Genocide Watch

Genocide Watch has three levels of Genocide Alerts.

A Genocide Watch is declared when early warning signs indicate the danger of mass killing or genocide.

A Genocide Warning is called when politicide or genocide is imminent, often indicated by genocidal massacres.

A Genocide Emergency is declared when genocide is actually underway.

Current Alerts

Genocide Emergency

• Syria - Since the first uprisings began in the Syrian Arab Republic in early March 2011, President Bashar al-Assad’s government has violently repressed civilian protests and launched attacks on both rebel forces and Sunni Arab civilians. Data collected by the UN Human Rights office estimates the death toll to be greater than 60,000 people. According to the UN Refugee Agency, over 700,000 registered Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries, mainly Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, with thousands more leaving daily. President Assad continues to label the armed rebel forces as “terrorists” and has rejected the offer of peace talks made by Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, the main opposition leader. Nations should call for a cease-fire, convince Assad to step down, and bring in more humanitarian assistance. If Assad will not stop bombing his own nation into rubble, NATO forces led by Turkey should destroy his air force.

• Sudan - Since the Bush Administration first recognized the genocide in Darfur, at least 250,000 more men, women, and children have died. Using its own military and the Janjaweed militia, Sudan's regime has conducted a systematic campaign to kill and drive out Darfur's ethnic Fur, Massalit, and Zhagawa peoples. Supported by aircraft and helicopter gunships, the Janjaweed attack towns, villages, and refugee camps, kill the men and boys, rape the women and girls, and poison the wells. Their goal is to replace these African peoples with Arab herders.

• Democratic Republic of the Congo - The DRC is plagued by enduring conflict in its eastern provinces. Formally the second Congolese war came to an end in 2002. However, in practice the conflict drags on and is the most deadliest since the second World War. Estimates of the dead range from three to five million persons. The victims are civilians, in particular women and girls, and ethnic groups such as the Banyamulenge, the Hutu Banyarwanda, the Hema and the Lendu. Many of the killers and rapists are former genocidists who escaped into the DRC from the Rwandan genocide.

• Ethiopia - In September 2008, Genocide Watch declared a Genocide Warning regarding the war that was being waged against small ethnic minority called Burji in a town of Hagre Mariam by an ethnic Oromo group called Guji. Since then the Guji Oromo have continued to wage protracted war against Burji in various localities, especially in towns and villages surrounding the city of Soyama,  which is 60 Km west of the city of Hagremariam.  Over the course of the last several months there have been heavy loss of lives and damage to Guji properties including destruction of crops and farm equipment.  In January 2009, there were reports of heavy fighting on three different fronts, namely Nadale/ Chuluse front and Gara and Tisho vicinities. News from Hagremariam stated that Guji Oromo warriers were advancing towards Soyama in great numbers.   According to Genocide Watch sources, Guji/Oromo attacks on Buji began on January 22, 2009.   The situation is continues to be dire, and urgent action must be taken to avert further attacks.

• Burma/Myanmar - Burma, Southeast Asia's most oppressed nation, remains under the forty-three year tyranny of a military junta and should be a grave concern to the international community. Abuse of ethnic minorities, mass rape of women, mandatory relocations, extrajudicial state executions, military recruitment of children, and forced labor are only a few of the many violations of human rights currently practiced in the resource rich but economically impoverished nation.1 The regime change of 2004 which deposed General Khin Nyunt in favor of Lieutenant General Soe Win continues to suppress the strong movement for democracy, keeping Burma in a cyclical state of tyranny.

Genocide Warning

• Nigeria - The insurgency of the radical Islamist movement Boko Haram in the north of Nigeria poses a great threat of genocidal massacres. Since the summer of 2011 Boko Haram has struck different targets in Nigeria ranging from government buildings, especially the security sector, to churches. The latter category of attacks is alarming as they might radicalize relations between the Muslim north and the Christian south of the country.

• Chad - Chad is largely influenced by the situation in neighboring country Sudan. The Sudanese government has supported rebels who have made three attempts to overthrow the Chadian government by force. These situations made Genocide Watch declare Genocide Warnings for Chad in 2005, renewed in April 2006 and January 2008.  Today Chad remains at Stage 6, the Preparation stage preceding genocide. Since 2010, ties between the Sudanese president al-Bashir and the Chadian president have improved, but this has not ended the hopeless situation of hundreds of thousands refugees in Chad. In February 2011, a report of the International Crisis group raised an Alert about Chad’s Northwest, as the next high-risk area where violence and famine could endanger human lives.

• Equatorial Guinea - There is deep ethnic division in Equatorial Guinea, and also clan division within ethnicities. The majority of the population belong to the Fang group. Within this group there are clans. President Obiang Nguema favors his own clan, the Esangui. The Bubi people represent the minority ethnicity and are indigenous to Bioko Island. They are subject to systematic discrimination and persecution by the government, and were the main victims of the genocide carried out by president Macías Nguema from 1978 - 1979. Genocide Watch considers Equatorial Guinea to be at early warning stage 6: Preparation for potential massacres.

• Yemen - Genocide Watch has downgraded the risk of genocide and politicide in Yemen from stage 7 (active massacres) to stage 6: potential massacres. Genocide Watch welcomes the recent transfer of power in Yemen and the large participation in elections by Yemeni citizens. However, the following risk factors are evidence that the security situation in Yemen is still of great concern. The roots of national identity and democracy are shallow. Yemen could again degenerate quickly into violence.

