American statistics on domestic violence in police families show us interesting things. As it turns out, up to 40% of police officers in the USA practice violence against their loved ones. The level of violence in police families is up to 4 times higher than that in American society as a whole. It is worth noting that this is the result of several anonymous surveys of the officers themselves. Their families rarely complain about violence or seek help, as they do not expect it from the colleagues of their abusers. And officers are indeed rarely brought to actual charges of domestic violence—while 92% of reports are generally investigated, in the case of officers, this figure is only 42%. This means that the level of domestic violence in police families may actually be much higher than 40%. Also, among representatives of all professions in general, police officers turned out to be the most prone to domestic violence.
Of course, this is only American statistics, but there is no reason not to assume that employees of security forces will be significantly more violent than the rest of the population in all countries. And there is no need to be surprised by this. Obviously, it is more violent people—those who do not feel strong resistance or aversion to committing violence, and who have weaker empathy—who will be more inclined to choose a profession where the initiation of violence is a professional duty.
What does this mean for society? In effect, existing systems of social management and law enforcement worldwide, based on the “legitimate monopoly” of a certain body (the state) in the application of violence, become tools in the hands of violent people. A small percentage of abusers gains power over everyone else—normal people, who for the most part never commit violence. And obviously, these abusers will use coercive power in their own interests, not limiting themselves to certain norms and laws, or interpreting and rewriting them to suit themselves. Nor will they certainly renounce violence in their private lives, considering it generally a normal tool for achieving certain goals, or even resorting to it to relieve stress and aggressiveness, taking it out on the people around them.
It is important to understand that the issue is why some people commit violence. They may, of course, be provoked or prompted by certain events and goals, but more importantly—they simply do not feel sufficient resistance and aversion to violence, including having weaker empathy compared to other people. This is precisely how violence in human society can be explained, if we refer to the concept of the violence inhibition mechanism, which asserts that every normally developing individual possesses innate restraints against aggression toward other people, the presence of which is also important for the development of empathy.
Can we expect people capable of easily committing violence due to a lack of such restraints to limit its use only as a tool for maintaining the law and some kind of justice? No, of course not; for them, violence is the norm, they feel nothing negative toward it, and they will resort to it whenever they deem it necessary. That is why any social system, the enforcement of whose order requires violent reinforcement, can hardly be called just or working for the benefit of the ordinary person—such systems only provide advantages to abusers and strengthen their power over normal people.
In the first article, written a long time ago, I explained what tokenomics is and how it is applied in Montelibero. Also, not long ago, I published a post where I shared my observation that a functioning tokenomics is exactly the unique feature today that distinguishes our community from other offline projects—both libertarian ones and those not concerned with ideology (except, perhaps, Kolionovo, but nothing has been heard from there for a while). Now the time has come for the long-announced second article—about how to enter our tokenomics and how to navigate it.
If you have already moved to Montenegro, the best way is a personal meeting, where everything will be shown to you, they will help you install it, and make sure everything is working. Therefore, the following text is for those who have not yet moved here, which is by no means an obstacle to entering the tokenomics.
In this case, you will most likely need the tokens of our main investment fund MTL, as well as euro-stablecoins EURMTL (at least to receive dividends from the fund). If you intend to limit yourself to this, a special solution has been created for you that requires minimal effort: a wallet in the Telegram bot @MyMTLWalletBot.
Launch the bot and press “Create free account.” That’s it, you have a wallet with two open trust lines: to the EURMTL stablecoin and to the Montelibero investment fund token MTL.
By clicking the Receive button, you will see your public key, which you can use to receive tokens.
Now you just need to contact the fund representatives through another simple Telegram bot @mtl_helper_bot, agree on the purchase of MTL tokens using a payment method convenient for you, provide them with the address from the previous image—and the purchased tokens will arrive there. Subsequently, dividends in EURMTL will arrive at this same address every week.
Sooner or later, you may require more advanced functionality, and then it is definitely worth getting a more serious wallet.
If it is important to you that the wallet does not ask for unnecessary information and has open-source code, your choice is Solar. After installing and launching the application, you can add any number of accounts, although in most cases one will be sufficient.
Click Add account
Since you presumably have no existing account to import, click Create account
If desired, the account can be protected with a password
A key pair is generated. You are asked to ensure that no one is about to take a screenshot of your screen, after which you click Reveal key to see and save your private key, which is used to sign transactions.
Now you have an empty account. By entering it, you can click Receive and get your public key, which is also the wallet address where tokens can be sent to you.
