In Foreign Policy, Mike Abramowitz, the Director of the Committee on Conscience at the Museum, and Lawrence Woocher, senior program officer at USIP, discuss the significance of intelligence chief Dennis Blair's testimony to the Senate and his emphasis on the risks facing Southern Sudan.

How Genocide Became a National Security Threat: And what Barack Obama should do about it.

Deep into his Feb. 2 congressional testimony on the U.S. government's annual threat assessment, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair raised the specter of an unfamiliar threat -- far from the terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and cyberattacks that the rest of his discussion focused on. "Looking ahead over the next five years, a number of countries in Africa and Asia are at significant risk for a new outbreak of mass killing," Blair told Congress. "Among these countries, a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in Southern Sudan."

Blair's testimony was an underappreciated breakthrough. Genocides and mass atrocities have traditionally been seen by the U.S. government as tragedies, but little more. President Bill Clinton never seriously contemplated intervening in Rwanda. George W. Bush's administration insisted that the violence in Darfur was genocide, but made little mention of any threat to U.S. interests arising there. Now, Blair has tacitly acknowledged what human rights groups and humanitarians have long insisted -- that mass killings are not only moral issues, but are threats to the national security of the United States. And in the world of politics, that subtle shift could make a big difference.

Genocide's negative consequences for the United States are increasingly plain. Mass violence destabilizes countries and entire regions, threatening to spread trafficking in drugs, arms, and persons, as well as infectious disease pandemics and youth radicalization. When prevention fails, the United States invariably foots much of the bill for post-atrocity relief and peacekeeping operations -- to the tune of billions of dollars. And even as Washington is paying, America's soft power is depleted when the world's only superpower stands idle while innocents are systematically slaughtered.

This reality has become increasingly stark in recent years, and it is finally catching Washington's attention. In fact, Blair's statement was just one of several signs that Barack Obama's administration is rethinking Washington's response to genocide. This month's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), a touchstone planning document for the military, states that the Defense Department should be prepared to offer the president with options for "preventing human suffering due to mass atrocities or large-scale natural disasters abroad." Although the previous QDR in 2006 also referred to humanitarian missions, it did not contemplate responses to mass atrocities. So now for the first time, the military should begin a much-needed process of strategic thinking about preventing genocide.

Even more promising, the White House has moved quietly in the last several weeks to create a high-level interagency committee at the National Security Council aimed at anticipating and preventing mass atrocities. This committee should force policymakers to grapple with the risk of mass atrocities early on, before crises get out of control. It should take control of a process now fragmented between agencies, helping combat the bureaucratic lethargy and ad hoc decision-making that has characterized past U.S. responses to genocide.

Of course, it is reasonable to ask whether these modest steps are truly meaningful when contrasted with the complex roots and incalculable impacts of genocidal violence. Although it's true that attention and organization do not guarantee foreign-policy success, their absence makes it nearly impossible. A year ago, the Genocide Prevention Task Force, chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, produced a blueprint of practical steps that the U.S. government could take to prevent genocide and mass atrocities. And it urged just the kinds of actions the administration has taken in recent weeks.

More is needed, of course, after the administrative structures are in place. As the Albright-Cohen task force found, leadership is the "indispensable ingredient" in preventing mass atrocities. Following Blair's statements this month, Obama and his most senior advisors should send even clearer signals to their subordinates and to the international community that preventing mass atrocities advances U.S. national security interests. One immediate move in this direction would be for the National Security Strategy now being prepared by the White House to declare the prevention of genocide an important U.S. objective. The president should then give a major public speech to explain to the American people why such a new approach is necessary.

The test case for all of this could come sooner than we think, as the Obama administration navigates the grave risks posed to civilians in Sudan. With violence down in Darfur and a peace treaty in the works between the main rebel group there and the government in Khartoum, Sudan no longer makes front-page headlines. But the situation for civilians across Africa's largest country is no less dangerous in the coming years, not least because 2.7 million Darfuris continue to live in displaced-persons camps. Moreover, north-south tensions, still boiling after decades of civil war, will come to a head over the next year. National elections in April and a referendum next January on southern independence could rekindle the mass, often ethnic violence that has plagued the country since independence in 1956.

Obama spoke of his commitment to do "everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur" at the Holocaust Days of Remembrance ceremony last April. Fulfilling his commitment will mean, among other things, personally engaging his special envoy for Sudan, the State Department, and the Pentagon to forge a strategy to prevent a foreseeable catastrophe.

