Genocide Scholars Open Letter to Ambassador Susan Rice .
“A displaced woman and her child from the Nuba Mountains in Sudan wait outside the Yida refugee camp registration center in Yida, South Sudan. Thousands of people from the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, Sudan have fled to Yida to escape recent fighting and airstrikes by Sudan's Armed Forces”. Photo: AFP/Adriane Ohanesian . Open Letter to Ambassador Susan Rice-Nuba Mountains Crisis and Absolute Silence by Members of the Atrocities Prevention Board Dear Ms. Rice: April 8, 2013 (SSNA) -- We, scholars of genocide and human rights activists from around the world, are writing to you about our vital concern about the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile and the fact that despite multiple attempts to address such concerns with the members of the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB) we have come up short. More specifically, we’ve sent four letters to three different individuals (Ms. Samantha Power (twice); Mr. Steven Pomper, Senior Assistant Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights; and Mr. Donald Steinberg, Deputy Administrator, USAID) (please see letters at the very end of this letter) with the APB and none of them have even acknowledged the letters. Cognizant of your important and good work on the behalf of the people of the Sudan, we are writing to you in the hope that you will be able to assist us in reaching the members of the APB. As you well know, the people of the Nuba Mountains continue to face daily bombings by Government of Sudan (GoS) Antonovs, periodic attacks by MIGS, and ground fighting near the major population centers in the region. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile have been forced from their homes and villages. While many have sought sanctuary in refugee camps across the border in the Republic of South Sudan, huge numbers of other people remain internally displaced. All of the people also face hunger as a result of being forced off their farms. Not a few have had to resort to eating roots, leaves and insects and as a result an unknown number have starved to death. Just this past week (March 26th), Radio Tamazuj reported the following: “Nearly 22,000 thousand displaced citizens at Kao Nyaro in Abu Jubeiha County and Werne (Verni) in Talodi County in South Kordofan State are suffering from hunger and poor health conditions….Al Haj Al Dewan, the SPLM-N Political Secretary…described the conditions of citizens as ‘miserable and very difficult from the lack of food and poor health conditions,’ adding that there is a sharp rise in the mortality rate among children, mothers and elderly, amid a complete absence of organizations working in the humanitarian field…. ‘Everyday people are dying from hunger and sickness especially children and elderly,’ he said.” As you know, early in 2012 both the U.N. and the United States considered the possibility of opening up a humanitarian corridor in order to get desperately needed food and medical aid to the people of the Nuba Mountains. Unfortunately, such discussion came to naught. As a result, quasi-secret efforts are underway to get at least a modicum of food into the region. In fact, this past December/January a small group of scholars and activists (among whom are several signatories to this letter: Samuel Totten, John Hubbel Weiss, Slater Armstrong, and Mark Hackett) inserted five tons of food into the Nuba Mountains, both raising the funds to purchase and transport such and sent a member to the region to oversee the effort. It was costly, time-consuming, complex, difficult and, ultimately, dangerous. That is how serious, though, some of us are about what has transpired in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile over the past eighteen months or so. In light of the fact that President Obama seemingly established the APB to address issues such as those in the Nuba Mountains, where crimes against humanity have been perpetrated on a daily basis over the past year and a half by the Government of Sudan, we thought it behooved us to contact the APB board members to underscore our concern and to inquire as to what the APB has done in addressing the crisis in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. At the worst, we anticipated receiving a typically bureaucratic response that the situation is difficult but the U.S. is apprised of it and working through diplomatic channels to ameliorate the situation. We never expected, though, to have our letter (and now letters) go unanswered. We sent the first copy of the letter to Ms. Samantha Power on December 12, 2012, the second letter to Ms. Power on January 20, 2013, the third letter to Mr. Pomper on March 26, 2013, and the fourth letter to Mr. Steinberg on March 29, 2013. In reaching out to various members of Congress, we have been informed, for example, that “it appears that President Obama has not yet named a replacement for Samantha Power,” and “It seems that the APB is not very active at the moment.” Both situations are extremely unfortunate. First and foremost, as you well know, there are numerous crises around the globe where crimes against humanity are being carried out on a daily basis (i.e., in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile, all in Sudan; the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Syria) and suspected of being carried out (i.e., North Korea, Burma), and thus should be the focus of the APB. Second, when President Obama reported on the establishment of the ABP during a speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on April 23, 2012, he voiced a real urgency in addressing genocide and crimes against humanity, which obviously has fallen by the wayside if, in fact, the ABP is “not very active at the moment.” More specifically, during the aforementioned speech, when he touted the APB as something unique in the annals of U.S. history, President Obama declared the following: Three years ago today, I joined many of you for a ceremony of remembrance at the U.S. Capitol. And I said