On July 22, the Polish Sejm declared that the killing in 1943 by Ukrainian nationalists of “over 100,000” Polish citizens in Volhynia, in Ukraine’s northwest, was a genocide. On June 2, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the self-styled head of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, stated that “The public of Donbas initiates an appeal to the international organisations to stop the genocide of the people of Donbas by the Ukrainian authorities….”
OP-ED
Alexander J. Motyl: Trivializing genocide – a dangerous distraction
View of the plenary hall of the Polish parliament during the inaugural session of the new Polish parliament on November 12, 2015 in Warsaw.
What do the Polish Sejm and the Donetsk People's Republic have in common? They've both contributed to the ongoing transformation of genocide into a term that has come to stand for little more than deplorable acts of violence.