The top intelligence officer of the United States is now on record warning of possible genocide. Is the rest of the administration up to the task?

On December 10, the Museum hosted a special program with U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Susan Rice. Michael Abramowitz, Director of the Museum’s Committee on Conscience, interviewed Ambassador Rice, discussing her work at the UN and her experiences working on issues of genocide and mass atrocities.

Here are some highlights from the evening:



Watch the full video; read more about the important topics, including United States policy towards Sudan, discussed at the event; and view photos from Ambassador Rice's visit to From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide.

Last night in a special program at the Museum, Ambassador Susan Rice, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, made clear that the U.S. government has adopted benchmarks by which it will measure whether Sudan is making progress in meeting humanitarian and other obligations -- and they will be assessed quarterly. There has been some ambiguity about whether such benchmarks existed. The benchmarks are very specific and have been agreed on by "the highest officials, including the President of the United States, and by us at the principals level," Rice said. The status quo in Sudan, Rice insisted, was inherently unacceptable. Asked whether there had been consequences for the perpetrators in Darfur, Rice replied, "Not enough."

Marking UN Human Rights Day, the discussion at the Museum came at a meaningful time. Earlier in the day, during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, President Obama had spoken about the realities of achieving peace and vowed, "When there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo or repression in Burma -- there must be consequences." This week also marked the adoption of the 1948 Genocide Convention, and the one-year anniversary of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, which the Museum convened with the U.S. Institute of Peace and The American Academy of Diplomacy.

The final report of the Task Force offered a blueprint for improving U.S. government response to threats of genocide and mass atrocities. Reflecting about her experiences on President Clinton's National Security Council in April 1994, as genocide swept Rwanda and Clinton's administration failed to act, Susan Rice spoke of the lessons she'd learned for improving government response:

I've often reflected that our greatest failure in the U.S. government -- and I think, frankly more broadly -- was not that we ever took a decision not to act. It was that we never confronted the question... Now that I am at the principals table, as opposed to a junior staffer, I think it's my responsibility and that of my colleagues and those in leadership responsibilities and in Congress and the public and the media to demand answers to those questions and not allow them to be unasked or unanswered.

Visiting the Museum's new interactive installation From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide before the event, Ambassador Rice wrote her pledge to help meet the challenge of genocide: "Speak the truth." And doing so loudly and emphatically, especially when it most matters.

On September 21, the Will to Intervene Project, developed jointly by General Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the UN peacekeeping force for Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, and the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies released its final report, "Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities." According to the Montreal Institute's website, the goal of the Will to Intervene Project is:

...to understand how to operationalize the principles of the Canadian-sponsored Report of the International Commission on Intervention and States Sovereignty on the Responsibility to Protect [2001]. Research will focus on how to better mobilize domestic political will in Canada and the United States. Furthermore, practical tools will be designed for nongovernmental agencies, the media, and interested groups, and the general public so they can effectively pressure governments to take action to prevent future genocides and other crimes against humanity.

The work of the Will to Intervene Project also complements the Genocide Prevention Task Force report, published in 2008 by the Museum, USIP, and the American Academy for Diplomacy, and signals a growing movement to transform the idea of preventing and responding to genocide into practical policy options.

Learn more about how you can take action to make a difference.

On May 14th, the House introduced H.R. 2410, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010-2011, which includes language requiring reports on the U.S. capacity to prevent genocide and mass atrocities. Section 1002 of the Bill specifically invokes the Genocide Prevention Task Force report, “The December 2008 Report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen offers a valuable blueprint for strengthening United States capacities to help prevent genocide and mass atrocities,” and calls for a feasibility assessment of implementing some key report recommendations and recommends to further strengthen U.S. capacity to prevent genocide and mass atrocities. In addition to the inclusion of language on atrocity prevention rather than response, this is significant because it also paves the way for the Senate to support key provisions from the House State Authorization Bill.

Policy Language:

SEC. 1002. REPORT ON UNITED STATES CAPACITIES TO PREVENT GENOCIDE AND MASS ATROCITIES.

(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following:
(1) The lack of an effective government-wide strategy and adequate capacities for preventing genocide and mass atrocities against civilians undermines the ability of the United States to contribute to the maintenance of global peace and security and protect vital United States interests.
(2) The December 2008 Report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen offers a valuable blueprint for strengthening United States capacities to help prevent genocide and mass atrocities.
(3) Specific training and staffing will enhance the diplomatic capacities of the Department of State to help prevent and respond to threats of genocide and mass atrocities.

