The following post by Michael Abramowitz, Director of the Museum's genocide prevention program, originally appeared on Nicholas Kristof's New York Times blog: On the Ground.

The last few weeks have brought more evidence of the power of individuals—whether movie stars like George Clooney in Sudan or the little known creators of the Kony 2012 viral video—to shine a light on the world’s worst crimes. This kind of attention is usually for the good, forcing government leaders to confront dire situations that do not typically get the kind of policy focus they deserve.

But public notice is only a start if we truly are to end genocide and other forms of mass atrocities inflicted on citizens by the likes of Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir or Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Governments everywhere must also have the tools necessary to generate solutions even when the public isn’t paying attention, and there’s ample evidence that when it comes to preventing the worst forms of violence against civilians—war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide—they don’t.

Here in the United States, for instance, the State Department regularly sends its diplomats out to hotspots with no specific training in recognizing the warning signs for mass atrocities. Our intelligence community has historically devoted many more of its assets to traditional foreign policy problems—terrorism, political instability or nuclear proliferation—and viewed mass atrocity crimes merely as a proxy measure of regime stability. The Pentagon has reams of plans for major combat operations in the Middle East and other traditional war zones but is only now starting to develop the doctrines and guidance for coping with mass violence off the beaten path, a regrettably common scenario in recent years.

And when crises do erupt, as they are now in Sudan and Syria, our government and others who genuinely want to stop human suffering are handicapped by a dearth of practical options for responding. Policymakers regularly see themselves as faced with a choice between full-scale military intervention and doing nothing beyond rhetorical condemnation, a recipe for paralysis. It is this lack of effective response options that saps the will of governments in either acting preventively or responding to these crimes.

Recognizing this conundrum, the White House last year mandated a new government-wide plan for atrocity prevention. Borrowing from the recommendations of the bipartisan Genocide Prevention Task Force, it announced it would create a new Atrocities Prevention Board, composed of senior officials from across government, empowered to develop new tools and contingency plans to detect and address threats of genocide and mass atrocities. Agencies were also ordered to come up with better tools to foresee and prevent future Rwandas and Srebrenicas, situations in which the U.S. and international bureaucracies dithered until it was too late to stop the slaughter.

President Obama himself last August described preventing such genocides as a “core” moral responsibility and national security interest of the United States. “Sixty six years since the Holocaust and 17 years after Rwanda, the United States still lacks a comprehensive policy framework and a corresponding interagency mechanism for preventing and responding to mass atrocities and genocide,” the president wrote. “This has left us ill prepared to engage early, proactively, and decisively to prevent threats from evolving into large scale civilian atrocities.”

We have yet to see how such a framework might work in practice, in part because the Obama administration has yet to outline exactly how its new Atrocities Prevention Board will be structured and resourced. It is hard, perhaps, to tout new structures when confronted with real-time atrocities in Syria and Sudan. But the pentagon, state department and other agencies have already adopted plans for supporting the work of the new board. And in theory, the new framework—offering a vehicle for generating options and galvanizing a bureaucracy that has often failed to produce action in the case of past genocides—might be of huge benefit to this and future presidents in avoiding future crises.

We know from history that mass atrocities have taken place on the watch of presidents of both parties, from the Holocaust during the Roosevelt administration to the killing fields in Cambodia under Ford, to Rwanda and Bosnia under Clinton, and Darfur under George W. Bush. While presidents do not typically campaign on these issues, they frequently end up regretting not doing enough after their terms are over.

Think what a message it would send if this year the presidential nominees of both parties committed themselves to ensuring the creation of a strong Atrocities Prevention Board, and a framework for preventing these worst crimes from happening again. While there are many divisive issues on the plate this election year, preventing genocide should not be one of them.

Marking a full year of violent suppression of anti-government protests in Syria, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng, and on the Responsibility to Protect, Edward Luck, released the following statement on March 15:

"Over the past year, the Syrian Government’s increasingly violent assault of its population has deepened sectarian divides and brought the country to the brink of civil war. Clearly, the Government has manifestly failed to protect the Syrian population. It has resorted to extreme violence, instead of allowing the Syrian people to freely express their opinions and make their voices heard about the fate of their country. In the name of order, it has brought chaos and the destruction of whole neighborhoods in some of the country's major cities.

The lack of unified international condemnation and response to protect the Syrian population has encouraged the Government to continue its course of action. Reports suggest that the Government has intensified its attacks in the face of Security Council paralysis, leading to a sharp increase in the number of deaths, injuries and cases of abuse and torture over recent weeks and months.