that we had to do “everything we can to prevent and end atrocities.” And so I want to report back to some of you today to let you know that as President I’ve done my utmost to back up those words with deeds. Last year, in the first-ever presidential directive on this challenge, I made it clear that "preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States of America." Now we’re doing something more. We’re making sure that the United States government has the structures, the mechanisms to better prevent and respond to mass atrocities. So I created the first-ever White House position dedicated to this task. It’s why I created a new Atrocities Prevention Board, to bring together senior officials from across our government to focus on this critical mission. This is not an afterthought. This is not a sideline in our foreign policy. The board will convene for the first time today, at the White House. And I’m pleased that one of its first acts will be to meet with some of your organizations -- citizens and activists who are partners in this work, who have been carrying this torch. Going forward, we’ll strengthen our tools across the board, and we'll create new ones. The intelligence community will prepare, for example, the first-ever National Intelligence Estimate on the risk of mass atrocities and genocide. We're going to institutionalize the focus on this issue. Across government, "alert channels" will ensure that information about unfolding crises -- and dissenting opinions -- quickly reach decision-makers, including me…. In short, we need to be doing everything we can to prevent and respond to these kinds of atrocities -- because national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people. Ms. Rice, unfortunately, when one hears that “the APB is not very active at the moment” and when we, scholars of genocide studies and human rights activists, fail to receive a reply to a letter that we first wrote back in December 2012 and have now sent five times to four different individuals affiliated with the APB, it, indeed, feels as if the APB and its focus/work is little more than “a sideline in our foreign policy.” Furthermore, and again, unfortunately, President Obama’s words that “across government, ‘alert channels’ will ensure that information about unfolding crises -- and dissenting opinions -- quickly reach decision-makers, including me….” are little more than hollow words churned out for a public relations opportunity and a photo op. At the very least, it seems, the APB, by this time, could have privately and publicly prodded the UN to open a humanitarian corridor in order to provide desperate people in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile with food and medical aid; argued in favor of establishing an on-the-ground investigation (at least in the refugee camps in South Sudan) to the crimes against humanity that the Government of Sudan has perpetrated against the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile (just as the George W. Bush Administration did in 2004 in regard to the atrocities committed by the Government of Sudan in Darfur); and, made the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile a major issue by addressing the tragedy unfolding there by addressing the mass media. As you will note, scholars and activists from around the world have signed this letter, and that’s because many across the globe (Australia, Canada, England, Israel, The Netherlands, Germany, Sudan, Wales) were hopeful that President Obama was serious about making a sea change vis-à-vis the prevention and intervention of crimes against humanity and genocide; that is, away from the expression of fine sounding sentiments cum concern to real action. All that said, we, again, hope that you will be able to help us get our letter on to the desk of President Obama and into the hands of each and every member of the APB. We thank you in advance for your consideration of this request and for all of the good work you have done on the behalf of the beleaguered people of Sudan. Samuel Totten Professor Emeritus University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Author of Genocide by Attrition: Nuba Mountains, Sudan (Transaction Publishers, 2013). Hon. John Marshall Evans U.S. Ambassador to Armenia 2004-2006 Hon. David Kilgour, J.D. and D.D. (Hon) Canadian Minister of State for Africa and Latin America (1997-2002) and for Asia-Pacific (2002-2003) Dr. Tom Catena, MD Medical Director Mother of Mercy Hospital Gidel Nuba Mountains, Sudan Dr. Gerry Caplan Independent Scholar Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada Author of Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide (Organization of African’s Unity’s International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, 2000) Professor Eric Reeves Smith College Northampton, MA Author of Compromising with Evil: An Archival History of Greater Sudan (2012) Dr. Craig Etcheson Visiting Scholar Northern Illinois University DeKalb, Illinois Author of After the Killing Fields: Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide (Texas Tech University Press, 2006) Dr. Ervin Staub Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Founding Director, Ph.D. program in the Psychology of Peace and Violence University of Massachusetts at Amherst Author of The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict and Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2011) Dr. John Hagan MacArthur Professor & Co-Director, Center on Law & Globalization Northwestern University & American Bar Foundation Evanston, IL Darfur and the Crime of Genocide (with Wenona Rymond-Richmond) Mr. Damien Lewis Journalist, Documentary Filmmaker and Author London Co-author (with Mukesh Kapila) Against a Tide of Evil (Mainstream Press, 2013); co-author of Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer and Damien Lewis (Public Affairs, 2005); and co-author (with Halima Bashir) of Tears of the Desert, a memoir of survival in Darfur (Ballantine, 2008). Dr. Douglas H. Johnson Independent Scholar Author of