(b) REPORT.—
(1) REPORT REQUIRED.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report outlining specific plans for the development of a government-wide strategy and the strengthening of United States civilian capacities for preventing genocide and mass atrocities against civilians.

(2) CONTENT.—The report required under paragraph (1) shall include the following:
(A) An evaluation of current mechanisms for government-wide early warning, information-sharing, contingency planning, and coordination of effort to prevent and respond to situations of genocide, mass atrocities, and other mass violence.
(B) An assessment of current capacities within the Department of State, including specific staffing and training, for early warning, preventive diplomacy, and crisis response to help avert genocide and mass atrocities.
(C) An evaluation of United States foreign assistance programs and mechanisms directed toward the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities, including costs, challenges to implementation, and successes of such programs and mechanisms.
(D) An assessment of the feasibility, effectiveness, and potential costs of implementing key recommendations made by the Genocide Prevention Task Force, including the establishment of an Atrocities Prevention Committee within the National Security Council and increased annual and contingency funding for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities.
(E) Recommendations to further strengthen United States capacities to help prevent genocide, mass atrocities, and other mass violence, including enhanced early warning mechanisms, strengthened diplomatic capacities of the Department of State, and improved use of United States foreign assistance.

John Heffernan discusses his recent trip to the Congo and the importance of genocide prevention in an editorial piece published on May 22 in the Huffington Post:

Last week, the United Nations Security Council traveled to Ethiopia, Rwanda, Congo and Liberia to discuss Africa's hotspots -- areas that are threatened by genocide and mass atrocities. In a report on preventing genocide, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen make the case for why preventing and responding to genocide and mass atrocities is in the moral and strategic interests of the United States. The 140 page report lays out 34 recommendations to point out a choice between doing nothing and embarking on large-scale military interventions. A recent trip I took to the Great Lakes region of Africa dramatically illustrated why this "blueprint" should be taken seriously, and why U.S. leadership is so important in this area.

In the dirt courtyard outside the United Nations-funded hospital wing, in the war-affected border city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I met Jean Paul, his tiny legs barely holding up his small torso. Inside the white stucco building, other children from the nearby displacement camp were not so lucky as they clung for life, skin hanging off their bones. Jean Paul, who had the most endearing brown eyes, managed to muster enough energy to lift his little hand to give me the internationally recognized high five. Although he appeared to be on the road to recovery, this child of war, who looked to be no more than two years old, held up five fingers when I asked him his age. Jean Paul, a vivid reminder of the consequences of the horrific human toll exacted by mass atrocities and genocide inflicted by man, may also be a reminder of humanity's capacity to prevent such episodes; episodes in which tens of millions have lost their lives over the last century.

I have seen it before in Darfur, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kosovo and most recently Rwanda and Congo, the direct assault on human values through systematic massacres, forced displacements, mass rapes and the plundering and destruction of homes, wells, crops, livestock and assets meant to sustain life. I know how these horrific acts destroy lives and livelihoods. But these most heinous crimes, genocide and mass atrocities, also threaten U.S. national interests, and we must be better prepared to prevent them.

In Rwanda today significant problems persist, but with assistance from the U.S. and other international donors, the country has worked hard to recover from one of the most brutal massacres of modern times. While vigilance is required to prevent repetition of the past violence in Rwanda, neighboring Congo, a huge country where the Rwandan genocide sparked successive wars involving 7 neighboring countries and resulting in an estimated 5.4 million deaths in the last ten years, needs worldwide attention to help end the reoccurring violence.

Evidence of the spillover effects of the Rwanda genocide were nowhere more apparent than in the displaced persons camps just outside of Goma in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where Jean Paul lives - camps that the U.S. and other international donors have been supporting since 1994. While aid to Rwanda and Congo supports many important reconciliation and emergency relief projects, early preventive action would surely have been less expensive and could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

There's a pattern. We know from past examples that genocide and mass atrocities in one country fuel threats in other weak and corrupt states, and can prompt the type of long term conflicts that know no boundaries. In Rwanda, with refugee flows spreading to Congo and beyond, the international community, including the U.S. was called on to absorb and assist displaced people, provide support for a massive and ongoing humanitarian relief effort. The longer we wait the more exorbitant the price tag. In Bosnia alone, the U.S. invested an estimated $15 billion to support peacekeeping forces in the years since we belatedly intervened to stop the atrocities.