• Kenya - Genocide Watch has called a Genocide Alert because of genocidal massacres that are increasing daily in Kenya in the wake of a disputed election between President Mwai Kibaki, who is a member of the Kikuyu ethnic group, and Mr. Raila Odinga, who is ethnically a Luo. Ethnic riots have broken out in Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret, and numerous other places in Kenya. People have been pulled from their cars and their identification cards checked for their names, which symbolize their ethnic identity, and then killed if they belong to groups being targeted. Hundreds of people have already been murdered. Today a church in Eldoret was locked and the people inside were burned to death by a mob. Ethnic massacres are an indicator that the risk of genocide in Kenya has risen to Stage 6, the Preparation stage. Kenya has not yet descended into actual genocide. However, the next stage in the process is actual genocide, and Kenya is close to that stage.

• Central African Republic - Since its independence from France in 1960, the political situation in CAR has always been unstable. Last years, the CAR has also become a refuge for the Lord’s Resistance Army, led since 1987 by the mass murderer, Joseph Kony of Uganda.  Kony is notorious for abducting child soldiers and girl sex slaves and was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005, but still not arrested. Another pressing security threat in the CAR is the Front Populaire Pour le Redressement (FPR), a Chadian armed rebel group backed by Sudan that has carried out sporadic attacks in northern CAR since 2008. Because crimes against humanity by the LRA and FPR have led to widespread terror and forced displacement, Genocide Watch considers CAR at stage 6: potential massacres.

Genocide Watch

• Uzbekistan - The Uzbek government violates human rights on a large scale: torture, absence of due process, lack of freedom of expression and association. Freedom House identifies Uzbekistan as one of the nine least free countries in the world. Islamists and political opponents, including Tajiks, are the main victims of this repressive regime. The repression in Uzbekistan was most brutally expressed by the Andijan Massacre on May 13, 2005.

• Côte d'Ivoire - Although the civil war of 2002 came to an end in 2004, Côte d'Ivoire has ever since been divided between north and south. The split is along religious and ethnic lines. The presidential elections in October and November 2010 were the trigger leading to an eruption of violence. The crimes that took place in Côte d'Ivoire in the aftermath of the elections may be qualified as genocidal massacres, though they were not a full genocide.

• Mali -  Since January 17, 2012 the NMLA has conquered some of the tiny villages in northern Mali.During the Tuareg conquests, they committed brutal ethnic massacres and summary executions. One of the first villages they occupied, Aguelhok, was recaptured by the Malian army. On January 24, 2012, the NMLA recaptured Aguelhok and executed 82 prisoners from the Malian army. Two tactics were used: shooting a single bullet through the head or slitting the throat. The hands of the victims were tied. These summary executions were war crimes under both the Geneva Conventions and the Statute of the International Criminal Court, to which Mali is a State-Party.
  
  
• South Africa - Given the history of Apartheid in South Africa, there is deep-rooted polarization between whites and black in the nation. Part of the polarization in South Africa is the legacy of Apartheid and the continuing dominance in the economy of white owned businesses and farms.  There is also polarization from the black population, who feel excluded from real power and jobs, even though the ANC now controls the government. This general polarization created a fertile ground for political radicalization, which was the case with the rise of Malema, former President of the ANC Youth League who is now suspended. Genocide Watch continues to be alarmed at hate crimes committed against whites, particularly against Boer farmers, an important early warning sign that genocide could occur.  Those who commit such crimes must be promptly brought to justice, and denounced by the political leaders of South Africa.
  
  
•  Rwanda - The Rwandan genocide in 1994 killed 800 000 Rwandans in 100 days - Africa’s fastest, intentionally planned genocide. It was a glaring example of the failure of international institutions like the UN and of leading nation-states like the US, Belgium, France, and the UK to prevent or stop genocide.  It was a shocking reminder that genocide has happened again and again since 1945. Genocide Watch considers Rwanda still to be ethnically Polarized (Stage 5), but the Rwandan government and civil society are making concerted efforts in schools and churches to overcome this polarization.  Rwanda has one of the most systematic genocide education programs in the world.
  
  
• Angola - After its independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola went through a 27-year civil war which was primarily a struggle between two former liberation movements: MPLA and UNITA. Besides the struggle between these movements, a separatist struggle by the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) also played a role in the civil war. Cabinda is an Angolan province but it is separated from the country’s main territory by a sliver of the Democratic Republic of Congo. While the Angolan war ended in 2002, the status of Cabinda is still disputed by FLEC.  A 2006 peace agreement between the government of Angola and a faction of the FLEC sought to end the conflict, but sporadic attacks by both sides have continued. Because of this deep-rooted conflict about Cabinda, Genocide Watch considers Angola at stage 5 of Genocide: polarization.

• Sri Lanka - Approximately 100,000 people died during the Sri Lankan civil war (1983-2009). Both the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Tamil Tigers committed atrocities. During the final phase of the conflict leading to the defeat of the Tamil Tigers (January – May 2009) at least 7,934 persons died, of which 550 were children younger than 10. Real figures probably amount to tens of thousands victims –most sources speak of approximately 40,000 casualties. No one has been hold accountable. Instead, the Sri Lankan government has relied upon one of the typical forms of denial: substituting reconciliation efforts that do not address the crimes committed. As long as there is no accountability for the massacres that occurred during the Sri Lankan civil war, there can be no sustainable peace among the ethnic communities.

International Crisis Group
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