Surviving genoside?

Think Bosnia and some other african countries. What would you do to survive?

Usually the government will be the boys doin the killing to either even out the ods or to reduce the social problems of having different cultures, ethnic groups and races living in the same area.

If the government is the killer.
- No military help (they will be the hunters)
- Difficult to get out of the country (they controle the border posts)
- Difficult to get weapons (fire arms controle)
- No medical fasilities
- usually its a minority group being exterminated (out numberd)
- no international help - gov. controle the press and the UN would want to investigate the claims first before having a meeting on what sanctions to impose. The US and UK will ask how much oil is involved.

Will think on this some more and try to add to it.

[edit on 20-12-2006 by dragonben]

Despite what all the eco-nuts would have you believe the U.S. still has more than enough wilderness for you to get lost in. Lost and never, ever found.
Hell, how long did Rudy hideout for? Like 4 or 5 years? He was only caught because he kept coming into towns for aid.

Get a topo map, find a big ol spot of green, preferably near moving water and get there and stay there for the rest of your life if you have to.

And dont ever trust anybody. Not even your wife and kids.

Get out of the way. Vast stretches of wilderness are available to you, and with a little thought and effort, you can be rather comfortable. You have to be descreet of course, but it can be done.

If you can't get away, keep your damned head down, say yes, sir; no, sir; whatever you say, sir. Go along, to get along...you do what you got to do. Especially if you've got a family...

I think even hiding in the wilderness might not be good enough if you got military troops after you.Helicopters doing overhead searches would limit your movement as well. Don't forget about nightvision and infrared technology. I say dig a really deep hole and camoflage the entrance. Try to have everything you need there for as long as you can and be cautious about coming out. Lets just say gophers have the right idea. Have many tunnels and escape routes. Sound too crazy for you? Better than being captured tortured and killed.

i suppose this means leave your family and go at it alone?

No one said leave your family. Try your best to stay together.If I lost my children I would not care about anything, not even my own life. But I would make damn sure I took out at least one bastard for every one of my kids taken away first.Hell hath no fury......

If you abandon your family what's the point of even bothering to escape? If you can get out with your family do so, if you can't, you hunker down and do what you got to do...kowtow, polish boots, what ever it takes to keep you and your family alive, until such time as you can escape to whereever.

Tunnels? Cool idea, if you have the materials to do it. Dangerous if you don't.

Originally posted by AccessDenied
I say dig a really deep hole and camoflage the entrance. Try to have everything you need there for as long as you can and be cautious about coming out

Didn't work out too well for Sadam now did it?

I think whateve option you go for, the smaller the group your in the better. I think a 3 person team where every one is fit and intellegent (right attitidue) would be optimum.

Now_Then:
As i posted in another thread 6 is minimum number that can keep up 24/7 watch indefinately, smaller groups will at some point get too tired to maintain a perimeter watch. And eventually people will start to sleep while guarding. Allso incase you get into a fight 6 strong group allows you to fend off the attackers in two effective fireteams or 3 pairs, giving you a vastly superior set of tactics to work with.

It's not just a lucky coincidence that most armies field squads with 6-10 soldiers.

I think that in a real evil Balcan/Africa-style genocide/ethnic cleansing scenario, your only chance of survival is to get away and stay away.
Remember, they don't want you to serve, they want you to vanish. See the Balkan wars and Darfur as prominent examples; you can go "yes sir, no sir" as much as you want, they will still slit your throat or hack you to pieces as soon as they can for no particular reason.
Only chance I see is grab your BOB and family and get out asap and low profile.
Last stand or hideout just won't cut it in the long term in this scenarios, sad but true.

Belong

It sticks in the craw, but it is the only way.

Adopt the disguise. Become one of those who would destroy you.

Then use your newfound and highly precarious safety as you would think fit. I know what I would do.

The lady in the R.E.M. song had the right idea.

Astyanax.

In the case of a Darfur style genocide? Only real option is to head for the horizon as quickly as possible. In that I agree...assuming you can get your family out with you. Otherwise?

Based off of what I have seen when it comes to genocide, there are usually warning signs, and even before it begins, the signs are there. It means paying attention to what is going on in the news and getting out when you can, before it gets to the point of killing. Unfortunately it also may mean you have to leave your family behind or split them up. And most genocides start with the persecution of a particular group, that quickly degenerates down to restrictions. When the restrictions happen, that is when it is time to leave everything and get out before the killing starts.