What's needed in these cases is early, high-level attention, facilitated by standing institutional mechanisms within our own government, and then strong international partnerships that can form the basis for effective and coordinated action. We need a comprehensive prevention approach that begins with early warning mechanisms, and involves early action to address high-risk situations, timely diplomatic responses to emerging crises, and greater preparedness to employ military options when those are required.

The genocide prevention report clearly lays out a way forward, starting with the recommendation to create an interagency Atrocity Prevention Committee to analyze threats of genocide and mass atrocities and that warning of these threatened acts be an automatic trigger of policy review. Moreover, the report calls of an investment of $250 million - less than a dollar for every American each year -- in new funds for crisis prevention and response.

We know that the long-lasting consequences of genocide and mass atrocities are enormous. Reconciliation after the fact is possible and essential, but if we shift our focus to prevention rather than response, lives and livelihoods will be saved and threats to our national interest will be mitigated. But, as the Genocide Task Force report emphasizes, for it to work, leadership is the indispensable ingredient. Leadership from the president, Congress, and the American people --, nothing is more central to preventing genocide and mass atrocities. Time is not on the side of Jean Paul. We owe it to him and the millions like him, to make genocide prevention a priority, now.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum notes with sadness the death of Jack Kemp, who passed away on Saturday, May 2, after a battle with cancer.

A longtime Member of Congress and former vice presidential candidate, more recently Jack Kemp was a committed member of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, which was jointly convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of Peace. The Task Force released its report "Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers" last December, and Secretary Kemp's important contributions to that initiative will be a lasting legacy.

As the nation approaches the swearing in of America’s 44th president, and as the 114th Congress gets underway, a group of bipartisan leaders joins the Genocide Prevention Task Force’s call for the new administration and congressional leaders to make preventing genocide and mass atrocities a national priority.

The Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, was jointly convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The American Academy of Diplomacy and the United States Institute of Peace. Its recently released report, Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers, offers practical recommendations on how to prevent genocide and mass atrocities.

“We are keenly aware that the incoming president’s agenda will be daunting from Day One. But preventing genocide and mass atrocities is not an idealistic addition to our core foreign policy agenda. It is a moral and strategic imperative,” said Secretaries Albright and Cohen.

A number of influential individuals have lauded the Genocide Prevention Task Force report.

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III said of the report, The Genocide Prevention Task Force is right: When it comes to responding to genocide, the choice should not be between doing nothing and large-scale military action. The former is unconscionable; the latter is often politically impossible. But developed countries working with the United States can cooperate to agree upon early prevention strategies. An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure. The task force's blueprint for preventing genocide appears to be a reasonable approach that American political leaders should consider because one thing is evident, mass atrocities and the regional instabilities sparked thereby can threaten American values and interests.”

Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher commended the report, calling it a “unique blueprint for preventing genocide rather than relying on military force which always seems to come too late.”

Justice Richard Goldstone, who served as Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, said: “This is a superb report. It convincingly demonstrates that the prevention of genocide is consistent with the core values and in the national interests of the U.S.”

Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers has also been praised by officials from a number of foreign embassies and several non-governmental organizations. The release of the report has been widely covered in national and international media.

This month, the Genocide Prevention Task Force continues to brief key figures and other audiences on its findings and recommendations. The task force was funded by Humanity United and other private organizations. About the Convening Organizations:

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a living memorial to the Holocaust, inspires citizens and leaders to confront hatred, promote human dignity and prevent genocide. Federal support guarantees the Museum’s permanence, and its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by donors nationwide.

The American Academy of Diplomacy is dedicated to strengthening the resources and tools America brings to managing its diplomatic challenges, and accomplishes this through outreach programs, lectures, awards, and writing competitions. In doing so, the Academy promotes an understanding of the importance of diplomacy to serving our nation and enhancing America’s standing in the world.

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent international conflicts, promote post-conflict stability and development, and increase peacebuilding capacity, tools, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by directly engaging in peacebuilding efforts around the globe.

For more information on the Genocide Prevention Task Force, and to download a copy of the report, see:

http://www.ushmm.org
http://www.academyofdiplomacy.org
http://www.usip.org