Christopher Hitchens - Discussing genocide awareness and prevention at NYU [2010]

and now if you would all please turn off your cell phones and join me in welcoming our first speaker christopher agents thank you for that very generous introduction and thank you ladies and gentlemen brothers and sisters to coming is this echoing for you as it is for me yeah no audible very well um I thought I'd begin with a brief mission statement John Prendergast students my colleagues and I have the feeling that people like you come to meetings like this not just to listen or to absorb but also to feedback and to contribute so with your permission I'll yield back some minutes of my lot at times so that we can have a question period and be subjected to your opinions when we're through that's the first thing the second is one incredibly relieved to be followed by John Prendergast who knows a great deal more about the subject than I do and who I think it can fairly be said of him he'll be introduced I'm sure he's earned that without his efforts the question of Darfur might have completely disappeared from the headlines and the political agenda I can speak for myself having been taken by him to Uganda to investigate the crimes and atrocities of the War of the Lord's Resistance Army one of the most vicious organizations on the planet that he has the the full knowledge not just about how to think about genocide and its consequences but also some very important suggestions about what to do about it which frees me in the time I've left for myself to confine my remarks essentially to how to think about it linguistically how to define how to confront this appalling problem you don't often get I'm invited to debates it's very Sullivan I'm asked to take the anti genocide position in a debate and then told and then mister whoever it might be on that Amber will be taking the pro genocide one you don't somehow if you'll forgive any flippancy on this question which you probably shouldn't you did since you're going to get that lucky what you get with genocide is what how Abraham says in Chariots of Fire about anti-semitism you catch it on the edge of the remark you catch it in the fugitive remark the euphemism the shamefaced denial but you catch it in the end and it's worth trading yourself to look out for the symptoms I think today's the first of April in a couple of weeks the Armenian population of this city and many others I hope supported by you will be commemorating the terrible day in 1915 when the Ottoman Turkish authorities game in effect a general order for the mass destruction of the Christian Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire and they don't just have to remember this terrible event there are few of them left now and do physically remember I used to speak every year at Times Square in mid-april with a row of old ladies and old men in the front of the audience who were survivors they will die now and they all died not just in the knowledge of what had happened to their families and their friends and their communities and the extirpation not just of them physically but the destruction of their churches the destruction of their libraries the renaming of their chants the attention I raised them from the map the production of new practices in Turkey that failed to show there was ever an Armenian province the cultural Eurasia just died in the knowledge of that they died in the knowledge that it was still said that it had never happened to them this I think is the the crowning insult and the one that above all cries out for justice not even add admission that it had happened but if you go into the matter with Turkish parliamentarians as I have this month they will again protest that the US Congress that the Swedish parliament others have affirmed the Armenian mass killing this genocide they will again be threats from Turkey they'll cut off relations with all countries that even dare to name it as such every Parliament in the world discusses it not the Turkish one flat stone-faced denial but go into it a bit further and you will suddenly hear them say well the Armenians were taking the Russian side in the first world war they were a subversive minority within our borders they didn't follow our religion so you say to them are so oh I see so you're saying it never happened but it would have been very justifiable if it did and you catch them and you realize and they see it in your face and you see to this oh yes I shouldn't have put it quite like that isn't it of enormous interest that the neo-nazi forces and their polish now in America and in Europe and elsewhere do not say yes it's true that we try to make an end to the foul Jewish people who were the main threat to German and Aryan civilization that we are proud of our attempt to rid the world of this unwanted hideous tribe no they say no we never tried it develop happened Holocaust denial is the form it takes when you think of a real Nazi if you be the Holocaust affirmation so always look for the language you'll find it in there you'll find concealed in this the filthy traces and footsteps of the first of all crimes the attempt to destroy not just the nationality or the physical being of a people but its culture its history and all traces of its pre existence and again you'll find what you really argue with these people they'll say well the Germans were boycotting excuse me the Jews were boycotting germany they were sabotaging the german economy many have enjoyed the communist party they were on the side of the Soviet Union once again they stopped suddenly denying and they begin in a shamefaced way to affirm so I think especially since I'm talking tonight I have an institution of higher learning I would just draw attention to the fact that it's in the denials it's in the historical obfuscation it's in the attempts to distort and and dilute the historical record that you'll find the important clue now that's easy to say isn't it when we're talking about Ottoman Turkish mass murderers or brown and black surely the Nazis and fascists but in fact there is an invasion in our own language when we talk about this and it's quite recent and it's happened in a democratic society with an open press and it's happening in the old memory in your lifetime even if you don't particularly care to notice it why did Madeline Albright then Secretary of State and Bill Clinton there know then national ambassador to the United Nations later Secretary of State and and Bill Clinton been president I said why did they not call the attempt by the Hutu population or the extremists wing of it in Rwanda to destroy the Tutsi population in the modern movie why was this not called genocide when it was plainly the attempt to extirpate an entire population in whole or in part because if you call it genocide and you are as our country is a signatory to the Genocide Convention once you've put a genocide you're mandated not just to protest about it but to do something about it the convention is very plain if you call it by its right name you must act either to prevent it if it can be prevented to halt it if it's been started or to punish it if it's been completed and so in our lifetimes we have no right to sear and other cultures who've used you from we decided not to call it by its right name for a long time until the business was nearly done so as to avoid the responsibility for it so this is something that lives right near you and can come to your society and infect your political dialogue it's it's not a thing that happens in other places or not just want you to start by making that as plain as I could I should I mean I should add I believe part of the believers to John but I remember very well going to see Colin Powell and he was secretary state from the last administration and him finally agreeing not to be impressed for nearly two years to call what was happening in Darfur genocide and for the same reason the same reluctance the same reason if we call it that it means we are responsible for doing something about it now nobody forced you nobody forced you've got the old country or government to sign the Genocide Convention but it's a solemn pact once you have signed it and what's that finding has been made it is something that is going to involve you too and as we speak in Africa terrible