Genocide Watch 2023 Annual Report
In the darkness of the black cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic, Genocide Watch found a silver lining and became an entirely virtual organization. All Genocide Watch staff are volunteers. Genocide Watch expanded our staff to include over thirty members from the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Kenya, Sweden, Finland, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Rwanda, Spain, Italy, and India. Our Alliance Against Genocide gained a dozen new member organizations around the world.
By becoming entirely virtual, Genocide Watch cut its already minimal expenses. Not a single penny is spent on rents, computers, salaries, meetings, meals, or conferences.
Genocide Watch has done all its work since 1999 for a total of $120,000, about $5000 per year.
Because Genocide Watch uses constant event-based monitoring, and a processual model of the development of genocide, rather than an annual statistical model based on abstract variables, it is usually the first NGO to predict a genocide. Genocide Watch has worked with NGO coalitions to persuade regional organizations to intervene and stop genocides in East Timor, Kosovo, Macedonia, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Burundi, and Iraq.
Genocide Watch’s operational methodology to maintain timely and reliable information on threats of genocide has four pillars: Awareness, Education, Legal Prosecution, and Alliance and Advocacy.
Awareness:
Genocide Watch amplified its advocacy efforts by establishing a seventeen-member Advocacy and Alliance Team to write and distribute genocide alerts to policy makers in US, UK, and European Union governments.
The Advocacy Team focused on seven projects in 2023:
warning of the slow genocide against Shi'a Hazaras in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan;
reauthorizing the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan with a new mandate to monitor Taliban violations of the rights of women, Hazara and other minority groups;
calling attention to jihadist killings of Christians in Nigeria and the Sahel;
warning about persecution of the Banyamulenge (Tutsis) in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
reporting on the genocides against Kurdish people in Iraq, and proposing a resolution recognizing the Kurdish Genocides adopted by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS);
warning of genocide and displacement of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) caused by Azerbaijan's blockade, invasion, and forced deportation;
advocating for UN authorization of a UN Peacekeeping Operation to stop renewed genocide in Darfur, to end the Sudanese civil war, and to arrest Generals Hemedti and Burhan for trial by the ICC.
Dr. Stanton and Advocacy Staff Members Helen Graham and Daniel Russell worked with the World Hazara Council to draft a UN Security Council Resolution renewing and strengthening the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. We met with the officers in the State Department responsible for renewing the mandate. Although the US opted for a "technical rollover" to ease renewal of the UNAMA mandate,
the same day the UN Security Council passed UNAMA renewal, it also passed a tandem resolution appointing a Special Rapporteur on Afghan compliance with international law regarding women's and minority rights, with quarterly reports to the UN Secretary General. These resolutions accomplished the goals we sought.
Dr. Stanton testified on the persecution of Hazaras before the all-party human rights committees of the Canadian and UK parliaments. We continued to work with Congressional staff and the White House urging them to support legislation to expand the number of Afghans that the US will accept for asylum.
Genocide Watch intensified its advocacy efforts to end the persecution of the Banyamulenge (Tutsis) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Senior Research Analyst, Thomas Shacklock, wrote a report with Ntanyoma Rukumbuzi Delphin, on the rise in hate speech in DRC against Tutsis that they sent to the State Department Africa Bureau and the U.S. missions to the U.N. and U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa. Shacklock and Ntanyoma organized a panel on the persecution of the Banyamulenge that they presented at the biennial meeting of the International Association of Genocide Scholars held in Barcelona July 10 - 14, 2023.
An important leader of the Hazara and the women’s movement in Afghanistan, Raziya Masumi, a lawyer doing advanced legal studies in the Hague, joined the staff of Genocide Watch. She is in constant contact with people in Afghanistan. She wrote and published “Report on Ten Stages of Genocide Against Hazaras and Other Shia Religious Minorities in Afghanistan” and her “The Worsening Situation of Women in Afghanistan,” which she presented to a U.N. Conference in Verona, Italy in December 2023.
