper Borba, (August 1991)
Here we are, on the eleventh of July of the year 1995, in Serbian Srebrenica. On the eve of yet another great Serb holiday we present this town as a gift to the Serb nation. The moment has finally arrived that, after the revolt against the Dahijas, we will have vengeance against the Turks in this place.
—Ratko Mladić
...the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing as implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 with the direct support of Serbian regime of Slobodan Milošević and its followers ultimately led to the displacement of more than 2,000,000 people, an estimated 200,000 killed, tens of thousands raped or otherwise tortured and abused, and the innocent civilians of Sarajevo and other urban centres repeatedly subjected to shelling and sniper attacks; meet the terms defining the crime of genocide in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, created in Paris on 9 December 1948, and entered into force on 12 January 1951.
—H.Res. 199 (109th) (June 27, 2005)
By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity.
—International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
Other
This is a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds for such actions which cannot otherwise but work remorse and regret.
Oliver Cromwell on the Drogheda Massacre
If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy.
—James K. Vardaman, governor of Mississippi (1907)
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows and arrows, sling shots and knives. We hold these truths to be self evident that all whites are created equal with certain rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead niggers.
—"Declaration of Segregation" handbill distributed during a 1956 anti-integration rally in Montgomery from the Central Alabama Citizens' Council, to which attended 10,000, among them the mayor and Senator James Eastland (D-MS), to protest against the bus boycott
handbill distributed during a 1956 anti-integration rally in Montgomery from the Central Alabama Citizens' Council, to which attended 10,000, among them the mayor and Senator James Eastland (D-MS), to protest against the bus boycottWe'll set up our own state here [in Texas] and announce that all non-whites have 24 hours to leave. Lots of them won't believe it or won't believe us when we say we'll get rid of them, so we'll have to exterminate a lot of them the first time around.
—Louis Beam, Grand Dragon of the Texas chapter of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1980)
The commentary was, "I shot communists in Vietnam. Why wouldn’t I do that here?" I couldn’t stop thinking about that.
—Kathleen Belew discussing the rationale of one of the perpetrators of the Greensboro massacre
For some months, I have traveled and traversed the border in every sense of the word. I have seen, investigated, and inquired about the needs of the population. To the Dominicans who were complaining of the depredations by Haitians living among them, thefts of cattle, provisions, fruits, etc., and were thus prevented from enjoying in peace the products of their labor, I have responded, 'I will fix this.' And we have already begun to remedy the situation. Three hundred Haitians are now dead in Bánica. This remedy will continue.
Rafael Trujillo in the lead-up to the Parsley Massacre against Haitians.
against Haitians.Well, I was ordered to go in there and destroy the enemy. That was my job on that day. That was the mission I was given. I did not sit down and think in terms of men, women, and children. They were all classified the same, and that was the classification that we dealt with, just as enemy soldiers...I felt then and I still do that I acted as I was directed, and I carried out the orders that I was given, and I do not feel wrong in doing so, sir.
—2nd Lieutenant William Calley, perpetrator of the My Lai Massacre during The Vietnam War
during The Vietnam WarWhen you discover a nest of vipers in your yard, do you spare the adolescents? Do you allow them to grow freely, openly, to one day bite your child as they play in their own yard? No. You burn the nest and kill the vipers, no matter their age. The enemies of our children are being born in our lands right now, even as you read this. These same children will one day become teens, then adults, voting against the wishes of our people, practicing the cultural and religious practices of the invaders, taking our peoples lands, work, houses and even attacking and killing our children. A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Preventing these enemies from reaching adulthood and their full potential of effect is of the importance. Why make your children fight, when you could fight in their stead?
—Brenton Tarrant, perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque attacks
Sichuan's landscape is most dangerous, and the nature of its people is evil; Your Majesty has been in Sichuan for less than two years, and the people are not yet attached to you. If you leave now, they will roar and gather to rebel... According to the humble opinion of this minister, we should kill every civilian in the city, whether good or bad, old or young. Then, order all the generals and governor to lead their troops in every direction, kill all the people in the prefectures, counties, and cities, and burn their houses. Send troops to every hill and every village, whether night or day, massacre them all. Establish rewards: Anyone who chops more than 200 pairs of men's hands or 400 pairs of women's will be promoted, young children don’t count… When this is done, all of Sichuan will become a red land where natives cannot gather. Other who seek to conquer it would realise they can’t keep it when they see the smoke and the overgrown grass.
—Wang Zhaoling, adviser to the warlord Zhang Xianzhong, perpetrator of the Massacre of Sichuan (in Chinese)
(in Chinese)As they were led through the cities of the Rhine and the Main and also the Danube, they either utterly destroyed the execrable race of the Jews wherever they found them (being even in this matter zealously devoted to the Christian religion) or forced them into the bosom of the Church.
—Ekkehard of Aura on the Rhineland Massacres of 1096.
of 1096.The Emperor has the right to slay even peaceful infidels simply because they are pagans […] The Poles deserve death for defending infidels, and should be exterminated even more than the infidels; they should be deprived of their sovereignty and reduced to slavery.
—Johannes Falkenberg, Liber de doctrina (1416)
[Y]ou should not spare them [the Ndebele]. You should kill all you can, as it serves as a lesson to them when they talk things over at their fires at night.
—Cecil Rhodes to British South Africa Company soldiers during the Second Matabele War
Do you know that there’s hardly anyone left of last year’s Caucasian governments? I’ve tried to stop it, but in vain. Yet they can’t all be Trotskyites and traitors.
—Lavrentiy Beria, People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs, NKVD
"The Islamic insurgents who invaded Dagestan were not attempting to liberate Chechnya. Chechen independence had been sustained three years earlier in August 1996. Rather the insurgents were attempting to impose radical Islamist rule upon populations who wanted no part of it, and who wished to continue their practice of traditional North Caucasian Islam as citizens of the Russian Federation. Those invasions involved approximately 2,000 insurgents, resulted in dozens of deaths, destroyed communities, displaced 32,000 Dagestanis, and were potentially genocidal in that they attacked mountain villages accommodating entire populations of small ethno-linguistic groups."
—Robert Bruce Ware, Chechnya, Past and Future (2005)
''The double amputees were victims of the second wave of terror, called Operation No Living Thing. It peaked on January 6, 1999, with a surprise attack on Freetown by rebel infiltrators and remnants of the Army who called themselves the West Side Boys, because it made them sound like American gangsters. Thousands in the city were killed, and hundreds more were mutilated...dismembered, or burned alive while the rebels taunted them; family members were forced to watch, and even to perform atrocities,"
—George Packer, journalist for The New Yorker, on the Sierra Leone Civil War
For it is fully agreed that to all dwelling in this country it will be well known that, since a decree was sent out by me with the counsel of my leading men and magnates, to the effect that all the Danes who had sprung up in this island, sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat, were to be destroyed by a most just extermination, and thus this decree was to be put into effect even as far as death...
—King Æthelred of England on the St Brice's Day massacre
...but Cadwalla, though he bore the name and professed himself a Christian, was so barbarous in his disposition and behaviour, that he neither spared the female sex, nor the innocent age of children, but with savage cruelty put them to tormenting deaths, ravaging all their country for a long time, and resolving to cut off all the race of the English within the borders of Britain.
—Saint Bede of Northumbria on Cadwallon's conquest of Northumbria, Ecclesiastical History of the English People
's conquest of Northumbria, Ecclesiastical History of the English People