things are being done in effect in our name because of our reluctance to face the real meaning of the language on this question in the past century therefore in in Europe just in civilized Christian let's just call it civilized Europe in the 20th century and I was born halfway through that century the century is inaugurated by an attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian population the Ottoman Empire very nearly successfully almost a complete erasure of destruction it climaxes in the middle of the century with an attempt to destroy the Jewish people reason and central and indeed southern Europe which is also very nearly successful almost succeeds in in the utter destruction of a whole people whole cultural architecture whole library system bring alien language and it closes very nearly closed with an attempt by Christians mainly Orthodox at some Catholic in youth forming in the Zambia to erase the Muslim population of Bosnia and there of Kosovo and some of you I can tell by looking at quite old enough to remember this but those of you who do will remember how the people of Kosovo will load it onto the trains at gunpoint we thought we'd never see this again in Europe with never see this again after the end of the second world war after the end of the Cold War after the fall of Joseon ISM that we would once again see people being actually packed onto the transfer of mass deportation and their homes taken away from them and those who resisted short out of hand as they already had mean as if to encourage the idea of of flight and exile and deportation in Bosnia if you've ever had to see this in person and had to see it in civilized Europe at hours flying time from Rouen hours flying time from Vienna to us from London and arm - Paris that's as far as you had to go to watch it happening and then to hear the pathetic excuses that were made about why not to do anything about it but this brings me to a second language problem the word genocide wasn't even coined until 1942 or 1943 by a brilliant lawyer RAF Olympian operating in Geneva who thought we did need a word for it up till then there hadn't been a word for the attempt to destroy about people culture or their physicality when henry morgenthau the American ambassador in in Turkey reporting back to Washington in 1915 16 about what was happening in the Turkish provinces of particularly if it's hard put and van provinces where the main concentrations of Armenians were he got reports directly we can read them you can read them in a wonderful book called slaughterhouse province it's a first-hand account for the local American constant officials about the putting to the sword of the Armenian people Morgenthau reporting to the stage opponent what is happening here and what we can witness to is a process of race murder in a way race murder is a more electrifying but galvanizing term isn't it the genocide genocide somehow we're technical it's almost too clinical race mode gives you better sense of what we're talking about how it might feel to witness it but then for humanists like myself and I hope yourselves the whole term racist problematic I mean what we argue is that the human race is not subdivided by species we are only one species the rid that all the other division divisions between us are in a sense artificial and this raises another question not an uninteresting one can genocide being committed by people of the same ethnicity upon one another it's not an unimportant question at all the the million or so Cambodians who were killed by the Khmer Rouge were being killed by fellow campaigners it's true that the Vietnamese minority in Cambodia was singled out from especially vicious and barbarous treatment but in general it was can billions upon Cambodians does this qualify as genocide do we think of ourselves racially or do we think of ourselves as human very worth well subject I think possibly divided to disagree about but we know it when we see it we know the idea of what I would call extermination the idea that all those who don't agree or who don't belong or who someone haven't subscribed to the right must be killed and the same I think is going to face us very soon in the case of North Korea where the population of North Korea is being starved to death and enslaved by other North Koreans you probably know that the average height of the surviving North Korea's those who came through the famine over the last decade is six inches less than a South Korean it takes a lot a lot of cruelty to starve people down by six inches but it was done and it's going on now as we're sitting here and many of those are people are going to die or be hopelessly stunted especially the children mentally as well as physically and the question is well does is this - the kind of thing that ought to mandate intervention as the Genocide Convention does and this is a question I've been only going to answer to earning a giass ahead that you will come up with some answers I think I said such how a tyranny of a moment ago if I didn't say enough when we use the term final solution which was the Nazi expression for a euphemism you might say for the Jewish Question endless and final put an end to it over you see there the totalitarian mentality you see the idea that there are problems that can have final solutions that there are ideologies that there are ethnicities parties religions that are absolutist back and that can bring an end to history that by sheer force by sheer will by sheer cruelty can destroy every with everything in their path the the relationship I want to suggest here to you is a very close one between the genocidal mentality and the totalitarian one it's when you get a supreme leader it's when you get a race theory it's one tribe of humans above another it's when you get a theocratic belief that all those who don't subscribe to the one through faith are going to hell anyway so why bother to keep them on the planet it's out of totalitarianism and it's it's a special method which is total war that you get the idea that people can be treated as rubbish as germs as vermin as viruses which is why another euphemism ethnic cleansing ethnic cleansing doesn't sound too bad does it until you think of its implications which are that certain people are simply filth and only there to be cleaned up or cleaned up it's only then you see yourself looking straight down the gun barrel of the totalitarian regime party religion or system someone wants to tell me what I'm trespassing all the time I said I'd restrict myself to we didn't agree did we oh no it's all awaiting me a card to have a moment or two after you think - he thinks Christ okay I think I could probably do it so I would what I would want to call the this fusion between the totalitarian idea and the genocide old method would be something like this the synthesis would be extermination extermination and the terrifying thing about that is it's one thing to think about being able to vaporize a whole people or a whole class of people or other nation of people and it's another thing to be actually able to do it and in the time we live in the means by which a genocide can be accomplished have become a lot more sophisticated and somewhat more widespread even than were available to the National Socialist Party in Germany and this has really begun to worry me and other people who follow this subject I've seen the attempt to destroy the Kurdish not our peoples of northern Iraq I've actually smelled the chemical weaponry that wasn't gas was used in tilapia and elsewhere if you want to know what totalitarianism smells like it smells a bit like chemical weapons Simba and the sound of people coughing up there are lungs and birds that won't go out won't go away I know thousands of thousands of people can be killed in an afternoon with weapons like this and then they go on dying so the number of we think about 180,000 in a few months a really serious attempt in front of our very eyes to make away with a whole group of people I saw the same happening in Bosnia in Europe in my own lifetime I've seen North Korea the most grotesque totalitarian state that exists and I've also have seen something important that I think must be mentioned when this happens to the curse when it happens to Armenians when it happens to the heat Bosnians it