In 2023, Genocide Watch issued over seventy new country reports and emergency alerts. Our 2023 Research Team is led by Grace Condon. For a complete list of Genocide Watch reports and alerts, please visit our website.
We issued a Genocide Emergency Alert when Azerbaijan invaded Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, updated it when it blockaded the Lachin Corridor, and updated it again when Azerbaijan drove Armenians out of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). On Sept. 2, 2023, the NY Times' Nicholas Kristof cited Genocide Watch's Genocide Emergency in "Another Genocide is Underway in Nagorno-Karabakh".
EDUCATION:
Genocide Watch increased our website and social media reach. Davis West, a computer scientist staff member improved our Genocide Watch and Alliance Against Genocide websites. Our www.genocidewatch.com website gets an average of over 70,000 hits by separate users each month. Our Genocide Alerts are now e-mailed to over 4000 subscribers. Genocide Watch Facebook followers increased to 13,000, and Instagram to 5000 followers. Our Twitter (X) account has over 6000 followers.
Genocide Watch's Timestream Team produced 28 interactive historical accounts of past and current genocides. PowerPoints of the Timestream slides are on our website. They are used by teachers and students around the world.
To expand the educational reach of Dr. Stanton’s Ten Stages of Genocide model of genocide, Nat Hill, Research Director, oversaw translation of our two-page summary of the Ten Stages model into over a dozen languages.
We welcomed a UK performance group Stages into the Alliance Against Genocide. Stages bases its presentations on the Ten Stages of Genocide. It has developed excellent curricular materials on genocide for secondary schools that are now available on our website.
Dr. Stanton spoke virtually at several conferences on genocide. They included a U.N. webinar on the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention led by Dr. Alice Nderitu, Special Adviser to the U.N. Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide. He addressed a Conference on Genocide Denial sponsored by the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh. He spoke at commemorations of genocides against the Anuak of Ethiopia, the Kurds of Iraq, and Native Americans of the USA. He gave classes for students in the UK, US, Netherlands, and Canada.
Genocide Watch formed a twelve-member team to produce podcasts for education of the public about genocide. The team has produced podcasts that will be placed on our Genocidewatchblog.com website and on Spotify, Soundcloud, and Apple Music.
In July 2023 staff from Genocide Watch attended the 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Association of Genocide Scholars Conference (IAGS) in Barcelona, Spain. Jordan Lambdin and Dr. Stanton of the Legal Team presented papers on the harm the term “ethnic cleansing” brings to genocide prevention. Dr. Stanton published "Ethnic Cleansing is a Euphemism Used for Genocide Denial.
At the IAGS meeting, Dr. Stanton presented a paper with his critique of the ICJ's erroneous analysis of "state intent" in its Bosnia v. Serbia and Croatia v. Serbia decisions, which if not corrected, could prove fatal to the Gambia's case against Myanmar. The Foreign Minister of Bangladesh asked Dr. Stanton to draft a Memorial (legal brief) for Bangladesh to submit to the ICJ so Bangladesh can become an Intervening Party in the Gambia v. Myanmar ICJ case.
At the IAGS meeting, Grace Condon presented her paper on "Femicide in Mexico." Jordan Lambdin gave a paper comparing laws against domestic violence and femicide in the US and Chilé. Giada Corsoni gave a presentation on the growth of exclusionary extremism in European countries. Dr. Stanton gave a presentation on "The New Nazism" in Russia, Turkey, Europe, India, and the US.
Legal Prosecution:
To investigate and promote legal prosecution strategies for genocides, Genocide Watch's Legal Team took on four major projects:
Legal scholarship to correct the International Court of Justice’s erroneous interpretation of state intent in the Genocide Convention;
Research for lawsuits against Facebook in several countries for complicity in the Rohingya genocide.
Work with Iraqi NGOs and UNITAD to amend Iraqi law so UNITAD casefiles can be used in Iraqi courts to prosecute members of ISIS for their genocides of Yazidis, Christians, and Shi'as in Iraq.
