As Sudan moves closer to making significant political choices in the near future (national elections in April 2010 and a referendum on southern independence in 2011), international efforts to establish firm peace agreements in Darfur and southern Sudan have accelerated.

Dedicated to addressing matters of peace, justice, and reconciliation in Darfur, the African Union Panel on Darfur, chaired by President Thabo Mbeki, plans to release its recommendations to Sudan and the African Union at the end of September. Meanwhile, Scott Gration, President Obama's Special Envoy to Sudan, is returning to the region this week to continue facilitating bilateral negotiations between the SPLM and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) that focus on achieving a full implementation of the CPA. These discussions will concentrate on resolving two contentious issues in the CPA: the use of the census results and an agreement on technical provisions regarding the 2011 referendum. In August, Gration witnessed the initial signing of the bilateral agreement.

Gration will also travel to Darfur to visit IDP camps in an effort to assess the humanitarian situation since the NGO expulsions and to meet with Darfur women leaders to discuss programs aimed at addressing gender-based violence.

Early this week, Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Djabrailov, were abducted from their office in Grozny and killed. Sadulayeva was the head of a charity called Save the Generation that helped children who had been physically and emotionally scarred by the conflict. Coming on the heels of Natalya Estemirova's murder in July, this latest tragedy sends a clear message that the struggle to protect human rights in Chechnya comes at a deadly price. Violence in Chechnya today is no longer as widespread or systematic as it was during the war, but it is much more targeted and deadly. Fewer people are at risk, but the risk for them is much greater.

Appearing just days before Estemirova's murder, a video aired on Grozny TV and obtained by The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus shows Adam Delimkhanov, the de facto commander of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's militia and a representative to the Russian Duma, threatening human rights workers. "Each one of them," he announced, "be they Chechen or Ingush or whom have you, should know, that they will pay for their words..."

View a new gallery of photographs taken in Grozny, depicting a society changed by conflict, and read in World is Witness about the contradictions of life in Chechnya today.

In an unprecedented visit by an American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton visited Goma in eastern Congo this week, in order to call attention to the region's ongoing conflict, which is marked by extreme brutality and widespread sexual violence. Secretary Clinton's visit comes admit increased concern for the region, as hope vanishes that the combined Rwandan-Congolese operation launched last January against rebel groups would finally bring an end to the violence.

Instead, the joint military operation provoked revenge attacks and drove more than 500,000 people from their homes. The number of internally displaced persons in the Congo now stands at two million, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). A spike in rape cases since January is being blamed on the overstretched and unpaid Congolese army, with the number of rapes doubled or tripled in the areas government soldiers are deployed.

Just days before Secretary Clinton's arrival, Congo's President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame held a rare meeting on the border. Former rivals, the two leaders agreed to plan joint economic initiatives and to revive the Joint Permanent Commission for cooperation between the two countries that has not been in operation for 21 years.

View a new gallery of photographs recently taken by Museum staff traveling in the Congo and read in World is Witness about the young survivors of rebel attacks.

On July 30, the Museum updated its Google Earth initiative Crisis in Darfur with the latest U.S. Department of State data that sheds new light on the extent of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It confirms that most villages were destroyed between 2003 and 2005, during the height of the brutal Sudanese government-backed campaign targeting civilians in Darfur.

Below is a breakdown of the number of villages attacked in Darfur by year or -- when it was not possible to determine the precise year -- by date range:

Villages Attacked by Year or Date Range

Unknown year: 382

2003:	580
2003-2004:	254
2004:	844
2004-2005	104
2005:	252
2005-2006:	174
2006:	540
2006-2007:	18
2007:	117
2007-2008:	8
2008:	76
2008-2009:	1
2009:	6

Total Villages: 3356
Total Villages with Corresponding Year: 2974

Total Damaged Villages: 516
Total Destroyed Villages: 2840

To view evidence of these destroyed villages in Darfur, visit Mapping Initiatives: Crisis in Darfur.

In July 2004, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum declared a “genocide emergency” in Darfur, Sudan. This week, after extensive research and an assessment of conditions on the ground, the Museum is changing its categorization of conditions in Sudan to a “genocide warning” for the entire country.

As part of its mandate, the Committee on Conscience at the Holocaust Museum is charged with alerting the national conscience and stimulating action to prevent or halt acts of genocide and related crimes against humanity. For some time now, we have evaluated situations based on three graduated categories of urgency:

Emergency: Acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity are occurring or immediately threatened.

Warning: Organized violence is underway that threatens to become genocide or related crimes against humanity.

Watch: The circumstances indicate a serious potential for the eruption of mass violence that would be within the Committee’s mandate.

Drawing distinctions between these alert levels is important, albeit difficult, because doing so helps shape the proper policy for saving lives. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide is defined as the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, religious or racial group through killing or other acts. It is a difficult crime to prove because of the high standard involved with documenting intent. It is also a very specific crime -- and should not be used as a catch-all term for all mass killing or atrocities.