isn't just happening to them if we watch it in silence if we watch it with complicity if we allow it to happen we are all endangering ourselves the ideologies that do that to them are ideologies that in the end will do that to us to that express the real intention to subjugate the human race also intimidated by force in fact in the most celebrated example of genocide of which we know that of Nazi Germany it became very plain in the end that out of Hitler also wanted the German people to be destroyed if they couldn't carry out the great task of cleansing Europe ourselves of poles of gypsies under the organizing regnant principle with the racist principle of anti-semitism they didn't deserve to live either he would bring on destruction so there wasn't one brick piled on another in the whole Germany - so it's a duty of solidarity that we are it's not a matter of compassion from a matter of theme just sorry for people who are subject to mass murder and deportation it's a matter of realizing that those who will do this sincerely intend the the destruction of our civilization as well and if that one figure is - I should probably close and invite your questions later by by saying by saying this when the when the war again fascism in New York began a huge number of people education people intellectual people thoughtful people in Europe and in America thought that you could stay out of it thought that it was an internal affair of Germany an internal affair literally an internal affair even when those countries invaded Spain it was still something that could be contained that could be ignored something beyond the seas something that happened as the British government said about Czechoslovakia when it was invaded by Hitler to a faraway country of which we know nothing and everybody knows the price that had to be paid by civilization for ignoring and postponing that reckoning and it surprised we continue to page say all civilizations actually never recovered from that horrible moment and at that point when it's Hemingway wrote a wonderful novel about Spain and it's cool as you probably know For Whom the Bell Tolls and it's from the great Sun where the English poet John Donne who says no matters Nylund apart from himself never send to know For Whom the Bell Tolls because he chose for thee I leave you with that thought I'm very grateful for your attention help me in introducing John Prendergast Thank You Leah and thanks as well Christopher I for your thoughtful thought-provoking remarks I must say that without any hesitation that my week with you in Uganda was one of the most fascinating and indeed destabilizing in a positive way weeks in my entire life I think everyone in this room should get the experience to get to experience a week with Christopher Hitchens and have forgotten war zone somewhere in the world we should Mordor prizes in fact a week a weekend even a night with Christopher Hitchens at dojo or one of the other bars around the around the area guaranteed a life-altering experience some historians have referred to the 20th century as the genocide century because of the number of state-sponsored targeted killings that occurred during that century the genocides that you just some of which you just heard Christopher illuminate the 21st century's first genocide began with a literal and figurative bang in 2003 in Darfur in a few short years there we've seen hundreds of thousands dead and approximately 3 million people rendered homeless by the tactics of war pursued by the regime in Khartoum that is responsible for this genocide these millions of people that are displaced are an incomprehensible number so I wanted to tell you about one of them Amina lived with her four children in a village in North Darfur and she woke up one morning to the sound of huge explosions in the centre of the village she ran outside to see what was I realized as she watched these government bomber planes traveling in the distance that the that her town had just been bombed and amidst the confusion and all of the the screaming she could make out an even more terrifying sound in the distance which she could hear was the sound of horses lots of horses which meant only one thing in 21st century Darfur the Janjaweed were on their way the dreaded militia of Darfur she collected her four children ran back in the house gathered what she could and the kids and her began to run for their lives they were aiming for a group of hills maybe five six hundred yards outside of the periphery of the of the village but soon she was overtaken they were overtaken by one of the Janjaweed horsemen Amina grabbed one children in her left one child the left arm one child her right arm and then leaned over the other two as she told me and hoping in some way that she could protect the kids from whatever fate was about to befall them by the hands of this militia man but he reached down and he grabbed her five-year-old son Adam out of her right arm and before she could she could react he flung little Adam into one of the one of the buildings that was on fire and Amina had to choose at that moment whether to run into the building to try to save her boy or to continue to run with her other three children chose the latter option and a horrifying Sophie's Choice and she could hear little Adam screaming mother save me in the distance but she had to keep running they made it about 200 yards by her estimation outside of the village one another Janjaweed militias and wrote up in front of them and this one as she repeated the effort to try to protect her children this one reached down and pulled her seven-year-old little boy in Assam pulled him out of her grasp and shot him three times in front of her eyes not men and overcome Amina kept running somehow finding the strength to pull and push and prod her two surviving children along with her they made it to the hills waited till the Janjaweed militias left and the government forces in the distance left and then began a seven day journey without any food or water finding little good Samaritans Darfurian good Samaritans along the way to occasionally get something and they finally made it to the relative sanctuary of the Chad Sudan border that's where I found her she was on a sitting underneath the tree which was basically her home at that moment in time as she waited for a number to be able to register for residency in one of the United Nations refugee camps so we spent the afternoon talking about her life and about what she aspired to once in the camp and potentially then in the future if peace were returning to Darfur at the end when it was time to leave she suddenly stood very straight and looked at me with very fiery eyes and said you now that you know you must do something so Amina I think is very right all of us in this room know something has happened and is happening in the sands of the Sahara halfway around world in western Sudan and we hear echoes of many of the places that Christopher talked about in the stories of Amina and others like her who have survived or not the genocide in Darfur before we figure out what we can do in responding to a media's Amin isn't treating is we have to understand why this particular genocide is happening or has happened depending on your perspective and then ascertain what we can do for the half century that Sudan has been an independent country it has been a deeply troubled one the former colonizers Egypt in Britain left turned over a country that was deeply divided and profoundly unequal at the time of its independence in 1956 so for these last five decades a small group at the center of the country has controlled everything and has used overwhelming force to destroy any opposition to those unequal political and economic relationships many of you know preceding the Darfur genocide there was a much deadlier war in southern Sudan in which two and a quarter estimated two and a quarter two and a half million people perished Darfur is just the latest symptom of Sudan's disease State now to fight the rebellion in Darfur the small-scale rebellion that had erupted in early 2003 the government decided to commit genocide which is a unique crime as Christopher talked about in which the perpetrator in tennis there has to be an intention intends to destroy in whole or in part a particular group