The lack of timely and decisive action by the international community has left the Syrian population to fend for itself. As a result, reports suggest that an increasing number of Syrians have taken up arms. A growing number of soldiers have reportedly chosen to defect rather than obey orders to commit crimes against civilians. As attacks by Government forces and allied militias against civilians continue, we fear that the risk of retributive acts along sectarian lines will also increase. To prevent further rounds of violence, which could have devastating effects for the country and the region, the Government must stop its attacks on the people of Syria now.

There is strong and growing evidence that crimes against humanity are being committed in Syria. We reiterate our calls for the Government of Syria to immediately end all violence against its population and for all parties, including non-state actors, to meet their obligations under international law. Violence by any party against civilian populations is unacceptable. We call on the international community, including the Security Council, to take immediate collective action, utilizing the full range of tools available under the United Nations Charter, to protect populations at risk of further atrocity crimes in Syria. The international community must act on the pledge by all Heads of State and Government at the 2005 World Summit to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, including their incitement."

Learn more about the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

Listen to a Museum podcast about the crisis in Syria with Special Adviser Ed Luck

Yesterday, March 14, the International Criminal Court (ICC) found Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty of recruiting and using child soldiers between 2002 and 2003 during the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lubanga was convicted of “conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 and using them to participate actively in hostilities.” This landmark decision is the ICC’s first verdict since its creation a decade ago.

Lubanga was leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and the commander-in-chief of its military wing, the Forces Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo (FPLC) in the Ituri region of eastern Congo. He was found to be a co-perpetrator in these crimes through his overall role in coordinating the UPC/FPLC activities and measures he took to recruit children under the age of 15 as part of an effort to establish and maintain military and political control over the region.

A separate sentencing hearing will be held and Lubanga could face life in prison. He has 30 days within receiving the French translation of the Judgment to appeal the conviction.

Reaction to the verdict has generally been positive. The Court has been praised for delivering justice to the victims and moving a step closer toward removing the impunity that has long existed for crimes committed under international law. Some, however, have criticized the proceedings for being protracted and costly, and expressed disappointment that Lubanga was not charged with any sexual violence crimes despite widespread allegations that his armed forces raped women and girls throughout the conflict, forcing some into sexual slavery. Overall, the trial and its verdict have shone a much needed spotlight on the horrific crimes of Congo’s civil war, and are an important milestone for those seeking justice and accountability for the world’s worst crimes.

Learn more about the trial and verdict.

By Laura Seay

Three months after presidential and parliamentary elections and despite new members of the National Assembly having assumed their posts, the Democratic Republic of Congo still faces its most significant political crisis since the 2002 end of its international and civil wars. Opposition leader and head of the UDPS party Etienne Tshisekedi and his supporters firmly believe that he won the disputed November 28 elections, in which victory was claimed by incumbent President Joseph Kabila despite widespread reports of electoral fraud and intimidation. Leaders of the country’s powerful Catholic Church are also backing Tshisekedi’s challenge to Kabila’s legitimacy.

Despite having scheduled several protest marches, strikes, and his own presidential inauguration ceremony, however, Tshisekedi and his allies have yet to mobilize enough popular support to pose a significant challenge to Kabila’s rule. Tshisekedi has largely been kept under de facto house arrest since early December. His supporters who have attempted to rally in Kinshasa and other opposition stronghold cities have been prevented from doing so by Congo’s elite Presidential Guard and other security forces, which have not hesitated to use violence and tear gas against UDPS supporters. Tshisekedi responded to this violence by ordering his party’s deputies not to attend the parliamentary session currently underway and by continuing to refuse to recognize the Kabila government’s legitimacy.

Tshisekedi has few friends in this fight. While his support from the Congolese Diaspora in the United States and Europe is strong, Western actors in Kinshasa have largely concluded that little can be done in this crisis and seem content to let Kabila remain in power for another five years. While almost everyone outside of Kabila’s government agrees that the elections were clearly neither free nor fair, diplomats and other observers in the region rightfully point out that there is no data that could give a reasonable degree of certainty as to who actually won the polls. Holding another round of elections is financially and logistically unfeasible, and aside from the fact that Kabila would be almost entirely unlikely to allow it to happen, there is little appetite in the United Nations and among donors to support a second attempt.

But are the donors right? Many Congo watchers argue that the donors’ arguments on this issue present a false dichotomy. That we do not know who won the elections does not mean that there are no alternatives to accepting the results as they were officially announced. Indeed, donor states have at least some opportunities to exercise leverage and to pressure Kabila to negotiate with the opposition and to improve democratic institutions and practices in the DRC. Donated funds constitute a significant portion of the Congolese budget, for example, and there is no reason that donors could not tie this aid to improved governance outcomes, including organizing the forthcoming local elections in a more fair and open manner. Donors could also fund investigations into what went wrong during the 2011 elections and what factors – including massive corruption – must be immediately addressed to avoid another electoral crisis in the future.