Choosing how to categorize a particular situation, moreover, is not an exact science. At any given time, regrettably, there are often several wars or conflicts in the world where extreme violence against civilians is being perpetrated. Experts will often disagree where on the continuum to genocide a certain situation ought to be placed. Here at the Holocaust Museum, we pay extremely close attention to the facts on the ground in order to arrive at our own judgments.

Mindful of the power of the word genocide, we have always tried to be judicious. As the scale of the violence in Darfur became increasingly apparent in 2003 and 2004, circumstances demanded that we place the situation at our highest level of alert. The Sudanese government and allied militias conducted a series of offensives that drove civilians in the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit ethnic groups off their lands. More than two million people were displaced from their homes, and the government obstructed the delivery of humanitarian assistance from international groups. Mortality rates skyrocketed: the World Health Organization estimated that up to 200,000 people died during this period.

While reasonable people disagreed with our assessment -- the United Nations, for instance, never labeled the events in Darfur a “genocide” -- we strongly believe that our “emergency” designation was accurate.

But now conditions in Sudan have changed. Although violence persists in Darfur, it is of a different character, with rebel groups and criminal elements responsible for violence along with the Sudanese government. The Sudanese government has halted major offensives against civilian groups. Humanitarian assistance is being provided. Mortality rates have been significantly reduced: The United Nations estimates that about 1,500 people died as a result of violence in each 2007 and 2008. New satellite assessments by the U.S. government, highlighted in “Crisis in Darfur”, the Museum’s initiative with Google Earth, clearly show the level of destruction of Darfurian villages has decreased from the height of the Sudanese government’s systematic military campaign between 2003 and 2005.

The situation across Sudan remains perilous. In Darfur, millions remain at risk in displaced persons camps because it is too dangerous to return home, and those chiefly responsible for the crimes in Darfur remain in power in Khartoum. Furthermore, we are deeply concerned about the situation in South Sudan, where hundreds of civilians have been killed in fighting over the past several months. Over the course of the next year, the country faces significant political challenges -- with national elections and a referendum on southern independence. Our concerns focus on the challenges for Sudan as a whole and the imminent risks to large segments of the civilian population. By our own criteria, we believe it is most accurate to place Darfur and the rest of Sudan in our “genocide warning” category.

We also believe that the Sudanese government must be held accountable for its past and current behavior. The International Criminal Court has sought an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir and other Sudanese officials for their roles in orchestrating violence in Darfur. When this warrant was issued in March, the government responded by evicting 13 humanitarian organizations working in displaced persons camps -- another possible violation of international law. This is unacceptable: the Sudanese government must fulfill its responsibility to protect its own citizens.

We recognize that there is a significant public debate about how to describe what is happening in Darfur. We will continue to closely monitor conditions in Sudan, and we are ready to raise our alert level if necessary. Our hope is that an accurate description of the evolving situation will help elicit the appropriate policy and public response -- and lives will be saved.

--- Mike Abramowitz, Director of the Committee on Conscience

A journalist, activist, and researcher for Memorial, Usam Baysaev was a close friend of Natasha Estemirova. In "Too Soon, Again", an article for The New Republic, Baysaev mourns his friend's death. After a decade of putting herself at great risk to defend human rights in Chechnya, Estemirova was kidnapped and murdered on July 15, 2009. Baysaev writes:

I met Natasha toward the end of 1999, at the height of the battles in Chechnya. The Russian military was eager to occupy as many towns and villages as possible, without regard to the methods used to achieve this goal, or the number of civilians that would be killed. The region sank into a swamp of blood; there was information daily about the targeting of civilians, killings, reprisals, repressions.

I worked for Human Rights Watch and helped its staff to collect information. I gathered testimonials from refugees in Ingushetia who had fled the war in Chechnya. I couldn't go into Chechnya myself; it was too dangerous for a young man to cross Russian checkpoints in the direction opposite to the flow of refugees. If a Chechen man tried to go into Chechnya, he would be suspected of being a fighter, and at minimum detained. And, once detained, then quite likely to disappear without trace.

The only ones who could risk going in and out of the warring republic were women. For this reason, in the first, hardest, and bloodiest months of the war, the work of Memorial, a Russian human rights organization best known for extensively documenting abuses during and after the two Chechen wars, was built exclusively on women's personal heroism--their willingness to risk their lives on a daily basis…

Natasha demanded a very cautious treatment of testimonies. She thought that sometimes, it was better not to publicize the facts, at least not right away… Only in very unique situations, when it was necessary to save a life or preserve the person's health, only then would she summon her courage and reveal her source...

