This April, as we marked Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month, I was struck by how important the voices of dedicated citizens have been in mobilizing the United States government to prioritize the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities.
Earlier this month, I attended a book talk on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s recently published Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention by renowned scholar Scott Straus. The book highlights that further support is required to protect and advance the work of atrocities prevention, and that citizen activism has been critical to existing progress.
Although we have seen challenges to preventative action in places like Guatemala, Bosnia and Cambodia in years past, new advances provide reasons for hope, including recent cases where the U.S. government has more effectively supported an end to violence in the Central African Republic and elsewhere.
In order to ensure that newly-created structures, tools and resources responsible for U.S. efforts to better prevent violence are made permanent, increased congressional support for the bipartisan Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act is needed. And, your voice matters.
Support from people around the country has driven recent successes in prevention efforts. Experts have long highlighted the importance of the U.S. public in demanding action from elected officials to ensure leadership on the prevention of atrocities and genocide.
This April we saw the efforts of U.S. citizens in support of preventing atrocities once again come to a crescendo with numerous advocacy organizations and activists taking action. The Enough Project launched a campaign on the theme of “Atrocity Crimes Shouldn’t Pay.” Jewish World Watch authored a series that commemorated past genocides and mass atrocities, and hosted Walks to End Genocide in Los Angeles and several other locations. They will co-host a walk this Sunday, May 1 in Washington, D.C. STAND, the Student-Led Movement to End Mass Atrocities, partnered with Together We Remember to host name readings of victims of genocide on eight college campuses. The Carl Wilkens Fellows also conducted outreach in key states. In Texas, for example, over 300 individual postcards were sent to Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. This spring alone, we tracked that over 43,000 messages into Senate offices urging support for genocide and atrocities prevention.
April may be coming to a close, but continued action is needed. Urge your elected officials to co-sponsor the Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act today. Help to support an important step toward a vision of creating a world free of war and the threat of war.