The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars: Peace Or Truce (James Currey Publishers, 2011) Linda Melvern Department of International Politics University of Aberystwyth, Wales Author of A People Betrayed. The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide (2009). Dr. Victoria Sanford Director Center for Human Rights & Peace Studies Professor of Anthropology Lehman College & the Graduate Center City University of New York New York, NY Author of Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala (2003) Dr. Israel W. Charny Founder and Director, Genocide Prevention Network Jerusalem, Israel Chief Editor of Encyclopedia of Genocide Dr. Roger W. Smith Professor Emeritus of Government College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia Author of "Scarcity and Genocide" (in On the Edge of Scarcity: Environment, Resources, Population, Sustainability, and Conflict (Syracuse University Press, 2002) Dr. Robert Melson Professor Emeritus Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana Author of Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (University of Chicago Press, 1996) Dr. Alan Kuperman Associate Professor of Public Affairs Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs University of Texas Austin, Texas Author of The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda (Brookings Institution Press, 2001) Dr. Dominik J. Schaller Research Fellow Karman Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and University of Bern Lecturer, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg Heidelberg, Germany Author of Late Ottoman Genocides: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish Population and Extermination Policies (Routledge, 2010). Dr. Frank Chalk Professor of History and Director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies Concordia University Quebec, Montreal, Canada Co-author of Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership to Prevent Mass Atrocities (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010) Professor Taner Akçam Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, History Department at Clark University Worcester, MA Author of Young Turks's Crimes Against Humanity, The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire Dr. Herb Hirsch Professor of Political Science and Co-editor of Genocide Studies International L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA Dr. Henry Theriault Professor and Chair of Philosophy Worcester State College Worcester, MA Author of "Denial of Ongoing Atrocities as a Rationale for Not Attempting to Prevent or Intervene” (Transaction Publishers, 2012) Dr. Maureen S. Hiebert Assistant Professor of Political Science Senior Fellow, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey Visiting Scholar Department of History University of Pennsylvania 208 College Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104 Author of “The Devil in the Details: ‘Life Force Atrocities’ and the Assault on the Family in Times of Conflict” (2010). Dr. Alex Alvarez Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, Arizona Author of Governments, Citizens, and Genocide (Indiana University Press, 2001), and Genocidal Crimes (Taylor and Francis, 2009) Dr. Benjamin Madley Associate Professor Department of History University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Author of "When 'The World Was Turned Upside Down': California and Oregon's Tolowa Indian Genocide, 1851-1856" in New Directions in Genocide Research (Routledge, 2012). Dr. Robert K. Hitchcock Professor of Geography, Michigan State University, and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Co-editor of Genocide of Indigenous Peoples (Transaction Publishers, 2011) Dr Peg LeVine Professor of Psychology & Medical Anthropology Monash University Melbourne, Australia Author of Love and Dread in Cambodia: Weddings, Births, and Ritual Harm Under the Khmer Rouge Dr. John H. Weiss Associate Professor of History Cornell University (and Darfur Action Group-Cornell) Ithaca, New York Prof. Deborah Dwork Director, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Clark University Worcester, MA Flight from the Reich (WW Norton, 2009) Dr. Eric D. Weitz Dean of Humanities and Arts and Professor of History City College, City University of New York Dr. Ernesto Verdeja Assistant Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies University of Notre Dame South Bend, Indiana Author of Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence (2009) Dr. Edward Kissi Associate Professor of Africana Studies University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida Author of Revolution and Genocide in Ethiopia and Cambodia (Lexington Books, 2006) Dr. Susanne Jonas, retired University of California, Santa Cruz Department of Latin American & Latino Studies Co-editor of Guatemala: Tyranny on Trial: Testimony of the Permanent People's Tribunal (1984); and, Author of The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and U.S. Power (1991) and Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala's Peace Process (2000). Dr. Colin Tatz School of Politics and International Relations Australian National University Canberra, ACT, Australia Author of With Intent to Destroy: Reflecting on Genocide (Verso, 2003) Rebecca Tinsley Founder Waging Peace London, England When the Stars Fall to Earth (Landmark, 2011) Dr. Adam Jones Associate Professor of Political Science University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Author of Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (Routledge, 2010) Dr. Kjell Anderson Senior Researcher, The Hague Institute for Global Justice The Hague, The Netherlands Dr. Wenona Rymond-Richmond Assistant Professor of Sociology University of Massachusetts-Amherst Co-author (with John Hagan) of Darfur and the Crime of Genocide (Cambridge University Press, 2009) Dr. Paul Slovic Professor of Psychology University of Oregon, Eugene Author of “Psychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity” (in The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy, Princeton