A few days ago, the friends and colleagues of Natasha Estemirova, and those whom she had helped, carried her coffin down Victory Boulevard in Grozny, past tacky signs with Putin's name. After that, we held a meeting of Memorial staff, including our colleagues from Moscow, where all the Chechens insisted that we wanted to continue working. The work of the Memorial office in Grozny is only temporarily suspended. After we mourn Natasha and think through strategies and logistics, we shall resume. In that continued effort, there might be some small victory for Natasha.

On July 30, the Museum updated its Google Earth initiative Crisis in Darfur with the latest U.S. Department of State data that sheds new light on the extent of the genocide in Darfur.

The new data shows that more than 3,300 villages have been damaged or destroyed, primarily between 2003-2005, in the Darfur region of Sudan. This is more than twice the number that was identified in previous U.S. government assessments and strengthens the evidence of a vast, targeted campaign of destruction against civilians.

This is the most detailed picture to date of the scope and nature of the destruction that occurred during the genocide in Darfur and after. That thousands of villages were destroyed has been known for some time; this data documents the true enormity of the destruction. The data also includes hundreds of "before and after" satellite images of villages throughout Darfur, as well as additional details about when the villages were destroyed. This data also confirms that most villages were destroyed between 2003 and 2005, during the height of the brutal Sudanese government-backed campaign targeting civilians in Darfur.

Stay tuned for additional features in Crisis in Darfur, including a narrated flyover tour and a map of destroyed villages by year.

To access the Crisis in Darfur layers in Google Earth, visit Mapping Initiatives: Crisis in Darfur.

Learn more about the current situation in Sudan; view the press release announcing the update; and read about it in The Washington Post.

On the morning of July 15, 2009, Natalya Estemirova was abducted near her home in Grozny, Chechnya. As people on a nearby balcony heard her call for help, Estemirova was forced into a car. Her body was found a few hours later near a highway in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.

Estemirova was a prominent human rights worker who for a decade had documented abuses, kidnappings, and killings for the Russian human rights group Memorial. She was the recipient of the first annual Anna Politkovskaya award, created by Reach all Women in War in honor of the murdered Russian journalist who courageously covered Chechnya for years. The award recognizes women who are defending human rights in zones of war and conflict, often at great personal risk.

Like many who have exposed human rights abuses in Chechnya, Estemirova's work met threats and condemnations from Chechen authorities. In March 2008, when Estemirova criticized a new law requiring Chechen women to wear head scarves, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov summoned her to a personal meeting and threatened her. Frightened by the experience, Estemirova went abroad for several months. Then she returned.

The tragedy of her death was compounded by the subsequent closure of Memorial's office in Chechnya. Alexander Cherkasov, Memorial executive committee member, explained, "We have seen that the work Natasha was involved in, the work done by our colleagues in Chechnya -- documenting crimes committed by representatives of the authorities -- is fatally dangerous. We can't put them at risk." The Memorial office in Chechnya, which operated throughout the conflict, provided critical -- and oftentimes the only -- information about human rights abuses in the Russian republic.


Update: On Sunday, July 26, a suicide bomb killed six people outside a concert hall in Grozny as a crowd gathered for a performance. It was the second bombing in Grozny this month.

Since Estemirova's death two weeks ago, Memorial has accused President Kadyrov of involvement in her murder; Mr. Kadyrov has announced that he is suing the human rights group for slander.


For more information about Natalya Estemirova, her work, and the situation in Chechnya, please visit:

Memorial
Chechnya Advocacy
Human Rights Watch
The American Committee for Peace in the Caucuses

On July 22, 2009, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague delivered the final ruling on the boundary dispute over Abyei, an oil rich region claimed by both north and south Sudan. In May 2008, fighting in Abyei between the north and south resulted in the displacement of 50,000 people and destroyed the town. Today's ruling by the Court determined that several areas -- including the Heglig oilfield -- were not part of Abyei. Inhabitants of areas that are within the newly established borders have the right to vote on a referendum in 2011 on whether they want to be permanently a part of north or south Sudan. Both Sudanese parties have agreed to abide by the Court's decision.

Learn more about the history of Abyei and South Sudan.

Explore World is Witness and read about the 2008 attack on Abyei.

Listen to our podcast interview with Sudan expert Roger Winter, who was in Abyei shortly after it was destroyed.

Tomorrow, July 11, marks the anniversary of the start of the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica. On this day, newly identified remains are reburied at the Srebrenica Potocari Memorial and Cemetery.

Faced with the seemingly impossible task to locate, recover, and identify so many missing people, the International Commission of Missing Persons (ICMP) has made steady progress, helping to identify 12,518 individuals in Bosnia, roughly half of whom are Srebrenica victims. Just this past May, forensic experts investigated a newly-discovered mass grave in Bosnia where they found 12 Srebrenica victims. About 70 mass graves around Srebrenica have been found since the war.

Watch eyewitness testimony from Bosnia, learn more about Srebrenica, and make your own personal pledge to take action against genocide.