of people based solely on their ID and in this case in the case of dark for the government of Sudan initially targeted for elimination three groups before the Segawa and the mas elite we should know their names just like we know that Tutsi and many of the others that have been referenced the nightmare to accomplish that task the government has arm not very differently from other genocide regimes has are armed and organized the militia which we talked about in the story Mina story the Janjaweed the Janjaweed for reference sake are like Darfur s Ku Klux Klan like the KKK they represent a very small virulent minority opinion within the community in Darfur but they have the guns courtesy of the government of Sudan imagine if the KKK had been given arms turn of last century in Mississippi and Alabama and turned loose a huge support from the US military what would have happened how would our history have been different and these militias backed by the Sudanese government has went about their work with very deadly efficiency over 1500 villages like amina's have been razed burned to the ground and just two months ago another offensive was undertaken it had become very fashionable for journalists and politicians and analysts to say what's wrong with the Darfur movement they keep crying about what's happening to Darfur it all happened a few years ago well the government of Sudan unleashed an offensive in the area of Darfur called the jungle Mara which utilized all the tactics that I just described to you you mean his story and killed hundreds and hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands of people that was last month the government uses and supports these cheap militias and these militias undertake rape as a strategy of war in social control last time I checked in the Genocide Convention rape as a war strategy qualifies as a genocide or war tactic now this is not just divide and conquer this is divided and destroyed and the reason why the government is doing this and there's always a reason I would love to have Christopher come back up and we can talk about the political and economic rationale in each one of these cases it's usually not just wild bloodletting like one would have believed if you listen to the Clinton ministration talk about Rwanda early in the genocide there no it was a state-sponsored attempt to exterminate a particular group of people in order to maintain power by any means necessary that's what we have again today in Sudan and there are different phases and different phases of genocide just because there's not gas chambers or machetes or barbed wire doesn't mean genocide is not occurring read the convention and then study the tactics that are being undertaken on the ground and it defies a soundbite complicated issues when when one group is trying to destroy another group and the world is watching they have to utilize all kinds of different methods in order to accomplish their objectives so with this kind of human suffering why hasn't the world intervened why hasn't the world stopped this bloodletting this attempt to destroy groups of people in Darfur with all of the attention all of the activism how to support all the political speeches that have been made about Darfur wise and anything and yet to really stop what's going on there well it turns out Sudan is a very neat place and there are three of the world's great issues the great issues of our time would you run smack into when you're dealing with Sudan Iraq counterterrorism and energy security very briefly we have to understand why the forces that we are up against before we can understand what we can do about it the rock is very obvious the war in Darfur erupted roughly at the same time the u.s. intervened in Iraq invaded Iraq and of course most of the energy and attention and political capital was expended during those years subsequent years on the primary international crisis that was unfolding there in Iraq and Sudan got lots of good lip service lots of speeches a very little action in the form of meaningful political or much less military engagement secondly counterterrorism how does it how does counterterrorism in the war against terror relate to what is happening in middle of Sahara Desert well it turns out Sudan hosted Osama bin Laden for six years during the 1990s and al-qaeda incubated its commercial infrastructure in part in Sudan and the relationships that the Sudanese government built and maintained with al Qaeda meant that they the Sudanese government officials to believe intelligence officials and security officials have a great deal of knowledge about the way the inner workings of the al Qaeda internationals Network and so when flash-forward to September 11 and it's aftermath when the United States invaded Afghanistan and then began to make noises about doing the same in other countries that had that were involved in supporting in some way shape or form relationships with international terrorism the Sudanese got very nervous partly because of some of the comments that were made by some US officials and they turned and began to provide drip drip drip began to provide little pieces of information about what they knew about the the networks and the front companies and all the rest of the aliases that various operatives of al-qaeda were using this is very valuable to the United States boom commander genuine serious conundrum are we going to intervene against in a country which is providing valuable information or what was perceived to be valuable information to one arm of our government are we going to intervene and yet with another arm to try to stop something that the United States itself the Bush administration itself was calling genocide turns out not third variable after Iraq and counterterrorism that prevented us a u.s. response was energy security what does that mean that in this context well that in a word China China in very simple terms gets its oil differently we buy our oil a daily basis from the international spot market China over the last decades has invested in particular countries often countries that are spurned for whatever reasons by the internet by much of the rest of the international community they invest heavily in those countries and then they buy they will buy their energy needs for secure their energy straight from the countries that they've invested in Sudan turns out as one of the countries they invested in a long time ago and it's now coming to fruition so there with eight nine billion dollars of some assets and a fairly robust annual output from Sudan and Rose over the last decade from any exporter of a few agricultural items now to a mid-level oil producer purely because of China's investment and so China of course then the fens Sudan in the context in international for the United Nations Security Council sells arms to them defying international arms embargoes and this is a significant counterweight to to our to the attempts by part of the rest of the international community to respond to what is going on there so Darfur has the as the crisis unfurled in Darfur there was a great deal of there were many obstacles and impediments to the response and now I think we've got to start talking about what it is that gives comprise us some hope with what is happening there so that we can then figure out what to do and I think there are five despite those impediments there are five windows of hope that one would put up in opposition to those impediments that form that could form the basis that can form the basis for more robust action in response to the crisis that continues to unfold and not only Darfur but in southern stammers threatens a much bigger conflict the first window of opportunity I see on this horizon is the war crimes indictment by the International Criminal Court of the President Sudan there was a short-term negative repercussion from that indictment last year when the government of Sudan in retaliation threw out a bunch of the humanitarian organizations operating in in western Sudan but this is the first time that there is a real potential consequence for the commission of genocide I don't know who could possibly imagine that if there is no consequence for these kinds of crimes that those behaviors will ever we have to stop it at some point we have to stop that cycle of