PREVENTING GENOCIDE

PRACTICAL STEPS TOWARD EARLY DETECTION AND EFFECTIVE ACTION

BERTRAND G. RAMCHARAN¹

Dr David Hamburg, who has for a long time led on the issue of the prevention of conflicts and of gross violations of human rights, has written an important book with feeling and passion. As President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace he sponsored and co-chaired, with the late Cyrus Vance, the Carnegie Commission on the Prevention of Deadly Conflict and he has headed the Secretary-General’s advisory committee on the prevention of genocide from the outset. This commitment, and methodical research, shows in this pioneering book.

An opening chapter provides an introduction and overview on the prevention of genocide, followed by chapters on the fate of the Armenians, the Holocaust, Burundi-Rwanda and the preventive efforts that helped steer apartheid South Africa to democracy. Thereafter chapters on the pillars of prevention discuss preventive diplomacy, democracy, fostering equitable socio-economic development, education for human survival, and preventing human rights abuses through international justice. The last chapter is a particularly interesting one inasmuch as it makes the case that international criminal tribunals have had, and can have, a preventive effect.

Next comes a discussion of the key international organizations, the United Nations, the European Union, OSCE, and NATO. Concluding chapters sum up essential points for the prevention of genocide and make the case for two international centres for the prevention of genocide, one in the UN and another in the European Union.
Dr Hamburg notes that genocides have been recorded throughout history, often with approval by those chronicling a ‘victory’ of their particular tribe or nation. Making a powerful case for prevention in the future he argues that recent research has documented that all the genocides of the twentieth century were clearly visible years in advance, but largely dismissed, even denied, by the international community until mass killing was well under way.

Dr Hamburg wants to change this. He offers suggestions for the crisis prevention approach, and makes the case for international cooperation for the prevention of genocide. New research on genocide offers, he thinks, clues to the future of prevention. Every modern case of genocide, he notes, has been preceded by a propaganda campaign directed through the mass media by political leaders who applied to human destruction the latest technological and organizational capabilities available to them.

He therefore makes the case for an integrated warning response system dedicated to genocide, ethnic cleansing and massive human rights violations. He reviews among the important ways of preventing mass violence: preventive diplomacy; international norms for hatred and violence through education; cooperation across national boundaries and among institutions and organizations; democratic political and economic development; the role of international centres for prevention of genocide; and suggests the following pillars of prevention:

1. A continuous flow of accurate information on emerging conflicts, especially violent outbursts of extensive hate speech, and early warning of serious trouble between groups or between nations.
2. The proactive use of preventive diplomacy, with respectful engagement in an assistance approach to countries in trouble.
3. Building good government leading toward democracy and equitable socio-economic development.
4. Education for conflict resolution, mutual accommodation, learning to live together.
5. Serious restraints on weaponry, arms control regimes.
6. International justice in preventing human rights abuses.

He poses and answers the question, can institutions of international justice help to prevent genocide, and answers: “Why not? They make it less likely that mass murderers can act with impunity behind the shield of sovereignty. They have an important role in public education by developing and communicating compelling norms of decent human relations at all levels: intranational,intergroup and international. They probably influence for the better those populations susceptible to hateful demagogues.”

At the conclusion of the book, Dr Hamburg provides sixteen concrete suggestions for future work in this area. These include the following:

• Assemble a long-term, core professional staff with a critical mass of knowledge and skill drawn from scientists, scholars, diplomats, lawyers, political and military leaders, and specialists in the fields of conflict resolution and violence prevention. This could be done in centres for the prevention genocide that he proposes.
• Systematically monitor the world’s conflict situations, not only where violence is under way but also in ‘hot spots’ (or ‘warm spots’) where danger of hatred and violence is developing over the longer term.
• Establish an integrated warning response system that focuses on the possibility of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and related extensive human rights violations.
• Establish an ongoing process, drawing on readily available information from all sources, to identify vulnerable targets, scapegoats, and deprecated out-groups.
• Monitor trends of hatred and dehumanisation toward the groups that are identified in such vulnerable position.
• Offer help in conflict resolution and prevention of mass violence in situations of this kind through: early, strong mediation; help in building internal capacity of member states for early ongoing conflict resolution, including essential concepts, techniques (e.g. negotiation) and institutions (e.g. an independent judiciary); help in guiding leaders and the public to understand the merits of these enterprises, showing how a country caught up in deep antagonism will find such measures to serve its own interests, as well as earning respect and economic as well as political benefits in the international community.
• Identify strong predisposing factors, for example, severe economic deterioration and inequity, social disorganization with failing governance, repression by elites, and alienated passions with prospects of war and/or revolution in the background.

There is a wealth of information and insights in this volume, showing the passion of the author, and sometimes one has to sift for the nuggets. Suggestions are made for efforts by a broad variety of actors, which is to the good. The policy practitioner, especially in and around the United Nations Security Council, will need to think innovatively on how to draw upon them in marshalling the energies of the Council to positive action. For his invitation to dynamic action we are all grateful to Dr Hamburg.

¹ Author of Preventive Diplomacy at the United Nations, Indiana UP 2008; and Preventive Human Rights Strategies in a World of New Threats and Challenges, forthcoming, Routledge.