U.N. Adviser on Genocide Prevention To Speak at Swarthmore

Genocide Intervention Fund

SWARTHMORE, Pa. – The United Nations’ lead spokesman against the
horrors of genocide will speak next week at Swarthmore College, where
a group of students have created the first-ever private fundraising
drive for a peacekeeping force.

Juan E. Méndez, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of
Genocide, is scheduled to speak and answer questions on Wednesday,
Feb. 16, from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Lang Performing Arts Center of
Swarthmore College.

“He will focus on the world’s response to genocide, focusing
specifically on the situation in Darfur, Sudan, and how such outrages
against humanity can be prevented now and in the future,” says Mark
Hanis, a Swarthmore senior and President of the Genocide Intervention
Fund (GIF).

The GIF is incorporating as a 501(c)(3) to collect tax-exempt
donations to support African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan. In
the past two years, the genocide in Darfur has claimed 400,000 lives
and displaced 2.5 million.

The African Union remains the only international organization willing
to send troops into Darfur. Financial, equipment and logistical
shortages continue to hamper its activities and have contributed to
its slow deployment. Thus far, only 1,846 members of a proposed force
of 3,230 have been deployed.

A native Argentinian, Méndez was appointed to his U.N. position by the
Secretary-General on July 12, 2004. As a young man, he was arrested
and tortured by Argentina’s dictatorship and moved to the United
States in the 1970s. He has since served as general counsel for Human
Rights Watch and executive director, then president (PICK ONE) of the
Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in Costa Rica.

Méndez also has been a professor and director of the Centre for Civil
and Human Rights at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. His visit
is sponsored by Swarthmore Sudan and the Forum for Free Speech.