Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Deception, Victims

Deception is a key element of genocide. The perpetrators, always a government or other organized group, are able to operate in secrecy, whereas the victims, usually dispersed or leaderless, find it difficult to coordinate their knowledge and actions, and are also hampered by psychological barriers to belief and action. For these reasons victims can not only be easily deceived, but can be co-opted or coerced into helping to deceive outsiders. On the other hand, victims are sometimes able to evade genocide by hiding, fleeing, or assuming false identities, and to the extent that groups of victims are able to discover the truth and organize themselves, armed resistance may also be possible. All these responses require concealment both in preparation and execution, and hence are possible only if the victims in turn are able to deceive the perpetrators.

Ironically, past patterns of persecution short of genocide can help the perpetrators...