(formerly The International Alliance to End Genocide)
Click here to go to the website of the Alliance Against Genocide
ABOUT THE ALLIANCE
1.5 million Armenians. 3 million Ukrainians. 6 million Jews. 250,000 Gypsies. 6 million Slavs. 25 million Russians. 25 million Chinese. 1 million Ibos. 1.5 million Bengalis. 200,000 Guatemalans. 1.7 million Cambodians. 500,000 Indonesians. 200,000 East Timorese. 250,000 Burundians. 500,000 Ugandans. 2 million Sudanese. 800,000 Rwandans. 2 million North Koreans. 10,000 Kosovars. Genocides and other mass murders killed more people in the twentieth century than all the wars combined.
“Never again” has turned into “Again and again.” Again and again, the response to genocide has been too little and too late.
During the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, the world’s response was denial. In 1994, while 800,000 Tutsis died in Rwanda, State Department lawyers debated whether it was “genocide”, and the U.N. Security Council withdrew U.N. peacekeeping troops who could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Genocide is the world’s worst intentional human rights problem. But it is different from other problems and requires different solutions. Because genocide is almost always carried out by a country’s own military and police forces, the usual national forces of law and order cannot stop it. International intervention is usually required. But because the world lacks an international rapid response force, and because the United Nations has so far been either paralyzed or unwilling to act, genocide has gone unchecked.
Mission of the Alliance Against Genocide
The Alliance Against Genocide is an international coalition dedicated to creating the international institutions and the political will to prevent genocide.
The Alliance Against Genocide has four goals:
1. The provision of public information on the nature of genocide and creation of the political will to prevent and stop it.
2. The creation of effective early-warning systems to alert the world and especially the U.N., regional organizations and national governments about potential ethnic conflict and genocide.
3. Motivation of international, regional, and national action to stop genocidal processes, including effective diplomacy and mobilization of rapid response forces to prevent and stop genocide.
4. Effective arrest, trial, and punishment of those who commit genocide, including the effective functioning of the International Criminal Court, the use of national courts with universal jurisdiction, and the creation of special courts to prosecute perpetrators of genocide.
Organization of the Alliance
This Alliance is an international, de-centralized, global network of many organizations. It works to bring pressure upon the UN, regional organizations, and national governments to act on early warnings and take action to prevent genocide.
The Alliance’s definition of Genocide
Following the Genocide Convention, The Alliance Against Genocide defines genocide as “the intentional destruction, in whole or in part, of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
The Alliance is also concerned about mass killing and other crimes against humanity that are included in Raphael Lemkin’s original definition of genocide. The Alliance works to prevent political mass murder, femicide and mass rape, cultural destruction, racism, religious persecution, slavery, persecution on the basis of sexual or gender identity, use of child soldiers, use of weapons of mass destruction, war crimes, and other crimes against humanity. It does not get bogged down in debates about whether mass killing meets the legal definition of genocide. Its goal is to prevent and stop all forms of mass murder.
What We Do
Genocide Watch
Genocide Watch is the Founder and Coordinator of the Alliance Against Genocide. It sponsors the Alliance website, www.againstgenocide.org, where Alliance members post news of their activities, research reports, notices of events and meetings, and appeals to join campaigns to influence public authorities.
Genocide Watch also sponsors its own website, www.genocidewatch.com, which publicizes news of events that are indicators of genocidal processes, reports on countries of special concern, educational tools for teachers and students of genocide, historical accounts of genocides, analytic articles about genocide, and news of international tribunals and national courts that try persons accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes,
The Alliance works to create political will through:
Raising awareness among policy makers: Alliance member organizations maintain close contact with policy makers in key governments, the U.N., and regional organizations by providing them with information about genocidal situations.
Coalition formation: Alliance members work in coalitions to respond to specific genocidal situations and involve their members in campaigns to educate the public and political leaders about solutions.
Policy advocacy: Based on field research and expert analyses, Alliance member organizations prepare situation reports, articles for public media, and campaigns to influence government policies, including options for action to prevent genocide, which they present to policy makers.
Where We Work
The Alliance’s Coordinator, Genocide Watch, is located near Washington, D.C., which permits it to work directly with U.S. government officials. Alliance member organizations influence U.S., U.K. and E.U. foreign policy, a key to humanitarian intervention when genocide threatens. The Alliance has over 100 member organizations in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Israel, Iraq, Nigeria, South Africa, Cambodia, and over twenty other countries. It is an international effort that works with governments to create the political will for multilateral preventive diplomacy, rather than unilateral military intervention.