Leo Kuper; Sociologist Wrote About Worldwide Genocide

Leo Kuper, an internationally recognized sociologist and scholar whose research on genocide set benchmark guidelines in that field, has died.

Representatives for his family and the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, based in Jerusalem, said he died in Los Angeles on Monday. He was 85.

A native of South Africa, Kuper taught at universities throughout the world, including a 15-year tenure at UCLA, where he was a professor of sociology and director of the African Studies Center.

In 1981, Kuper wrote what is considered his landmark work: “Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century.” In it he created a theme of “the odious scourge” that has carried over into other works on the subject.

The Times Literary Supplement of London said that “if there were a peace prize for sociologists, it should be awarded to (Kuper).”

In 1985, Kuper was part of a select group of British and American officials who formed International Alert. Based in Los Angeles and London, it worked closely with human rights groups (particularly Amnesty International) to keep ethnic developments firmly in the glare of international publicity, unlike the secrecy of the Holocaust, which resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews.

Kuper said at that time that he estimated that genocide had claimed more lives since World War II than had the Nazi death camps.

That same year, Kuper wrote “The Prevention of Genocide,” in which he analyzed the major obstacles to United Nations action in Cambodia, Bangladesh, Timor, Indonesia and other African and Asian nations where human rights abuses occur.

Born in Johannesburg, Kuper practiced law in South Africa until World War II. After military service he taught at the University of Natal, South Africa, and the University of Birmingham in England, where he also did neighborhood planning for the city of Coventry.

His main books on South Africa, “Passive Resistance in South Africa” and “An African Bourgeoisie,” were banned in that country.

Kuper also was a founding member of the International Council of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide and a contributing editor to its publications.

He is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.