Originally posted by northwolf
Now_Then:
As i posted in another thread 6 is minimum number that can keep up 24/7 watch indefinately, smaller groups will at some point get too tired to maintain a perimeter watch. And eventually people will start to sleep while guarding. Allso incase you get into a fight 6 strong group allows you to fend off the attackers in two effective fireteams or 3 pairs, giving you a vastly superior set of tactics to work with.

It's not just a lucky coincidence that most armies field squads with 6-10 soldiers.

Makes sense. Mind you you may have Hobsons choice on the matter.

Part of the plan has to be what the criteria for the genocide is. In the case of a racial killing, it would be a little hard to change your skin color and blend in. If it were religious, there would be records of attendance or contributions. If it were class/caste, there would be other tell-tale signs.

Being somebody you're not is harder than TV makes it look.

Having a safe(r) place to relocate to is almost always the best idea. IMO.

Having assets that are quick to liquify would be a very good idea. Also portable, the shirt of your back prob wont fetch much.

Hmmmm. Good question. I believe I would fight back. I know, the question is how.

First. I would gather anyone who is not on the other side. Two, everything can be used as weapons or you may make weapons too. Bows and swords are easy to make and these weapons are quite efficient, lethal and silent. Even if someone has a rifle or greater weapons, from a mass fire arrow attack, no one can really hide at open place (See how the British did with Longbows. Arrows are able to penetrate body armors pretty well and / or at least ignite them.). Bows also have a great range and it is great, because unlike rifles, it has a ballistic mode. So you may fire from behind cover, while the enemy is at open place. Molotov cocktails are also great against armored stuffs, including tanks. Make hit and run actions against the enemy is also very useful. And so on and so on. This version also can be mixed with different tactics. Oil at the target area, then fire arrows. Burns pretty well. The essence is that you need to select the place of battle.

Oh. And against copters, well, explosive arrows. C4 and other explosives cannot have fire arms control, so it can be gathered, take them into a sock, add some tartar, ignite it and fire. It had it's ground version in the second world war, gone to the wheels of the tanks. Now add an arrow and it will be a medieval missile. Countermeasures are ineffective against it, such as the armor of the copter. And against aircrafts... taking them out on the ground. They cannot fly forever.

And this tactics also work in groups and alone. Arrows doesn't have a sound, really hard to trace it's origin and there are bows, which have a fire distance of 250, maybe 500 meters (Ballistic firing). Taking the enemy out one by one is also have a great moral effect, such as the sniper rifle. Never the fire rate counts or what sort of damage you may achieve with a missile. What is really matter: how many is that you may take out without being noticed. And if you surviving, you've won. One man is able to change the outcome of any battle.

There was a nice test few years ago on some sort of military base or what. Who would be able to kill the target. An old fashioned Ninja or a well armed Elite Force. The Ninja have won, because he was able to sneak in, eliminate the target and leave. And no one notice that the target is being killed and no one have noticed the base breach. Oh. And the ninja have brought only his bow and sword (Katana or what. I'm not good in this.). While the Elite Team have brought their most modern weapon, nightvision, etc, etc... (Total cost: Almost a million bucks per soldier.).

[edit on 11-6-2007 by Dark Crystalline]

I think there are still some misconceptions of what a genocide/ethnic cleansing really is and how it works.
Anybody seen "Tears of the sun" with Bruce Willis? From what I have read and heard from balcan refugees, the movie displays pretty accurately how it usually works, just without the SEALs to save you. I went to school with Serbs and Bosnians when the NATO bombing began, and I was with a Serb friend at the airport when one of the last planes out of Belgrad landed with his parents on board. Later, they told me some stories of what went on there. The word "horrible" doesn't start to describe what some humans are capable of.

If you want to know what will happen in a state sponsored genocide, check out the accounts of what happened in Germany before and during WW2. You will see that it usually is difficult to recognise what's going on or how far "the other side" will go.
It starts with disarming the whole or parts of the population, discriminating laws that steadily get worse and so on. By the time you realise that your very existence is in danger, it might be too late to do anything else than a hasty escape.
Think of the frog that is trown into boiling water and jumps right out of it, but doesn't flee if the water temperature is raised slowly to the boiling point.
At what point do you realise that you have to go? That's the big question.