When you have just created an account, it cannot be used yet because any operations require the payment of fees in the internal Stellar cryptocurrency, Lumens (XLM). It costs pennies, so just contact the fund representatives through the same @mtl_helper_bot, provide your public key, and they will give you some for free. Only when the first lumens arrive in your wallet will the account be considered created, and the person who sent these lumens will be recorded in the blockchain as the account creator.
So, the first lumens are received, and the account is working. By clicking the menu icon, you can see all the simple functionality of the wallet, in which we are currently interested in the “Assets & Balances” item.
To acquire any tokens other than XLM, you need to open trust lines to them. Click Add Asset To Your Account.
In the window that opens, type “mtl” and you will see the search results. We are interested in the MTL token issued by mtl.montelibero.org (fakes issued by someone else may be found; they should not be added). Click on it to see the token description.
All that’s left is to click ADD ASSET TO ACCOUNT, and the trust line to the token is open. In doing so, 0.5 XLM is frozen; they will be unfrozen if you decide to delete the trust line to the token.
In a similar way, add a trust line to EURMTL—again, choosing specifically the token issued by mtl.montelibero.org from the search results.
That’s it; you have now manually reproduced what was done with one button in the Telegram bot. However, this account is completely under your control.
The Solar wallet is convenient if you want to have several different addresses for different needs and are ready to independently organize the storage of those addresses to which you need to make transfers fairly regularly. Also, using this wallet means that you do not frequently require automatic token-to-token exchange. Otherwise, it makes sense to consider a wallet that is less aligned with advanced ideas of privacy but possesses some additional functionality.
This functionality is provided by the Lobstr wallet, which is used by most of the people who moved to Montenegro. This is a web wallet, which also exists as a mobile application. A simple account setup procedure:
Click Get Started
If desired, protect the account with a password
As you can see, the wallet requires an email address, which, in theory, is not necessary for working with crypto. After confirming the email, you can go to settings and save your keys: public (starts with G) and private (starts with S, not visible on the screen, opened by the “Reveal secret key” button). You can also set a Federation address, which is similar in syntax to an email and is therefore easy to remember.
Notifications of operations will then arrive by email, and tokens can be sent to your federation address as well as to your public key. Also, this wallet allows you to save your counterparties in a contact database under human names, which is why I personally value it.
Next, when sending tokens, you have the option to choose a recipient from the contact list.
Select which tokens you are sending and how many. If desired, you can add a short text comment, which will also be recorded in the blockchain. That’s it, you can press Send.
Another advanced feature of this wallet is token exchange. Click Swap assets.
Next, choose which tokens you are selling and which you want to buy. The wallet searches for all open sell/buy orders for all tokens in the Stellar blockchain and tries to build a chain of exchanges that will give you the desired result.
Thus, you can freely exchange a wide variety of tokens. For example, as shown in the screenshot, buy my personal ANCAPCHAN tokens using EURMTL (after first opening a trust line to them). In doing so, firstly, you donate to me; secondly, you receive a collectible token in return; and thirdly, if at some point you decide to get your euros back, you can always sell the token back. Admit it, this is a more flexible scheme than simply sending money to my address.
So, you have chosen the most convenient Stellar wallet for you and mastered the basic operations with it. Now you have the opportunity, for example, to regularly invest part of your ruble earnings into the Montelibero fund (considering that, at the time of writing these instructions, the ruble has an artificially inflated exchange rate due to Russian Central Bank regulations, such a tactic looks very attractive). This is more meaningful than simply donating to the project’s needs because donations are just money, whereas with investments, we also get the minds of investors interested in multiplying capital, not spending it.
After buying your first MTL, you will be added to the token holders’ chat, where investment policy is discussed, and if you are lucky enough to be in the top twenty by share of ownership in the fund, you will gain the right to sign its decisions. Mainly, this means the obligation to certify the dividend payment transaction every Friday, but from time to time, more interesting issues must be resolved. Until a certain threshold of signatures is reached, a decision on a particular payment simply cannot be technically processed.
There is also an option to delegate your voting right to another project participant, and if enough of these accumulate so that their total ownership share puts them in the top twenty, the delegate becomes a signer (I am currently among them for this very reason; my personal ownership share is no longer enough). Our colleague Soz wrote a good guide on how to delegate a vote. Also, you might be interested in his guide on how to support a useful member of the community. Such support will mean more than just a symbolic gesture. The project participant you support becomes part of the distributed government of Montelibero—a collegiate body which, unlike the twenty fund signers, deals not only with the fund but with the project as a whole: where to go, where to advertise, and how to react to challenges.