complete and total impunity whether on paper or in reality at some point in the International Criminal Court has taken this stand the wheels of justice grind slowly asked Malone president Milosevic asked Charles Taylor people who laughed at their indictments by the International Criminal Tribunal abuse Lobby in the mixed court in Sierra Leone Elizabeth died in prison Charles Taylor's being tried now for me for war crimes and crimes against humanity Bashir is destabilized by this and he can't travel to many countries because he doesn't know if he's going to be captured and it's enough significant has a significant impact and it creates a level point of leverage on the Sudanese government that we have yet to exploit second window of opportunity concerns China China has invested as I said nearly ten billion dollars in that oil sector in Sudan now a war reignites in southern Sudan the southern Sudanese have told me on many occasions my travels there the first target that they're going to zero in on is the Chinese oil installations and China has now a vested interests in peace and stability in Sudan this is an incredibly important opportunity that the Obama administration needs to make use of we need to work with the Chinese on a much more on a much deeper level in support of peace and security in Sudan we may have different reasons why we wanted but we ought to be cooperating diplomatically good-cop bad-cop however works and join forces in support or for an end to the crisis in there in Sudan the third window of opportunity is the elections that is that are going to be held potentially couple of weeks in Sudan elections cause all kinds of opportunities for shifting alliances even if the human as the opposition boycotts the northern opposition boycotts the election all kinds of activity is going on at the state and local level as people challenge the system it's a slippery slope Bashir has begun to descend in his quest for legitimacy fighting off that international criminal court indictment fighting off the sanctions that the United States has placed on wanting to be accepted internationally he wants this election so badly he's actually allowing even though at the national level it's not free and not fair and it will not be a credible election he's already wanted at the local level there are many chances and many opportunity to challenge the regime this is the beginning this gives people some confidence creates alliances it's another window of opportunity if we look under the surface and see where these alliances are building and Ally ourselves with those progressive forces for change within Savannah Sudan isn't going to be solved by outsiders Sudanese themselves are going to be the ones that do it and we can help the fourth window of opportunity remains even a year and a half or a year and a quarter into its new into its term the Obama administration still soudanese all over the country believe that based on the past record of the president when he was a senator based on the past record of the vice president when he was a senator based on the past record of the Secretary of State when she was a senator based on the past record of the United States ambassador of the United Nations when she was in the think tank community during the eight years of Bush administration but based on those four people having formed the senior most positions in our national security apparatus and having been so aggressively supportive real action in Darfur and real action in southern Sudan that maybe we'll get somewhere so sealegs having been gotten out potentially in the aftermath here bill slowly but surely we may see Obama come into his own as a foreign policy president to President Clinton a long time Christopher talked about 1994 you could continue after that there was gaffe after gaffe and steak after mistake until Clinton over time through those mistakes through all those in after all that in action began to find his voice and his approach to foreign policy I believe the same will be potentially true of President Obama so we hope but in the meantime the criticize and we go after this because they're doing anything and they need to do much more in fact the special envoy a name is a counterproductive force often Scott Gration and so we spend a lot of our time under are criticizing and critiquing what he's doing and trying to provide alternative approaches more consistent with what Clinton by then Obama talked about what they were going to do when they were senators and when they were candidates fifth window of opportunity I would suggest as you is all of us for the first time since the word genocide was invented by Raphael Lemkin as christopher mentioned we are seen and we have seen the formation of a mass movement of people willing to stand up against the genocide while it was and continues to happen and i think this is the game changer that sudan needs to so desperately i think if we look collectively groups like this all over the united states meeting in churches meeting in synagogues meeting here in schools being in town halls community centers together we have the chance to do something that has never been done before which is to create potentially create some kind of political cost some kind of political price for politicians who don't take a meaningful stand against these kinds of human rights crimes while they're happening so let's talk for just a minute about what a meaningful stain by a politician by a diplomat by a government official by President Obama by the United States cars what would that mean right now well I think what's needed more than anything else in Sudan is actually very simple and very cheap and we've actually done it before in Sudan more than anything else I think the country needs from us the United States leading an international effort what I would call a peace surge that gets at the root causes of war the cycle of conflict that has occurred since independence we talked about at the beginning and the root causes of why genocide would be perpetrated in the context of that war and back that peace surged up with real consequences for the commission of further crimes we all know that America by far has the largest army in the world but we also have the largest diplomatic corps in the world as well you know how to make peace we did it we helped do it in 2005 in southern Sudan a war far bigger with far more at stake than the war in the western part of the country today and our for the us-led the peace process there secretary Powell talks about it as one of his accomplishments of his of his term in as Secretary of State and that was a war that everyone said just like they're saying today about Darfur was a hopeless war with divided rebel ISM and and and all the other kinds of reasons that people say Darfur is just an interminable hopeless conflict so we actually do know what to do and how to do it if we want to end that a crisis in Sudan so back to Amina finally remember what she said now that you know you must do something and that's something I think means raising our voices I can tell you from my own experience having worked in them in the White House and the State Department the United Nations and in Congress that when voters like us in this room begin to raise our voices in unison in a clear wet with certainty about our objective attention will be paid the incredible thing in the 21st century is that we can raise our voices and fight genocide right from our laptops and right from our living rooms and Mark Hennis is going to follow me we'll tell you a little bit about the kind of things that you can do and I will only frame the beginning or sort of handing the baton to him by saying that if you look at the last century of this country's history one can make the case that real changes have occurred in the contexts of people's movements we've seen the real shifts occur in our historical development from the women's movement from the civil rights movement from the labor movement from the environmental from peace movement even in some cases and finally we have the outlines the beginnings of an anti genocide movement and anyone of us in this room can be part of it the key is to look at your own skillset look at this massive social networks that all of us have through all the new media tools that particularly