In The Washington Post, Mike Abramowitz, Director of the Museum's genocide prevention program, writes about international efforts to prevent violence in Sudan around the January 9th referendum -- and our ability to respond if those efforts fail. The Washington Post also profiles a video by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lucian Perkins, who recently traveled to South Sudan with Abramowitz on a Museum-sponsored bearing witness trip.
On December 22, 2010, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed S.Con.Res.71, a non-binding resolution that recognizes genocide prevention as a national security interest of the United States and urges the President and senior government leaders to rededicate efforts to “anticipate, prevent, and mitigate acts of genocide and other mass atrocities.” With a coalition of over a half-dozen organizations, the anti-genocide community worked actively to support the resolution’s passage.
“We know the unthinkable is thinkable. What do we do with that knowledge?” Sara Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, asked an audience of human rights experts, conflict prevention specialists, and senior diplomats representing more than 20 governments. The group gathered in Paris on Monday to discuss how members of the international community could work together to prevent genocide and mass atrocities.
In an op-ed in the Boston Globe, Mike Abramowitz, Director of the Museum's genocide prevention program, and Andrew Natsios, former U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan, discuss the definitive moment ahead for southern Sudan, as the region prepares to vote in a referendum on independence, and the hopeful possibility that peace is within reach. Abramowitz and Natsios traveled to southern Sudan on a Museum-sponsored bearing witness trip. To learn more about their observations and experiences, read the trip report or view photographs.
From November 8 to 10, 2010, the Holocaust Museum will project building-size images of life in South Sudan onto the Museum's exterior walls on 15th Street. Taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lucian Perkins on a recent Museum-sponsored trip, these images bear witness to the risks ahead for the Sudanese, as the South prepares to vote in a referendum on independence in January 2011.
From September 19 to October 3, 2010, Mike Abramowitz, Director of the Museum’s Committee on Conscience, and Andrew Natsios, former Special Envoy to Sudan, traveled throughout South Sudan to assess the region’s conditions as it prepares for the January 9 referendum on independence from the North. They were joined by Lucian Perkins, a prize-winning photographer and journalist.
In a column for GlobalPost, Bridget Conley-Zilkic, director of research and projects with the Museum's genocide prevention program, writes about how the world might have foreseen the recent outbreak of violence in Kyrgyzstan. For more information about how the U.S. can strengthen its capacity to prevent genocide and mass atrocities, view the Genocide Prevention Task Force.
As part of its new National Security Strategy (NSS), the Obama administration has committed the United States to engaging “proactively” with the international community to prevent mass atrocities and genocide.
In commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum designated Stories of Freedom: What You Do Matters as the theme for Days of Remembrance 2010. Among the events the Museum held was an interview by Michael Abramowitz, Director of the Committee on Conscience at the Museum, with General Roméo Dallaire, former commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994. General Dallaire spoke about his experiences in Rwanda 16 years ago and the importance of increasing the will and capacity in government to respond to genocide today.
Find information on historical cases of genocide and other atrocities.