And further, it is hoped that you will become sufficiently experienced in tokenomics, expand your portfolio from just MTL to tokens of specific businesses that interest you most, and look closely at the surrounding reality, estimating where tokenization could be useful. Ancap is expansive; there is no need to be shy about it. Here, you can admire the list of goods and services that you can already purchase using EURMTL. Your business may also soon find itself on this list.
Alex Rozov (an author of near-libertarian trans-utopias whom I rate quite highly) examined in his LiveJournal a set of concepts promoted by Bitarh and Voluntarist regarding the possibilities for radically reducing violence in human society.
The author believes that a one-time removal of aggressive individuals from the human population would likely be insufficient, and to consolidate success, a “culturocide” is also necessary—that is, the abolition from culture of patterns that encourage and heroize aggressive violence.
The author analyzes a series of articles on the violence inhibitor, noting that its appearance in humans is entirely evolutionarily grounded (the currently mainstream hypothesis of human self-domestication in scientific discourse), and also attempts to answer the question of to what extent it would be advisable to strengthen it (betrization is a term introduced by Stanisław Lem, referring precisely to the procedure of sharply increasing the violence inhibitor). The answer is discouraging: no single-step action will lead to the desired result, as society is regulated by mechanisms that are too complex. The author believes that the simple ability to defend oneself against immediate violence (which is ensured by the fact that the inhibitor’s action is temporarily weakened in a moment of immediate danger) does not provide sufficient feedback to bring society to the desired non-violent state; the readiness to retaliate stealthily is also important.
Thus, the difference in approaches is clearly highlighted. While Bitarh and Voluntarist, in exploring a mechanism that regulates human reactions, further speculate based on a fantastic premise about forcibly strengthening this mechanism in certain individuals, Alex Rozov considers natural human communities and the mechanisms that could lead them to the desired result (a society of free, prosperous individuals who highly value cooperation and development). His fantastic premises mostly lie in the technical sphere (technologies of war, information exchange, and organization) or boil down to the idea that the right people should gather in sufficient concentration and number.
Nevertheless, all three are convinced that removing individuals prone to aggressive violence from a community produces a powerful positive effect. I will note for myself that not all lustration is the same, and if a community is cleansed in such a way that those removed become its enemies, it could lead to serious problems in the future.
In Montelibero, we see so far that selecting people for the community who share the principle of non-aggression leads to a high level of cooperation. The removal of those with whom it is uncomfortable in the community currently happens through fairly soft rejection. I would prefer not to test how capable such a community would be to resist external aggression if the occasion arose, but so far, based on the general mood, it is not apparent that the chances of successfully repelling aggression are significantly higher or lower than those of any other cohesive community.
In other words, for now, we are managing with Rozov’s methods. Bitarh’s methods might be in demand for correcting the external background, but they are technically unavailable today. Rozov’s methods for the interaction of a free society with the outside world (creating a decentralized environment for conducting special operations to expand the space of freedom) are currently available to us to a minimal extent, at the level of maneuvering between state regulations.
That’s how things stand.
opasan pas – Montenegrin localization of the libertarian snake
A very common mistake in the study of phenomena such as wars and genocides is the incorrect correlation between the number of those who actually committed killings and other forms of violence and the number of victims who suffered from that violence. Some may even think that the number of killers is roughly equal to the number of killed, which would mean that wars and genocides with millions of victims prove the capacity for brutal violence even in the average person. But to think this way would be a grave error.
One can recall that according to some military researchers, such as Dave Grossman, 98% of soldiers on the front line experience strong resistance to committing murder, and only 2% lack such resistance. The deaths of up to 2 million inhabitants of Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime were the fault of only 55-70 thousand Khmer Rouge (averaging about 30-40 killings per killer). And one researcher of the Rwandan genocide claims that there is nothing impossible about even 25 thousand people killing hundreds of thousands, if not a million people in 100 days—for this, one killer would have to commit on average only one killing every 2.5 days (or 40 killings in total).
In peaceful everyday life, as a rule, there are 2.5 violent crimes per one violent criminal. Less than 0.1% of people commit more than a dozen violent crimes. But what level can such “recidivism” reach in the case of wars, genocides, or repressions, when killing becomes something acceptable, permitted, or even required?
Let’s look at some well-known extreme cases. You have probably heard of the following figures at least once: — the Croatian war criminal Petar Brzica, who personally killed up to 1,360 Serbs in one night (according to the most conservative estimates, 670 killings were committed); — the NKVD officer Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhìn, who personally shot between 10,000 and 20,000 people throughout his service.