Could donors pressure Kabila to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with Tshisekedi and other opposition leaders? Yes, but this is unlikely to yield results, as neither Kabila nor Tshisekedi believe they should have to share power. Internationally-negotiated power-sharing solutions have not worked well in Zimbabwe or Kenya, and there is little reason to think that such a strategy would work in the DRC, especially given that Congolese political institutions are significantly weaker than their counterparts even in Zimbabwe. The death of Kabila’s trusted advisor and master political and economic manipulator, Augustin Katumba Mwanke, in a Bukavu plane crash earlier this month, has left a great deal of uncertainty as to who will make critical decisions as the country moves forward. It is a time of great uncertainty for Kabila, his allies, and all Congolese, which means that it is also an ideal time for donors to show that they will use their leverage to force changes in what is an increasingly authoritarian state.

Congo has not yet reached the point of a Cote d’Ivoire-style violent crisis, and for that, the international community should be grateful. We have not seen the massive atrocities, crimes against humanity, or a full-scale civil war many analysts feared in the lead-up to the elections. However, growing repression against those who dissent politically – be it Tshisekedi’s unofficial house arrest, the assassination of journalists, or the torture of low-level functionaries who publicly criticize the administration – is a sign that democracy in the DRC is far from consolidation. The time to put Congo back on course is now.

Laura Seay is an assistant professor of political science at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia where she teaches courses on African politics, conflict, and international affairs. She also maintains an academic blog examining Africa politics, security, development and advocacy at: texasinafrica.blogspot.com. The views expressed here are her own.

In a recent paper, Scott Straus, a 2011 Museum Fellow with the Committee on Conscience, explains why it is important for those concerned about preventing genocide to understand what genocide is and what it is not, how we can recognize it in its early stages, and what distinguishes genocide from other forms of mass atrocity. This conceptual analysis, he argues, will provide a framework for decision making about when and how to engage in specific cases.


Read his paper, "Identifying Genocide and Related Forms of Mass Atrocity."

Straus is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he also serves as the faculty director of the Human Rights Initiative.

We know from history that genocide and related crimes against humanity do not just arise spontaneously. They often take place in the context of civil war, when leaders commit such crimes to advance their goals of eliminating opposition or perceived enemies. In the civil conflict now raging in Syria, reporting by independent journalists and the United Nations leaves little doubt that conditions are being laid for a dramatic escalation of violence against civilians, possibly based on their membership in religious sects. Right now the majority Sunni population, perceived by the Alawite-dominated regime to be leading the opposition, are the primary victims, but if conditions deteriorate, other groups—including Druze, Christians, and Alawites themselves—could also be targeted.

The February 22 report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry to the UN Human Rights Council provides a chilling account of the nature and scope of violence being perpetrated against civilians inside Syria in recent months. Citing from various sources, the report indicates that more than 6,000 civilians have been killed, including more than 500 children, more than 18,000 people are being arbitrarily detained, 70,000 have been displaced and thousands more have simply gone missing. The report states that the widespread and systematic attacks against civilians by forces of the Assad regime constitute crimes against humanity.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has cited the use of tanks, mortars, and rockets to target densely populated civilian neighborhoods; the widespread destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, and other civilian infrastructure; and the use of torture and sexual violence against those being illegally detained. All of these actions, the UN notes, have met with the “approval or complicity of the Syrian authorities at the highest levels.”

While the situation for civilians in Syria remains intolerable, it has the potential to worsen still further. According to independent observers, much of the violence is being organized directly by the Assad regime or through pro-regime gangs and militias that harass, torture and kill opponents. The possibility of later retribution against members of these groups is high as the violence escalates.

From these reports, we do not believe that violence has crossed the line into actual genocide, defined by the United Nations as acts committed with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…” But some of the key factors used by the UN and other analysts to determine whether a country is at risk of genocide or genocidal acts are present. These factors include the stoking of sectarian tensions among the population by the regime in Damascus and its supporters, massive human rights violations and their denial by perpetrators, and the clear capacity of the regime and its allies to commit large scale acts of violence, among others.

The danger is that actions by the Assad regime are plunging the country into full-scale civil war, and in the process could unleash new violence that could quickly spiral out of control and be almost impossible to contain. The line between crimes against humanity and genocidal acts is often not seen until it has already been crossed.

New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, on his latest reporting mission to Sudan this week, presents a stark reminder of an overlooked conflict where thousands of lives have already been lost and hundreds of thousands more remain at risk.