University Press, 2013) Dr. Robert Skloot Professor Emeritus Department of Drama University of Wisconsin, Madison Author of If The Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treat Against Genocide (Parallel Press, 2006) Dr. Yair Auron Associate Professor of History Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication The Open University Ra’anana, Israel Author of The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide (Transaction, 2000), and The Banality of Denial (Transaction, 2003) Dr. James E. Waller Janet and Richard Cohen Professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies Keene State College Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford University Press, 2007). Rabbi Abraham Cooper Associate Dean The Simon Wiesenthal Center Los Angeles, California The Reverend Lowell Grisham Rector St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Fayetteville, Arkansas George N. Shirinian Executive Director The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies/Zoryan Institute Toronto, Ontario, Canada Editor, The Asia Minor Catastrophe and the Ottoman Greek Genocide: Essays on Asia Minor, Pontos and Eastern Thrace, 1913-1923 (Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, 2012) Felisa Tibbitts Director, Human Rights in Education Program Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government Cambridge, MA Dr. Rouben Adalian Director Armenian National Institute Washington, D.C. Author of Guide to the Armenian Genocide in the U.S. Archives, 1915-1918 (Chadwyck-Healey, Inc., 1994) Uriel Levy Director Combat Genocide Association Tel Aviv, Israel Dr. John K. Roth Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California Editor of Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide (Paragon House, 2012) Dr. Linda M. Woolf Professor, Psychology and International Human Rights Fellow Webster University St. Louis, Missouri Dr. Rick Halperin Professor and Director Embrey Human Rights Center Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas Dr. Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe Universidade de Fortaleza, Brazil Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, and Literature (African Renaissance, 2011) Dr. Amanda Grzyb Assistant Professor of Information and Media Studies University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada Editor of The World and Darfur: International Response to Crimes Against Humanity in Western Sudan (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2009) Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Richard Stockton College, New Jersey Dr. Alan Goldberg Professor Emeritus Director, Syracuse University Regional Holocaust and Genocide Initiative Syracuse University Syracuse, New York Dr. Michael A. Riff Director Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies Ramapo College of New Jersey Mahwah, NJ Aram Suren Hamparian Executive Director Armenian National Committee of America Washington, D.C. Eric Cohen Co-Founder and Chairperson, Investors Against Genocide Boston, MA, USA William Rosenfeld Director, Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur Boston, MA, USA Dr. Jan Colijn Dean College of Arts and Sciences Richard Stockton College, New Jersey Co-author of Ruin’s Wheel (CompteQ Publishing, 2012) Gladys Tiffany, Director OMNI Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology Fayetteville, Arkansas Gagik Aroutiunian Associate Professor, Department of Art, Media & Design DePaul University Dr. Elihu D Richter, MD MPH Hebrew University-Hadassah Genocide Prevention Program Jerusalem, Israel Dr. Paul Mojzes Professor of Religious Studies Rosemont College Rosemont, PA 19010 Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) Dr. Yael Stein MD Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical Center Co-founder, the Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention Jerusalem, Israel Dr. George Kent Professor of Political Science, Emeritus University of Hawai’i Honolulu, Hawai’i Author of Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food (Georgetown University Press, 2005) Dr. Jamie L. Wraight Curator, The Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive The University of Michigan-Dearborn Dearborn, MI Dr. Beverly Allen Professor Syracuse University Author of Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina (University of Minnesota Press, 1996) Dr. Victor Peskin Associate Professor School of Politics and Global Studies Arizona State University Author of International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and the Struggle for State Cooperation Dr. Alan L. Berger Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair of Holocaust Studies Director, Center for the Study of Values and Violence After Auschwitz Florida Atlantic University Dr. Rubina Peroomian Research Associate University of California, Los Angeles Dr Deborah Mayersen Research Fellow University of Wollongong, Australia Co-editor of Genocide and Mass Atrocities in Asia: Legacies and Prevention (Routledge, 2013) Professor Philip Spencer Director of the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Kingston University Kingston upon Thames Surrey, England Dr. Ann Weiss Director Eyes from the Ashes Educational Foundation Author of The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau (W. W. Norton 1st ed 2001, 2005) COPIES OF EARLIER LETTERS March 27, 2013 Mr. Donald Steinberg Deputy Administrator USAID Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Steinberg: I am writing to you in relation to your position on the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB). More specifically, in the absence of a current Chair of the Atrocities Prevention Board, I hope that you will be able to assist me in getting the attached letter to the various members of the Atrocities Prevention Board. I wish to thank you in advance for your consideration of this request. Just prior to my departure for the Nuba Mountains this past December, I sent a letter c/o of Ms. Samantha Power to the Atrocities Prevention Board about