In the case of wars, genocides, and repressions, one killer can indeed personally commit hundreds and thousands of killings. In principle, such figures can be expected from any person who is capable of easily committing murder without experiencing any resistance or disgust. Does a killer have any incentive to stop and kill less when they have been given an unlimited right to do so? It would be absurd to expect such a thing from a killer; rather, he will kill until the very end, and if the opportunity arises, he will personally kill hundreds and thousands of people.
Based on what we know about genocides, in practice, one average killer in a state of “violent omnipotence” is most likely to manage to commit several dozen killings. Of course, this still indicates that the actual killers in any situation are a tiny minority of people, meaning that the number of victims of mass killings significantly exceeds the number of killers themselves. Wars, genocides, and repressions never work on the principle of “one day a million people took to the streets and killed another million people.” If a million people were indeed killed somewhere, it means that only several tens of thousands of killers took to the streets with violent intentions.
The topic of a “good Russian passport” is being actively chewed over online, mostly, of course, with criticism of the idea. The arguments are usually roughly as follows:
This kind of ausweis reinforces the presumption of guilt for all Russians: by default, they are all under sanctions, but you can prove to the “kind uncles” that you are a good Russian, and then they will give you a piece of paper stating that you are allowed roughly the same things as other ordinary people; if you behave badly, the paper will be taken away in a heartbeat.
Instead of trying to beg for concessions only for political emigrants, we should strive for sanctions to be lifted from everyone, leaving only personal ones for the direct perpetrators of the war.
Such a division of Russians into grades will drive a wedge between them.
The very name “good Russian passport” is disgusting.
I will approach this from a different angle.
Today’s norm is the serf-like dependence of a subject on the country to which they belong. If you are lucky enough to be a subject of a kind master—rejoice. If not—suffer. If you want to renounce your subjecthood—only with the master’s permission, and he might not allow you to leave. If you want to switch to another subjecthood—only with the master’s permission, and he might not allow you to arrive.
And here we are offered to acquire a document that literally states: the holder of this document publicly tells their master to fuck off and demands that other masters recognize the holder’s human dignity, and whoever does not recognize it does not belong to the family of civilized nations and is in the service of the enemy of the human race. In other words, Russian emigrants opposing Putin’s aggression in Ukraine are literally creating their own extraterritorial contractual jurisdiction. This not only solves the local problems of specific individuals, allowing them to enter into market relations with other people and organizations without restrictions. It also undermines the very idea of state sovereignty over people.
I don’t know exactly which of the anti-war forum participants came up with this, but the idea is definitely a bright one. However, I will readily agree with the argument that “good Russian passport” sounds disgusting. Firstly, it is not a passport, but a declaration, similar to the “declaration on signing the NAP” that Mikhail Svetov tried to push on everyone at one time, but then apparently lost interest in the idea. Secondly, the expression “good Russian” should refer to a dead Russian occupier, not a living Russian emigrant.
Personally, I define myself now as a crnogorska Ruskinja, and if this status of mine is certified by a lična kartica of some special format—why not, it’s just a token.
In a recent Montelibero news post, I mentioned that among the project participants, there are surprisingly few—not to mention active members—of either of the two Libertarian parties of Russia, or even people somehow connected to them. Perhaps this thought is worth expanding upon.
Of course, at the start of the project, no one could say exactly what it would turn into over time. One founder saw it as a center for agorism. Another as a platform for the future transformation of Montenegro along libertarian lines. For me, it was a platform for the evacuation of Russian political activists from the Putin regime. As a result, we do indeed have a center for agorism, and the strategic goal of transforming Montenegro is written in our project description, although we haven’t made much progress in that direction. As for the evacuation platform—we indeed became one, but more and more people joining us are not political activists, but ordinary libertarians who aren’t interested in any such politics.
And, you know, it seems that this is actually a good thing. Judging by what reached me during the period when I was still relatively close with political libertarians, the bulk of their party activity boiled down to bickering over the charter and dividing power within the party (which happened to be splitting in two at the time). Here, frictions occasionally arise regarding the coordination of joint activities, but there is none of this endless expelling of people from the movement. You approve of the market, you don’t approve of state intervention, you don’t practice coercion—well, great, we are on the same path, and you can get acquainted with the smart books in your spare time, if you get around to it.