students are so adept at utilizing so that just the number in this room can be multiplied by a hundred if we have a purpose which we want to alert people to know I was looking at it in a journal recently which talked about what were the most effective ways that got people involved or interested in causes in the third most effective way that the poll the poll respondents cited was that they hadn't seen an ad that was very effective and they were compelled to respond in some way through action or through money through through charity second-leading response by people who were involved in causes was that they saw some kind of some celebrity got involved in a particular issue and they decided once they learned about the issue that they wanted to help too but by far and away the number one reason why people got involved in causes according to this fairly extensive study was because a friend or family member asked them to how empowered is that for all of us in this room that have that believe in particular issues and causes and want to do something and have at our disposal things that Christopher and I didn't have 10 15 20 years ago in terms of our capacity village to organize and bring people together around issues and ideas the stories and causes that you hold dear to your hearts the truth is and I think Marc will make this case much stronger than I will it really only takes 10 or 15 minutes a week to become a card-carrying member of this anti-genocide movement if we make enough noise if we turn enough light on to these issues and on to the solutions that are possible then I think we can help bring an end to the conflict that continues to burn around 21st century's first genocide we must raise our voices for Amina and for all the survivors of the genocide in Sudan and in other genocides previous century and tell them as loudly as we can not on our watch thank you very much all right I'm gonna try to speak here you all your or giving up a meeting to talk about genocide unlike Christopher or John I've looked at both of your seats anyway so I want to focus on how we can all take action in response to Sudan and help prevent future genocides before that I'll briefly talk about why speaking after the esteemed Christopher in John Moore my grandparents for Apollo class survivors my mother's mother was 8 years old and was an orphan when the Nazis took over Austria and she was able to get refuge in the United Kingdom on the Kindertransport when they only allow Jews if there were 16 years or younger so she made her way to Glasgow Scotland pushing another Holocaust survivor they got married they had three daughters my mother was the middle one born and raised in Glasgow Scotland like Christopher I can do the British accents like everyone in the weather so if she was 17 she left Scotland and went to Southern California and started working there on my father's side his parents were in Auschwitz and at the end of the war they tried to get refuge here in the United States but with an entry they tried Cuba or denied entry and finally made their way to Ecuador to South America and there they met we got married had one son my father who was born and raised in battle he was visiting my mother in LA or visiting la yep my mother they got married and decided to raise a family so I call for 18 years in the capital Quito the launch the one synagogue in the country made up of about a hundred families and everyone was a survivor or descendants of survivors and so whenever a church about service every holiday every Holocaust Remembrance Day many the elders still had the numbers cut together arms and they were always remind the congregation and anyone that they could of two critical lessons one never forget how six million Jews and five billion others were systematically exterminated through their work and the world's largely stood by and - and it's equally as important never ever let it happen again doesn't matter if they're scottish-american Ecuadorian Jewish or not never well people to be targeted for me and when I was 18 I graduated I was fortunate to get a scholarship to come to the United States and as John Christopher mentioned I heard what was happening in 2004 about Darfur stores like La Mina and I was really troubled given with my background that there seemed to be a lot of similarities with the Holocaust with previous genocides Cambodia Bosnia Rwanda and yet people work making connections the details are important it's critical so that we can help address it but there are some things where yes there was intense yes there were tension between the different tribes in western Sudan people were being systematically targeted governments were manipulating that tension to make it justifiable to target an extremity people for who they were and justifying it for bogus reasons for the rest of the population kind of be complicit or complacent unfortunately because the US and our and the allies were able to stop the Nazis from continuing to find a solution I'll be late there was a success my grandparents the fact that I'm alive today was because of Americans and others refusing to be bystanders and actually taking action and in helping liberate the Jews in the camps and it's I felt like here was an opportunity to give the exact same thing with what's happening today modern era modern day atrocities whether Sudan Congo Burma or other places so question is why and I was fortunate to come across an amazing book that I encourage you all to read the won a Pulitzer Prize by a dear friend of John discerning of Samantha power and she looked at all the genocides of the 20th century and asked why why is it that after the Holocaust we say never again and yet fail at making that phrase meaningful with each successive genocide what lessons have you learned in order to actually prevent and stop genocide surely we must be getting better at it because it keeps happening over and over again and we focus from three a reason three of the reasons one they've failed at stopping genocide and unless we change these three things will continue to fail at preventing us in stopping suicide in those three things are our tection political will and permanency the protection part is critical because when we hear today when we tell others after today about what's happening today our brains put that information of theirs fortunately in the saint bucket as the tsunami or Katrina or Haiti and that is the same you treat genocide and mass atrocities like natural disasters and that's a fundamental mistake because all the people being harmed isn't because of a hurricane or a tidal wave earthquake it's because of other human beings but by responding to a lake of hurt like a natural disaster we do humanitarian aid food water medicine and don't get me wrong it's importance it's what's keeping people alive on a day-to-day but if that's the only thing we do for the bulk of what we do it's simply inappropriate you imagine if that's just what Americans did our parents grandparents did during the Holocaust the Nazis what is succeeded at completing the final solution well that but and so what we need to do is stop treating genocide as a humanitarian crisis they start treating it like a security crisis oh yes keep our eyes on the prize protecting innocent civilians the second thing is as you heard John Iskra mention is that politicians are really good at the rhetoric oh this is awful and we can't do it and so they often use the excuse oh we didn't know or we didn't have the ability and we did you know and have the ability in each of the previous genocides to maybe stop and prevent them or at least save hundreds of thousands of lives as an early response so the question is why why is it that the United States government the most popular in the world fails and making every community the answer is really it's this there are zero political cost to an action interface of genocide there are not enough Americans if any over trying to work on that who are willing to get beyond being educated and getting political to stopping genocide what we need to do is hold our policymakers and Congress and the executive branch accountable similar to how we do it up many other issues you know horsemen gun rights immigration Israel Americans go just get educated on this you actually pick up the phone