the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile. The letter was signed by 50 plus genocide scholars and human rights activists from around the world (please see the attachment). Upon my return to the U.S. in mid January I discovered that Ms. Power had not acknowledged receipt of the letter. Just as I was about to resend the letter to her I found out that she had resigned from her government position. Following a series of inquiries about whom I should now address the letter to in the absence of Ms. Power, I was informed by former U.S. Ambassador Evans that we would likely hear from Ms. Power's replacement or a member of the APB in a relatively reasonable amount of time and thus I decided to wait for such a response. To date, we still have not received a response to the letter from anyone affiliated with the APB. In light of the fact that on the day (April 23, 2012) President Obama announced the establishment of the APB during a talk at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum he said public input would be welcomed by the APB, we were hoping that our concerns/suggestions would have been readily acknowledged. I am writing to you to inquire as to whether you would be willing to forward the letter to members of the APB or to provide us with a key contact person either in the White House or with the NSA who could forward the letter on our behalf. Thank you very much for your consideration of this request. Sincerely, Dr. Samuel Totten Professor Emeritus University of Arkansas, Fayetteville December 5, 2012 Members of the Atrocities Prevention Board c/o Ms. Samantha Power Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights National Security Council Staff and Chair, Atrocities Prevention Board 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear Members of the Atrocities Prevention Board: We (scholars of genocide studies and human rights activists) are vitally concerned about the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Since July 2011, the Government of Sudan (GoS) has carried out a scorched earth policy against the Nuba Mountains people. Using both aerial and ground attacks the GoS has, as it did in Darfur, not only attempted to quell the actions of the rebels active in the area but murdered innocent civilians (including children and infants), displaced between 200,000 and 300,000 people from their villages and homes, purposely destroyed the peoples’ farms thus leaving them bereft of food on which to exist, and prevented humanitarian aid from reaching those now seeking sanctuary in the mountains looming over their destroyed farms. As the rainy season has come to an end, the GoS is ramping up for a more concerted aerial and ground campaign against the Nuba Mountains people and those of the Blue Nile. Both the U.S. Government and the international community have largely stood by and watched this tragedy unfold. We are well aware of U.S. Envoy Princeton Lyman’s varied diplomatic efforts and his attempts to reason with Khartoum. Unfortunately, though, his efforts have not sufficed and clear evidence of that is the fact that the attacks by the GoS have been relentless and more murderous as time has gone by. We are also cognizant of the fact that small quantities of surreptitious aid provided by the U.S. have been welcomed by people of the Nuba (although none reached the people of Blue Nile); but it provided only a very small fraction of what is needed. The dry season has begun and it is once again possible to move food, medicine and other supplies on the ground, but without secure access, this improvement in transport conditions counts for little. There is a point, we believe, when it should become self evident that the continuation of endless dialogue with a state that has engaged in serial crimes against humanity, genocidal-like actions, and ethnic cleansing and engaged in habitual denial of its responsibility and been a purveyor of deceit and broken promises, is total waste of time. As hundreds of thousands of innocents needlessly suffer, there is a moral imperative that the continual “diplomatic” talking, negotiating, pleading, and ultimately begging with leaders of such openly deceptive and destructive strategies must be replaced by concrete and effective action -- action that stanches the killing and death due to mass starvation as a direct result of the destruction of farms and foodstuffs and the obstruction of humanitarian aid to those in need. That time, we believe, is now. As you undoubtedly know, the time to address a crisis heading towards mass violence is early on; only in that way is it likely the crisis will be nipped in the bud. Unfortunately, that has not happened in the case of the Nuba Mountains. Some three months after the establishment of the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), the GoS began bombing the Nuba Mountains and carrying out ground attacks, and those attacks quickly morphed into an even greater disaster: the dislocation of hundreds of thousands, a massive food crisis, and the ongoing destruction of farms, villages and the murder of even more people, which continues to this very day. Presidential Study Directive 10 (August 4, 2011) states that “America's reputation suffers, and our ability to bring about change is constrained, when we are perceived as idle in the face of mass atrocities and genocide.” From our perspective that is exactly the situation we are now seeing vis-à-vis the Administration’s stance in regard to the atrocities, mass displacement, and mass hunger that the GoS has unleashed in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. In light of that, we wish to inquire as to whether the APB has addressed the dual crises in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile; and if so, how? President Obama has stated that one of the results of the creation of the APB was that “Our diplomats will encourage more robust multilateral efforts to prevent and respond to atrocities.” Quite frankly, we are still waiting to see this happen in the case of the Nuba Mountains. To date, ineffective diplomacy has substituted for action and as a result the crisis in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile has not only gone on for 17 long months but is now on the verge of spiraling totally out of control. The GoS is not only bombing village after village but destroying farm after farm by burning them to the ground. We understand that along with the APB the President has promised to establish “alert channels” that avail lower-level officials of the right to draw attention (or raise red flags) about potential or actual atrocities in areas of conflict. Have, in fact, the crises in South Kordofan and Blue Nile been the subject of such alerts? In recent correspondence with U.S. Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman we were informed that since it was impossible for anyone to reach the Nuba Mountains due to the prohibitions of the GoS it was impossible to conduct a study into the percentage of people in the Nuba Mountains who are suffering from severe malnutrition and starvation or how many people have perished from starvation. Since a specific component of the APB is to “increase the collection and analysis of information relating to atrocity threats and situations,” would it not make sense to conduct an investigation in the refugee camps inside South Sudan? After all, thousands of people have been crossing the border from Sudan to South Sudan for months on end in flight from the terror inflicted on them by the GoS in both South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The point is, there is a solid sample of those who have been in the camps for a relatively long while versus those who have just arrived. We also must ask: has the APB considered recommending that the U.S. Government prod the UN Security Council to issue a Chapter VII mandate in order to install a peace enforcement contingent in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile to attempt to halt the violence? Also, has the APB suggested that the U.S. government, either alone or in conjunction with the international community, design and apply tougher sanctions on the GoS for the ongoing and serial murder of its own people, destruction of their villages and farms, and mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent people? If little to nothing concrete has been attempted or accomplished by the APB along the aforementioned lines, then we strongly urge that the APB immediately call an emergency session to examine how the U.S. Government could use the full range of instruments at hand -- diplomatic, economic, humanitarian, and military – that can be brought to bear on this, the latest, crisis in Sudan. It is our ardent hope that the new approaches, “tools and expanded capabilities” developed by the U.S. Government for the express purpose of the prevention of atrocities will be implemented in order to prevent the current tragedies in South Kordofan and Blue Nile from expanding into the years-long and deadly affair that Darfur has become. Here, we are referring to, for example, the following, all of which were touted by the White House as approaches that the APB would implement: new kinds of targeted sanctions, financial levers, and getting truly tough on impunity. The latter is especially relevant in light of the fact that President Omar al Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide for the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur, and that the Governor of South Kordofan, Ahmed Haroun, is also wanted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for atrocities committed in Darfur by the GoS. As you might recall, when the Genocide Prevention Task Force report, in 2008, called for creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board, it alluded to situations exactly along the lines of the current situation in the Nuba Mountain and Blue Nile regions of Sudan. Indeed, it was clearly stated that the express purpose of an agency such as the APB was to deal, in a decisive fashion, with such humanitarian emergencies in the face of the deep failures of US policy in recent years, especially the case of Rwanda. We are counting on the APB to honor its charge to “ensure that key decision-makers receive early warning and hear dissenting views” in regard to potential or actual crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and genocide. For well over a year now, we have written and submitted letters to Congress, the White House, State, and individual U.S. officials, and to date we’ve only received replies from Special Envoy Princeton Lyman. While we certainly appreciate his engaging with us, we believe he needs the full-fledge support of top decision makers with the Administration. We believe it is absolutely critical for the APB and the Administration to address, openly with the rest of the U.S. Government and U.S. citizens, the fate of the people in Nuba Mountains (South Kordofan) and the Blue Nile. Indeed, we believe that silence is acquiescence and goes totally against the grain of President Obama’s declaration in April of this year that atrocity prevention is "a core national security interest and core moral responsibility,” and “a high priority for his Administration.” A lack of attention and action by the APB to these matters would go counter to its stated mission. We thank you in advance for your serious consideration of our concerns expressed herein, and we await both your written response and your determined action. Sincerely, Dr. Samuel Totten Professor Emeritus University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Author of Genocide by Attrition: Nuba Mountains, Sudan (Transaction Publishers, 2012) of An Oral and Documentary History of the Darfur Genocide (Praeger Security International, 2010) John Marshall Evans U.S. Foreign Service, Retired Washington, D.C. Dr. John Hubbel Weiss Associate Professor of History Cornell University Ithaca, New York Dr. Frank Chalk Professor of History and Director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada Co-author of Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership to Prevent Mass Atrocities (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010) Hon. David Kilgour, J.D. and D.D. (Hon) Canadian Minister of State for Africa and Latin America (1997-2002) and for Asia-Pacific (2002-2003) Dr. Norman M. Naimark McDonnell Professor Department of History Stanford University Palo Alto, California Author of Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe (Harvard University Press, 2002) Rabbi Abraham Cooper Associate Dean The Simon Wiesenthal Center Los Angeles, California Faith J. H. McDonnell Director, Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan The Institute on Religion and Democracy Washington, D.C. Dr. John Hagan John D. MacArthur Professor Northwestern University Evanston, IL Author of Darfur and the Crime of Genocide Dr. Douglas H. Johnson Author of The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars (James Currey 2003 and 2011), and When Boundaries Become Borders (Rift Valley Institute, 2010) Fellow, Rift Valley Institute African Researcher in Residence, Center for Peace and Global Citizenship Haverford College Harverford, Pennsylvania Dr. Benjamin Madley Assistant Professor Department of History University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Author of American Genocide: The California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (Yale University Press) Rebecca Tinsley Freelance Journalist/Author Genocide and Human Rights London, England Clair Duffy Khmer Rouge Tribunal Monitor Open Society Justice Initiative Phnom Penh, Cambodia Dr. Eric Reeves Professor of English Smith College Northampton, MA Author of Compromising With Evil: An Archival History of Greater Sudan, 2007 – 2012 (2012), and A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moment in the Darfur Genocide (Key Publishing House, 2007) Dr. Caesar Ricci, MD Nuba Mountains Advocacy Group General Surgery Resident Lincoln Medical Center Bronx, NY Damien Lewis Author (authority on Sudan) Cork City Cork County, Ireland Dr. Ervin Staub Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Founding Director, Ph.D. program in the Psychology of Peace and Violence University of Massachusetts at Amherst Author of The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violent Conflict and Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2011) Dr. Gerry Caplan Independent Scholar Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada Author of Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide (Organization of African’s Unity’s International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, 2000) Linda Melvern London, England Author of A People Betrayed. The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide(2009). Jack Slater Armstrong Founder/Director Joining Our Voices Baton Rouge, LA 70806 Dr. Henry Theriault Professor and Chair of Philosophy Worcester State College Worcester, MA Author of "Denial of Ongoing Atrocities as a Rationale for Not Attempting to Prevent or Intervene” (Transaction Publishers, 2012) The Reverend Lowell Grisham Rector St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Fayetteville, Arkansas Dr. Israel W. Charny Founder and Director, Genocide Prevention Network Jerusalem, Israel Chief Editor of Encyclopedia of Genocide Dr. Dominik J. Schaller Research Fellow Karman Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and University of Bern Lecturer, Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg Heidelberg, Germany Author of Late Ottoman Genocides: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish Dr. Benjamin Madley Assistant Professor Department of History University of California at Los Angeles 5371 Bunche Hall Los Angeles, California Dr. Herb Hirsch Professor of Political Science L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia Author of Genocide and the Politics of Memory (University of North Carolina Press, 1995) Apaulo Kussano Co- Founder Nuba Mountain Peace Coalition Dallas, Texas 75225 www.nubapeace.org Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey Visiting Scholar Department of History University of Pennsylvania 208 College Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104 Author of “The Devil in the Details: ‘Life Force Atrocities’ and the Assault on the Family in Times of Conflict (2010). Dr. Maureen S. Hiebert Assistant Professor of Political Science/Law and Society Program and Senior Fellow, Centre for Military and Strategic Program University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta, Canada Author of “Do Criminal Trials Prevent Genocide? A Critical Analysis” (Transaction, 2012) Dr. Deborah Dwork Professor of History Founding Director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Department Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts Author of Flight from the Reich (W.W. Norton, 2009) Dr. Yael Stein MD Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical Center Co-founder, the Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention Jerusalem, Israel Dr. Paul Slovic Professor of Psychology University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon Co-author of “Can International Law Stop Genocide When Our Moral Intuitions Fail Us?” (Oxford University Press, 2012) Terry Nickelson Executive Director Our Humanity in the Balance Asheville, North Carolina Dr. Rouben Adalian Director Armenian National Institute Washington, D.C. Author of Guide to the Armenian Genocide in the U.S. Archives, 1915-1918 (Chadwyck-Healey, Inc., 1994) Dr. Philip Spencer Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Kingston University London, UK Author of Genocide since 1945 (London: Routledge, 2012) Dr. Christian P. Scherrer Professor/Senior Researcher Hiroshima Peace Institute, HPI-HCU Hiroshima, Japan Author of Genocide and Crisis in Central Africa: Conflict Roots, Mass Violence and Regional War (Praeger, 2001) Dr. Robert Melson Professor Emeritus Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana Author of Revolution and Genocide: On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust (University of Chicago Press, 