I was recently asked what, exactly, distinguishes our community from any other hangout, since here in Montenegro, there are several other emigrant groups that likewise do not practice violence and fully approve of freedom. I had to think about it, and as a result of my reflections, I found the only fundamental difference: we have tokenomics. That is, essentially, we simply actively practice the formalization of our market relations and obligations in an explicit form, and it is precisely this that gives us the opportunity to develop very actively.
The question arises: what if some other community manages to implement tokenomics for themselves, how will they differ from us? And here I note with surprise that, in essence, they won’t. Tokenomics (unlike cryptocurrencies) operates on trust, because linking tokens to real-world objects is impossible without trust. And trust among community members is possible only because they share a common value, such as a love for the market—specifically, for voluntary transactions. Any inclinations toward ideas that it’s useful to deceive “suckers” will be immediately rejected by the community (along with the carriers of such ideas), because our mutual obligations are not secured by any state violence, and deploying the tools of private violence is expensive and troublesome, and just not worth it. If some other community manages to reproduce similar relations within itself, we can boldly recognize them as our equals, and at the same time recognize their tokens. Thus, a completely seemingly auxiliary tool unnoticedly turns out to be a unique feature and almost the basis of identity.
As for political methods of solving problems, it’s truly better to leave them to the parties. And for them, we are apparently doomed to remain a completely non-political project, whether for selling land or some other politically meaningless activity. Let’s wish these guys luck in their mission, but if any party member wants to move from politics to economics—our doors are open.
A rather interesting pattern can be traced in a great many genocides. They were preceded by the introduction of regulations and bans on civilian weaponry. Often, such bans directly preceded the genocides. Very convenient for government thugs and other bandits, isn’t it? To strip the common people of their weapons, and then calmly and almost without any resistance exterminate the undesirable part of the population.
To advocate for gun laws and against the natural human right to defend one’s own life means supporting the exclusive armament of a minority of perpetrators. After all, bans only work against peaceful and law-abiding citizens, who would never in their lives use a weapon to commit an attack, but only for the purpose of self-defense. Meanwhile, government agents and lawless bandits will keep their weapons regardless. Is this really what opponents of the freedom of armament and self-defense desire—that governments hold totalitarian power over people, and bandits have complete freedom to commit violence without facing resistance from their victims?
The previous issue was mainly about how the start of the war affected the project (in short: the influx of people accelerated, and bringing in money became harder). Since then, the war has become routine, it no longer attracts as much painful attention, and people have switched back to peaceful life.
Construction of the settlement is progressing actively; the first two foundations were poured the other day.
The media coverage of the project has also grown significantly. I am no longer the main mouthpiece of Montelibero, but just an old information channel, but the main content is now provided by entirely different people. For example, you can check out a short drone video on Soz’s channel, which clearly shows where the settlement is located relative to the nearest town and what the activity on site looks like. Soz has taken over my role as the main construction inspector; I can breathe a sigh of relief. Or, for instance, Viktor gave an interview to a friendly project creating a decentralized legal platform, where he explained who we are and why we gathered here.
There are currently fifty Montelibero activists who have directly relocated to Montenegro (the strangest thing for me is that there are very few members of the Libertarian Party of Russia among them—it’s completely unclear where they all went; some remained in the RF and are active, but most seem to have vanished without a trace). Additionally, a core of supporters from the diaspora is being formed; they haven’t fully integrated yet but are gradually participating in various activities. Here, of course, the club mentioned in the previous issue turned out to be an important center of attraction. The premises are still being tidied up, but in parallel, they regularly host various events: English and poker clubs, D&D and more modern board games, birthdays, and simple gatherings to celebrate the arrival of various guests.
Tokenomics continues to strengthen. The MTL Fund and individual private investors have invested their capital into a car rental organization project. The first convertible has already been purchased and rented out; now simpler cars are being bought. Our Euro-pegged stablecoins are already accepted by a fairly large number of businesses. By the way, if you followed the previous link, you might have seen that the project has acquired its own directory on a wiki engine; there is hope that this will slightly reduce the flow of identical questions in the chats.
I hope you are subscribed to the main project telegram channel, and for you, my news selection is just a very modest summary of what you’ve already read, as you’ve long been aware of all our inner workings.
It will soon be a year since my arrival in Montenegro, and that decision so far seems like the most successful one in my life. I have never had so many active, free people around me with whom I am on the same wavelength. I hope that similar decisions become the most successful in your lives as well.