The border region between Sudan and South Sudan is today in a virtual state of war with nearly half a million civilians already displaced by the fighting while another 500,000 remain pinned down by the violence and could face widespread malnutrition and starvation if Khartoum's blockade of assistance to the region is not lifted in the coming weeks.

The root causes of the fighting reflect a complex mix of politics, tribalism, economics, and racism, along with the painful reminders of decades worth of animosity between former compatriots. While it is likely true that both sides bear some degree of responsibility for the political conflict that has plagued this border region since just prior to the South's independence last July—and the violence associated with it—the tactics of the Bashir regime appear to go beyond the pale.

The United Nations has alleged that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed against non-combatant civilians across Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Unfortunately, the lack of a UN or other international presence in these areas has prevented the international community from verifying the veracity of these claims. But Kristof's images do appear to show the kind of wanton and indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations being alleged and that has long characterized Khartoum's attempts to both inflict harm and terrorize its population.

Today, the President's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence his annual threat assessment. As has been the case since 2009, today's briefing included a section specifically devoted to mass atrocities, whose prevention the President has determined is in the national security interest of the United States.

Director Clapper's testimony reiterates the previously announced creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board to coordinate government-wide efforts to prevent and mitigate mass atrocities. More notable, however, is the new assertion that as part of that process the intelligence community will be increasing and expanding its collection and analysis of intelligence related to this kind of violence and its antecedents. As noted in the 2008 Genocide Prevention Task Force report, this is an important step forward as part of any effective early warning mechanism, and represents a clear departure for US intelligence communities.

From the testimony:

Presidential Study Directive-10, issued in August 2011, identifies the prevention of mass atrocities and genocide as a core national security interest and moral responsibility of the United States. Mass atrocities generally involve large-scale and deliberate attacks on civilians, and can include genocide. The Presidential Directive establishes an interagency Atrocities Prevention Board that will coordinate a US Government-wide effort to prevent or mitigate such violence. The Intelligence Community will play a significant role in this effort, and we have been asked to expand collection and analysis and to encourage partner governments to collect and share intelligence on this issue.

Unfortunately, mass atrocities have been a recurring feature of the global landscape. Since the turn of century, hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost their lives during conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan and in the eastern Congo (Kinshasa). Recently, atrocities in Libya and Syria have occurred against the backdrop of major political upheavals. Mass atrocities usually occur in the context of other instability events and often result from calculated strategies by new or threatened ruling elites to assert or retain control, regardless of the cost. Violence against civilians also emerges in places where poorly institutionalized governments discriminate against minorities, socioeconomic conditions are poor, or local powerbrokers operate with impunity, as in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. In addition, terrorists and insurgents may exploit similar conditions to conduct attacks against civilians, as in Boko Haram‟s recent attacks on churches in Nigeria.

We welcome this development and anticipate further positive momentum as the Administration unveils the final recommendations from its Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocity Prevention in the coming weeks.

Mary Creagh, British Member of Parliament for Wakefield, reflects upon International Holocaust Memorial Day by noting President Obama’s August 2011 Presidential Directive on Mass Atrocities, as a “bold step to allow the US government to respond quickly to instances of potential mass atrocities and genocide.”

In a Huffington Post (UK) article, she references the 2008 report of the Museum co-sponsored Genocide Prevention Task Force chaired by Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. That report, which provided a blueprint for the US government to improve its response to genocide, could, she suggests, be a model for other countries to follow.

Read Creagh’s article, "An International Response to Prevent Future Genocides."

Disturbing news emerged from South Sudan this past week as reports surfaced of some of the worst inter-ethnic violence there in months. While the battle among tribes over scarce water and grazing resources is not new in South Sudan, the scale and brutality of the violence and what it portends for broader national unity is cause for alarm. Perhaps of even greater concern is the UN's inability to prevent the violence.

Listen to an NPR interview with the Committee on Conscience's Cameron Hudson and other Sudan experts or read the transcript.

As noted by the UN News Centre, the UN Mission in South Sudan's conflict early warning system anticipated the violence, but with a lack of trained troops and an absence of air assets to get them there, intervention was simply not possible. Although the UN mission has civilian protection as its top and most clearly defined mandate, it cannot realistically accomplish this goal given its lack of resources and the infrastructural challenges in South Sudan. There are currently only 6,000 international peacekeepers on the ground with no access to combat-equipped helicopters, yet they are tasked with covering an area the size of France with few paved roads.

As the UN struggles to engage with the Government of South Sudan to contain and diffuse this current spate of violence, deeper thinking must be done to address the critical gaps that continue to exist between early warning, prevention, and response.

For more on the recent violence, read Jeffrey Gettleman’s New York Times article "Born in Unity, South Sudan Is Torn Again.”