Supporting Genocide Prevention in East Africa: The GP Project
Supporting Genocide Prevention in East Africa: The GP Project
The Genocide Prevention Project has been focused primarily on two endeavors in the fall of 2011 and the winter of 2012.The first has been working with the Secretariat of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) to build the capacity of the ICGLR member states to fulfill their obligations under the Protocol that they signed pursuant to the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and All Forms of Discrimination.The purpose of this has been to realize a regional approach to genocide prevention in the Africa Great Lakes Region.This region, which includes Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, has been one of the areas most affected by genocidal violence. The second endeavor, the subject of a future blog post, is the development of a social media strategy related to our broader goals of building a genocide prevention network.
The first endeavor, which will be the subject of this blog, has involved working on a number of fronts to support the ICGLR in fulfilling its mandate on genocide prevention.These activities are manifold and ongoing. They include sending a representative to the ICGLR headquarters in Bujumbura, Burundito to support the development of the Regional and National Committees, which are the primary instruments to domesticate the Protocol in the member states; the development of a DVD, in coordination with the One Earth Foundation and the Beyond Intractability Project, which provides access to the genocide prevention related resources on the Beyond Intractability web site; and the publication of a Genocide Prevention booklet for the Committee representatives.
This strategy has also involved supporting the conferences organized by the ICGLR. These include the first committee meeting in Brazzaville in May 2001, the second in Zanzibar in November 2011, and most recently, the third meeting in Tanzania in February 2012.
At the 3rd meeting of the Regional Committee which was held on February 8, 2012 in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, the Genocide Prevention Program (GPP) at GMU, GPP Director, Mr. Tetsushi Ogata, and GPP Liaison Officer in ICGLR, Mr. Ashad Sentongo, presented statements reiterating GPP’s continued commitment to support and collaborate with the ICGLR Secretariat and the Committee to implement the Protocol, fulfill the Committee’s mandate, and bring together international, regional, and national efforts and actors to operationalize prevention. Prof. Andrea Bartoli addressed the 3rd Regional Committee by video.
The members of the Committee welcomed the GPP initiative on producing a booklet on genocide prevention, which was requested by the Committee in its Brazzaville meeting and serves as guidelines, both in English and French, for the Regional and National Committees of ICGLR. 
The Regional Committee meeting was preceded by the training workshop , “Seminar on a Framework for Early Warning for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities,” conducted jointly by the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on February 6-7.
Overcoming the diversity of membership composition and country situations, the Committee agreed on a regional action plan for early warning and response mechanisms. The training offered by OSAPG, OHCHR, and experts facilitated the Committee members’ discussions to explore what each country could commit to advance regionally coordinated efforts. As a consequence, the Committee was able to develop a work plan that lays out the time frame for, among others, the establishment of National Committees in each Member State and the development of Terms of Reference and Rules of Procedure for the Regional and National Committees taking into account the Dar-es-Salaam Declaration in 2004 and the Protocol on the Prevention of Genocide in 2006. The mandate of the Committee was endorsed by the Heads of State and Ministers of the Member States of ICGLR in its Summit in December 2010. The Committee agreed to schedule the 4th Regional Committee meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, on April 5-8, 2012.
In support of this endeavor, the GPP has committed itself to facilitating the development of the communications infrastructure of the Regional Committee; as well as to the publication of additional booklets related to genocide prevention, as requested by the member states; and to the updating and expansion of the DVD and web-based resources.
We will continue to work directly with the regional and national actors and integrate their work with a broader media development strategy. In this way, we can not only facilitate and share lessons learned, but also we can put the actual prevention work into practice.
[…] following was originally posted on Columbia University’s AC4 Projects […]
Hello i just saw this organization while i was reading some articles on BBC africa, am from Burundi i had a chance to come to the State where i have a chance of great education which i couldn’t get back home,when people hear genocide they think about Rwanda but they was one in Burundi too, and all those people who are on power now have to appeal for all the attrocity they did during the war, because if nothing is done in two three years another war will happen in Burundi