1996) Dr. Roger W. Smith Professor Emeritus of Government College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia Author of "Scarcity and Genocide" (in On the Edge of Scarcity: Environment, Resources, Population, Sustainability, and Conflict (Syracuse University Press, 2002) Dr. Victoria Sanford Director Center for Human Rights & Peace Studies Professor of Anthropology Lehman College & the Graduate Center City University of New York Author of Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala (2003) Dr. Adam Jones Associate Professor, Political Science University of British Columbia Kelowna, BC, Canada Author of Gendercide and Genocide (Vanderbilt University Press, 2004) Dr. Kjell Anderson Senior Researcher/Project Leader The Hague Institute for Global Justice The Hague, The Netherlands Dr. Gregory H. Stanton Professor of Genocide Studies and President of Genocide Watch School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution George Mason University Arlington, Virginia Author of "The Eight Stages of Genocide" (Routledge, 2009) Dr Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe Independent Scholar London, England Author of Biafra Revisited (Dakar and Reading: African Renaissance, 2006) and Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (Dakar and Reading: African Renaissance, 2011) Dr. Victor Peskin Associate Professor School of Politics and Global Studies Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and the Struggle for State Cooperation (Cambridge University Press) George Shirinian Executive Director Zoryan Institute & The Institute of Human Rights and Genocide 255 Duncan Mill Rd., Suite 310 Toronto, ON Dr. Robert K. Hitchcock Department of Geography Michigan State University East Lansing, MI and Kalahari Peoples Fund Austin, TX 78756 Co-editor of Genocide of Indigenous Peoples (Transaction Publishers, 2011) Dr. Craig Etcheson Visiting Scholar Center for Southeast Asian Studies Northern Illinois University DeKalb, Illinois Author of After the Killing Fields: Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide (Texas Tech University Press, 2006) Felisa Tibbitts Director, Human Rights in Education Program Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government Cambridge, MA Eric Cohen Co-founder and Chairperson, Investors Against Genocide Chairperson, Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur Co-founder, Act for Sudan Boston, MA Dr. Thomas Kühne Strassler Professor of Holocaust History Director of Holocaust and Genocide Graduate Studies Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts Author of Belonging and Genocide: Hitler’s Community, 1918-1945 (Yale University Press, 2010) Dr. Alan L. Berger Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Holocaust Studies Director, Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida Dr. Robert Skloot Professor Emeritus Department of Drama University of Wisconsin, Madison Author of If The Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treat Against Genocide (Parallel Press, 2006) Dr. Dennis R. Papazian Professor Emeritus The University of Michigan, Dearborn Tanya Domi Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs Columbia University New York, NY Marc I. Sherman Chief Librarian The Roberta and Stanley Bogen Library and Documentation Center The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jerusalem, Israel Dr. Gagik Aroutiunian Associate Professor. Department of Art, Media & Design, DePaul University, 1150 West Fullerton, 3rd Floor, Chicago, IL, 60614 Dr. George Kent Professor of Political Science, Emeritus University of Hawai’i Honolulu, Hawai’i Author of Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2005 Dr. Rick Halperin Director, Embrey Human Rights Program Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas Dr. John K. Roth Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California Editor of Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide (Paragon House, 2012) Olivia Warham Waging Peace London, England Amy Fagin International Association of Genocide Scholars New Salem, Massachusetts Dr. Yehuda Bauer Professor Emeritus of Holocaust Studies Academic Adviser, Yad Vashem Jerusalem, Israel Author of Rethinking the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2001) Amanda McGee, MSW Executive Director League for the Educational Advancement of Human Rights Boca Raton, Florida United States Dr. Linda M. Woolf Professor, Psychology and International Human Rights Fellow Webster University St. Louis, Missouri Dr. Rubina Peroomian, Ph.D. Research Associate, University of California, Los Angeles, Author of three volumes on the Armenian Genocide, including The Armenian Genocide in Literature, and Perceptions of Those Who Lived through the Years of Calamity (2012). David Hicks Church Planter/Strategy Coordinator e3 Sudan e3 Partners UNTIL THE WORLD HEARS! Plano, Texas Aram Hamparian Executive Director Armenian National Committee of America Washington, D.C. Jane Spiers Amnesty International Bendigo, Victoria, Australia Dr. Ernesto Verdeja Assistant Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies University of Notre Dame South Bend, Indiana Author of "Unchopping A Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence" (Temple University Press, 2009) Dr William Fernekes Lecturer, Rutgers Graduate School of Education Social Studies Program New Brunswick, NJ Dr. Peg LeVine Associate Professor (Psychologist/Medical Anthropologist) School of Political and Social Inquiry Monash University Melbourne, Victoria Australia Dr. Michael A. Riff, Director Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies Ramapo College of New Jersey Mahwah, New Jersey Geoff Hill Journalist and Author Johannesburg, South Africa Dr. Yair Auron Associate Professor of History Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication The Open University Ra’anana, Israel Author of The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide (Transaction, 2000), and The Banality of Denial (Transaction, 2003) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