you got an email they write a letter to their policymakers saying do something my favorite examples in Florida that woman's hair is shy though follow your members who's on TV all the time Americans didn't just get educated they pick up the phone they got an email they wrote to congressman White House stating abusively in what was a response Congress felt special sessions pass sniffing it help special sessions on Sunday you're pulling all nighters to write a piece of legislation forward one woman former President Bush cut his vacation short flew back from his ranch to Washington DC to be waiting waiting the Oval Office to sign a piece of legislation for one woman getting sued in Congo Burma were hundreds of thousands of people have their lives at risk Congress and the White House talk the talk and don't match it way to action that's median why because we're not getting about stopping genocide and that's the only way we're going to maybe never get me something is if we get political which tie them to the therapy of permanency and then when Americans do that political we do organize coalitions and organizations when the genocides are over and the politicians say we believe them and we dissolve these institutions so we created a war refugee board to help Jews get refuge here and afterwards poof it dissolved then Bosnia we craved the American campaign to stay positive who it dissolved we need to build a permanent anti-genocide constituencies swim into a firehouse we don't dissolve a firehouse with a fireman throughout the fire we need to create a permanent institution of Americans across the country willing to get beyond being educated and getting political so with Samantha's help and John's help we did this and we created a genocide intervention network a network of Americans across the country students among students who are getting empowered with tools to prevent and stop genocide so what does it means have the tools in preventing stop genocide well we come up with a really strategic result oriented approach to creating this permanent engines activity and we have focus on three main tools education advocacy and economically advocating political and economic so let me explain these obviously people need to know what's happening in order to stop it so going after this events and no one you tell after John's charge can never say they didn't know about we need to make sure people know what's happening so they can't use the ignorance card as they have in the past the second thing is how do we advocate how to get politicians to match them thorough action and the retroactive action we decided to create several tools the first is a report card we've created the dark horse scores a scorecard rating every member of Congress respond how they voted on legislation how they co-sponsor can they been to Darfur that they held a town-hall meeting how they been anything under our form beyond just talking about it to engage their policy to engage their constituents and past policy and we create this website dark with scores award and creative made of public so anyone could see what the member of Congress has earned they made it easy for people to call the email right by those saying tell me what they're graded and it was unbelievable when we came out with this peoples students not students faith leaders business leaders started flooding their members of Congress said how dare you earn anything less than 80 students printed it out and on spring break when if I need a bust my luck to get me you need to bust your butt to get any and the response was phenomenal like Terri Schiavo members of Congress were calling our office not their secretaries at the entrance saying please get people to stop calling you email me what can they do to get a better grade or Americas and it just closed bunch of these two bills can you please update my grade from UD - baby years in Texas right - senator Cornyn of whether F for not voting avoiding though on critical legislation that you call their offices Center when I helped write the most robust Billings to games today so we worked with his office and wrote the Soudan accountability and divestment acts in 2008 both houses of Congress unanimously passed the bill and on December 31st former President Bush signed the bill into law how is this possible it wasn't because of people like John or Christopher I because in fact our license plate say taxation without representation we have in other words permits it was it because of people like you were willing to push Schumer and deliberating the others to not just talking about it but taking action the second tool is also started by students is looking at the economics as I heard from John other countries are profiting with our benefiting perpetrators like the government Sudan which it's using the oil revenue to commit genocide while none of these companies are American the all traded on our stock exchange so through our personal portfolios our College endowments our pension systems we are indirectly funding the violence in process so students at Harvard using Facebook got the senior class a pledge to never give a donation back to Harvard as long as they would hold stock and some of these companies and amazingly these two students on Facebook in this near class it affects as you all know us move over for great causes universities and the limited giving is one of the variables and God forbid year after year of Harvard would lose its number one spot and become two or three and you'd want to lose the sacred spot and so Harvard agreed to sell 4.4 million dollars of the stocks of PetroChina sparking a nationwide divestment campaign not seen not seen since students led the charge against apartheid South Africa so 60 callers and universities equality suits I'm pretty sure NYU is one of those nominee to make sure this and students in California said why stop here may rogue state legislation to get CalSTRS and CalPERS the largest pension systems to screen their investments in these companies and successfully pressured Governor Schwarzenegger to pass ax that's a Adam who was a senior at UCLA doing that so we got that legislation we introduced it throughout the country and 27 states passed to target divestment legislation and so we've got an even better and works created a new model of a conflict recipe network where we recruit institutional investors and get them to use their leverage so we now recruiting from foundations college funds pension systems have not have said knowledge assets and use that the pressure companies to change their behavior and if the ability to behavior then we call the divestment as a last resort and does more 12 companies have improved their behavior because of this we've seen huge results with his economic campaign so those are the 27 countries New York has been great we've also got the city the last tool is the most exciting one because it's one that everyone has on you every moment or within the foot of you and that is your cell phone we've created the anti-genocide hotline called 1-800 genocide usually ask people to open up your address books and open up this box then take our phones and type in this phone number so you can remember it but because of time I'll just I'll just speed through it so whenever anyone calls one patron of genocide all you have to do is enter your 5 into ZIP code in our system identify your specific representative your Senators or give you the option to call the white house whatever option you pick one two or three we will always give you the most up-to-date action and that that policymaker needs to take in order to stop genocide and so Schumer's voted for a bill that Gillibrand has it we will tell you and then you will connect you for free to their office so that you as you ever can tell your Rep senator or president obama but what they need to do the help stop genocide in the best part is we can track it real time so we can always tell she would Gillibrand you know ten thousand five hundred sixty two New Yorkers have called you to vote for this bill why aren't you going for excuse and it's been phenomenal we've had over 30,000 people call another and literally members of Congress have called into their offices these please please get people to stop calling what more can I do most recently we did a campaign