Policy group on genocide urges changes to U.S. agencies

By Daniel Van Oudenaren

December 8, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – Three U.S. institutions issued a policy plan for developing standing mechanisms in government agencies for preventing and addressing genocide worldwide.

The report deliberately makes few references to Sudan because it focuses on institutional reform and general approaches to mass atrocities. However, the report potentially has implications for Sudan because the U.S. government declared the situation in Darfur to be genocide in September 2004.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen headed the task force responsible for the 174-page document released on Monday. Other task force members included John Danforth, a former U.S. envoy to Sudan, and Jack Kemp, a former Republican Party presidential and vice-presidential candidate.

Under Danforth’s leadership the current administration helped to broker a 2005 north-south peace deal in the Sudan, but another war had already begun in 2003 in the remote western region of Darfur.

The task force was jointly convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy and the United States Institute of Peace, beginning in November 2007.

Its ranks were joined by several members of President-elect Obama’s national security transition team. For instance, the sub-group on “employing military options” included Sarah Sewall, who is a Harvard colleague of Samantha power, another Obama advisor and Darfur activist.

The report recommends that the president create an interagency Atrocities Prevention Committee at the National Security Council. Special alert channels in the intelligence agencies and State Department would thus send information directly to the National Security Council.

“There would actually be very senior government officials who are able to take this information and understand the options,” explained Victoria Holt, a researcher who worked primarily on the military aspect of the report. “The general theory of this is that both from senior leadership and by embedding in our government more of a focus on mass atrocities and genocide, this could be applicable to any case, but potentially also Sudan.”

The American policy advisors also recommend developing military guidance on genocide response and launching a major diplomatic effort to create an international network for information-sharing and coordinated action.

“We are keenly aware that the incoming president’s agenda will be massive and daunting from day one,” wrote Albright and Cohen. “But preventing genocide and mass atrocities is not an idealistic add-on to our core foreign policy agenda. It is a moral and strategic imperative.”

Other parts of the report determine that diplomats and intelligence officers should be trained to look for early warning signs of mass atrocities.

These indicators would “trigger policy review in a way that more generalized conflict would not,” said Holt. “And so there’s an argument about what the level of violence is and what the current challenges are in Sudan. But if this were in place—if there was an escalation or a vision that there are mass atrocities—then our government would be better on its own and working with others to recognize that earlier and understand the implications.”

THE UNITED STATES AND GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS

If the United States were to intervene in a foreign conflict, said the task force, then UN Security Council Resolutions offer “unparalleled legitimacy in the eyes of world governments.” But the team also pointed to policy options that could bypass the Security Council, such as strengthening regional organizations like the African Union or NATO.

Failing at that, the State Department could assemble a “coalition of like-minded actors” willing to intervene, according to the doctrine espoused in the report.

Generally, the task force encouraged an institutional approach to human rights consistent with that advanced by much of the incoming Democratic administration. But the document also reflects the influence of other diplomatic attitudes. For instance, the report’s position on the UN Human Rights Council recalls certain opinions expressed by Ambassador Richard Williamson, the current envoy to Sudan.

Williamson, who was consulted by the task force, served as the U.S. representative to the Council’s predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights. He viewed the body as needing reform.

In 2004 at the 60th session of the Human Rights Commission, the United States was the only country to vote against a resolution on Sudan because it contained weaker language than a measure that the U.S. had unsuccessfully advanced.

Williamson later wrote of the session, “The insular, closed world of U.N. diplomacy eclipsed consideration of real events happening in the real world; even events of horror and death. I have seen this dynamic many times in many U.N. for as over the past 22 years. But never have I witnessed it to such craven and immoral effect.”

With similar skepticism, the task force report recommends that “the United States should carefully assess biennially whether the benefits of membership on the Human Rights Council outweigh the costs.”

As to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which the U.S. has opposed despite supporting the ICC prosecutor’s investigations in Darfur, the task force urges, “within the constraints of U.S. law, the United States should cooperate fully and share information with the court on all situations in which the United States has not opposed the court taking jurisdiction”

EMPLOYING MILITARY OPTIONS

The task force endorses a range of different armed responses to genocide and reforms at both procedural and policy levels.

At the most preventive level, the recommendations focus on supporting surveillance and peacekeeping operations by providing better guidance, doctrine and training for peacekeeping missions. Military support could be funneled through organizations such as the African Union,
ECOWAS in West Africa and ASEAN in Southeast Asia.

But the task force also discusses coercive levels of response, like disrupting supply lines, precision bombing, and jamming communications.

“There is a choice for U.S. policymakers between doing nothing and large-scale military intervention,” explained Cohen. “We hope this report will help us utilize those options.”

For the final stage of escalation, the groups explicitly call for preparations for offensive interventions. If adopted, these would be streamlined into military procedures. For instance, the military would be tasked with planning, war-gaming different scenarios, and undertaking training in providing safe havens and humanitarian aid, military-civilian cooperation, civil security and traditional war-fighting.

The report adds, “These initiatives should extend and expand ongoing efforts in related areas, such as joint peacekeeping exercises conducted at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk.”

“Generally the task force recognized that this isn’t just defensive, that there may be times when the use of more offensive force is required to end the actions of belligerents or to protect civilians,” said Holt, also stressing that the report is general and not written with one specific country in mind.

The Task Force was funded by Humanity United and other private organizations.

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