A Report on the Kurdish Genocides to support a resolution by the International Association of Genocide Scholars recognizing these crimes as genocides.
Genocide Watch reported on the seven genocides that have killed at least 400,000 Kurds since 1980. A Genocide Watch team composed of Dr. Stanton, Kyla Lucey, and the Genocide Watch photographer went to Kurdistan for research co-sponsored by KGLobby, a Kurdish NGO founded by Mrs. Awring Shaways. In Erbil, Kurdistan, Dr. Stanton, and Ms. Lucey met with members of UNITAD, with representatives of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and with Kurdish NGOs EMMA and the Coalition for Just Reparations.
Kyla Lucey led the team that wrote a Report on the Kurdish Genocides with Jordan Lambdin, Manoka Y, Isabelle Hofberg, Leah Cohen, Panchami Manjunatha, and Dr. Stanton, with photography by Ted Stanton.
The report includes a legal analysis of the Kurdish genocides. It supports the IAGS Resolution on the Kurdish Genocides submitted by Dr. Stanton, Sylvia Ronnau, and Mrs. Shaways. The IAGS adopted the resolution.
In 2017, Genocide Watch proposed and wrote the draft UNSC Resolution that created the U.N. Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da'esh/ISIL (UNITAD). UNITAD now has a staff of 260 in Iraq that has compiled hundreds of case files that could be used to prosecute members of ISIS now in Iraqi prisons.
The legal barrier to using UNITAD case files is the mandatory death penalty under Iraq's Anti-Terrorism Law. U.N. rules forbid turning over evidence to courts that impose the death penalty. Genocide Watch is seeking legislation by the Iraq parliament to provide an additional "extenuating circumstance" for sentencing under Iraq’s Anti-Terrorism Law. It would provide that when UNITAD case files are used as evidence, the Iraqi Appeals Court will be legally required to commute death penalties to imprisonment. Then UNITAD could make its case files available to Iraqi courts for prosecution of members of ISIS in Iraq’s prisons.
The Alliance Against Genocide:
Alliance Against Genocide Team Leader Brooklyn Quallen and her team strengthened our Alliance Against Genocide. The Alliance Against Genocide now has 102 member organizations in 31 countries.
Dr. Stanton spoke at Congressional briefings organized by the Indian American Muslim Council. He attended weekly meetings of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable and spoke at the international Ministerial on Religious Freedom organized by the Roundtable. He spoke in Webinars organized by Alliance member FORSEA on threats to religious freedom in India. His appearance on an Indian internet TV program drew 300,000 viewers. He warned of early warning signs of genocidal processes in India under Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.
Genocide Watch actively incorporates the voices and perspectives of genocide victims and survivor communities. Genocide Watch consults Alliance members to research and validate our reports with genocide-impacted communities. We have collaborated with institutions inside and outside the Alliance to validate reports on Sudan, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, China, Kurdistan, and the Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities.
At a meeting in 2023, the former head of a leading human rights group said:
“Of all human rights NGOs, Genocide Watch gets the most bang for the buck. Genocide Watch has worked with the U.N. and governments to build two international tribunals, the ICTR and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. It chaired the Washington Working Group that persuaded President Clinton to sign the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It persuaded the U.N. Secretary-General to create the Office of the Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide. It incorporated and led the International Association of Genocide Scholars. It founded the first and largest coalition of anti-genocide organizations, the Alliance Against Genocide. It helped get regional governments and the U.N. to prevent and stop at least eight genocides."
Thanks to our outstanding all-volunteer staff and extremely low expenses for 24 years, Genocide Watch has had a significant impact on genocide early warning and prevention. Our Alliance Against Genocide is building a global movement to predict, prevent, stop, and punish genocide.
That is our purpose and our calling.
We could not have persevered and grown stronger without your support.
THANK YOU!
With gratitude,
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton
Founding President