Since my recent posts have featured translations of smart books, it is high time to squeeze out another fragment of my own smart book. In the second part of the book, as the reader may recall, I first briefly described an ideal ancap, and then began to show the difficulties on the path to its implementation, dividing them into three categories: the imperfection of the world, the human, and society. Well, now I have slowly crawled my way to society.
Firstly, in a real society, the construction of ancap is hindered by communication difficulties — it is difficult, you know, to establish voluntary relations if you are unaware of what the counterparty’s good will consists of because you cannot understand them. Secondly, opportunism turns out to be a very harmful thing — when people may verbally acknowledge the appropriateness of observing the non-aggression principle, but find it hard to refrain from violating it in conditions where it leads to obvious personal gain (and sometimes to obvious gain for many people).
Every time I write another pair of chapters about the difficulties of ancap, I try to do it conscientiously enough that, in the process of writing, I begin to suspect that this is a disaster and there is truly nothing that can be done about it. So, I need some time to restore my emotional balance and counter my gloom with text about how the aforementioned difficulties are overcome. Fortunately, the second part of the book is nearing completion, and the third part will be about the tools for building ancap, which is a much more positive topic.
As usual, if you find it more convenient to read the book in e-reader format, you can download it; I try to maintain the current version on the website. And, as usual, if you have a desire to donate, do not delay the fulfillment of that desire.
Recalling the genocide of the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda, it might seem to us that nearly the entire Hutu people, egged on by supporters of the idea of exterminating the Tutsis, simply turned into killers. Or we might recall how horrific Pol Pot’s regime was, when up to a quarter of Cambodia’s population perished. Do this and other similar examples of mass genocides show us that humans have no natural restraints against killing other people, and that with enough conviction, almost anyone could easily do it?
In assessing phenomena such as war or genocide, it is certainly not worth relying on subjective feelings. It would be much better to conduct detailed calculations. Based on the most widely accepted research, between 500 thousand and 662 thousand Tutsis died as a result of the genocide in Rwanda, with some estimates reaching 800 thousand deaths. But how many Hutus took part in the genocide? One study estimates the number of killers at 50 thousand people [1]. Another study estimates the number of genocide participants (those who attempted murder, committed murders, rapes, torture, and other forms of serious violence) at between 175 thousand and 210 thousand people [2]. At the start of the genocide, the population of Rwanda was over 7 million people.
What does this mean? According to the highest estimate, only 2.5-3% of the population of Rwanda, or 3-3.5% of the Hutu population itself, committed violence during the Tutsi genocide. According to the lowest estimate, the killers constituted less than 1% of the population. This is considering the fact that movements advocating for the extermination of the Tutsis called upon the Hutus to commit murders by all possible means and through all information channels. And the killings themselves were indeed mass in nature.
There should be no doubt that such a percentage of people could organize a genocide. It is unlikely that a person who is urged to kill, who feels no repulsion toward committing murder, and whose potential victims have no serious means of defense, would stop after only one or two episodes. Rather, one should expect that he would kill everyone who crossed his path. Small groups of such killers could wipe out thousands of people at once, especially if they were armed. The study that estimates the number of killers in the Rwandan genocide at 50 thousand people asserts that there is nothing impossible about even 25 thousand people being able to exterminate hundreds of thousands, if not a million people, in 100 days.
Another well-known example of genocide is the extermination of 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians by the “Khmer Rouge” from 1975 to 1979 under Pol Pot’s regime. The forces of the Khmer Rouge by 1975 can be estimated at 55 to 70 thousand people [3][4]. The population of Cambodia at the beginning of the genocide was about 7.8 million people. Based on these numbers, it is obvious that less than 1% of the population was responsible for the death of 20-25% of Cambodia’s population at that time.
Genocides cannot tell us that the majority of people are ready to carry out the extermination of groups or even entire peoples who do not share their views. The direct killers and other perpetrators of violence in genocides are an overwhelming minority of the total population. Therefore, they cannot serve as evidence of human violence; rather, the opposite is true—they only confirm that, for the most part, humans are non-violent.
Sources:
Jones, B. D. (2001). Peacemaking in Rwanda: the dynamics of failure;
Straus, S. (2004). How many perpetrators were there in the Rwandan genocide? An estimate. Journal of Genocide Research, 6(1), March, 85–98;
Carney, T. (1989). The Unexpected Victory. In Karl D. Jackson, ed., Cambodia 1975–1978: Rendezvous With Death. Princeton University Press, pp. 13–35;
The Crime of Cambodia: Shawcross on Kissinger’s Memoirs New York Magazine, 5 November 1979.