with the enough project Save Darfur when the National Security Council was meeting and the Deputy Secretary of State was in that meeting and we had 100n aside go to the State Department's to make sure that they're gonna include the main points John is mentioned to help stop the atrocities and after 75 calls the deputy secretary of state of call saying we got the message please stop comment so it doesn't take much to get policymakers to hear the message moving forward it's not just about the ad hoc approaches so we're looking at maybe areas of the world where there's mass atrocities but when you do is getting get ahead of the curve Madeleine Albright and William Cohen were commissioned by the Holocaust Museum to look at very clear ways are going to get better ahead of preventing atrocities so if you hear Jews being called berman in the Holocaust or tooken cult cockroaches in Rwanda why waits for the atrocities to begin in order to engage and so two of them and others spent over a year looking at a clear blueprints to help prevent it's not been aside and produced this report the genocide prevention task force with 34 recommendations and low Congress and the executive branch can do to help her Basin stop genocide and we're fortunate because later next week we're going to have a bill introduced in the Senate likely by Senators Russ Feingold and John McCain it's been extremely bipartisan legislation on these issues to help realize some of these key recommendations so we really need you to push humor and Gillibrand because they don't care what I think Kristopher they care that you think here as voters in New York so what we're all trying to say was John Smith part is that here we have an exciting opportunity an opportunity to instead of being bystanders to genocide actually becoming upstanders to genocide you don't need to have a PhD you don't need to have Oprah Winfrey or Warren Buffett on your speed dial I barely graduated I don't have any of those and been able to have huge results by working with students and others to actually nudge members of Congress to not just be bystanders to taking the necessary action so hopefully all of you will get involved in joining us and join the permanent agenda side constituency to actually take action and so breathing is what we need to do is we need to get people in every congressional district our goal we've got aggregate stand chapters and you'll hear more about anyone used Stan chapter when you go outside but our goals that have at least one student shocker and at least several we call mu Carl Wilkens fellows fellows who we've trained horn students and hi logging how to organize how to fundraise our goals in one each of those in every congressional district so no member of Congress can ever say they didn't know what was happening and then hear from them from their constituents so if you get very specific about what's happening for any of you who are just dying to take action I've got four four suggestions one is to go to take action in 180 calm there's going to be discussion board so all of you can comment on what you heard tonight other ideas that you might have to get more involved the second is on next week Tuesday April 6 there's going to be an event at the US mission US mission to the UN which is at 140 East 45th Street between Lexington and 3rd add on on Wednesday April 7th the New York coalition the Save Darfur it's going to have a meeting that more information on the location will be on the take actual website I saw you cannot as students but also to connect it to business leaders and faith leaders in your area to get involved and also April 10th there's going to be a worldwide they called Sudan 365 so we've got activist not just in the US but across the world who are going to take action on that day to show solidarity for the people of Sudan and the location will also be announced on the website so hopefully the goal is all of you can help us join us become members of the anti-genocide movement so we can make never again be more than empty promise but an actual commitment you and this just changes concerns me very much even if they only want these workers rejuvenation process just revealed accountability to grab which was my suspicions nonetheless it means the black wire man they've been engage in international especially with Iran assignment saw a lot of changes with the UN with the European Union with the expansion from the gradual 33 number of initiating swear that they were not use it very clear the surface worthless but if that turns out to be the lie which I think it has done it needs international rules and total indicators it means furthermore from then on we have to make nice to this regime we have to reply to it we have to say okay now we live it from the new world and I find that so I think it should be it should have been said already that has been said in the UN by the EU by every candidate for the presidency this country under no circumstances will their own entity oversee the quiet thermonuclear others what if your way through exactly but that's that comes out to be an empty thing to observe so you can find it with so many other pointless remarks made rather wonder about Serbia about head start until finally we only did the right thing when most absolutely nothing else we could framework for pre-emptive policy process personnel we gotta get the policy right or we've got seed and the existing national security strategy and all the other elements of the infrastructure of our foreign policy deliberation the basis of our hospital operations with statements and pronouncements at least in words and I'll have to be of course follows idea through the other three P's staying that preventing genocide preventing human rights crimes are still human rights cries is in the national interest of the United States were seeing that we already saw that beginning in the last couple years of the Bush administration we're seeing an event an intensified their domestic emergency and then process creating the putting people in place Pacific Rim with musicians and the processes within the United States government to continuously look at these questions the warning signs of human Human Rights warning side of humanitarian website to maximize prevention opportunities so you have to have those processes in place meeting on a regular basis in the context of interagency working groups just as you do want individual countries like Iran and North Korea and I worked with the National Security Council realized that policy can be driven or not by virtue of how you organize internally government strategy and so the processes are important then there is personnel you can have all the wonderful policy in the world set up these fantastic processes maybe a name someone who does to get it or someone who's not willing to be an upstander in the context of their position then you're up the creek without the proverbial paddle and Sudan is the perfect example we have policy is right now probably as stated publicly what the president by the secretary of state matters but the personality on voided Obama shows and informative two-star general Scott Griffin has gone off the rails which undermines the ability of the United States to take effective action policy process personnel and then political will all things mark to talk about unless there is civil society in Leicester as the popular demand at least congressional district by congressional discipline disintegrating effectively with small groups of people magnified their voices through the new opportunities for organizing through social media and through media in other ways we can do it and have an impact as we saw last minutes there has to be that ongoing effort the permanently constituency instead of the ad hoc so if you have those elements together which are not unreasonable advances on practice I think we would be much better position case-by-case to builders mr. P you'll Pisa study soft feet please I actually didn't the Genocide Convention would say a prevention or punishment if you feel it coming or they see it coming you're mandated if you're significant your mandate to take action to prevent it and you can't get there in time with yourself a little drawing the Punisher prevention and punishment we have two sets a ceremony refused that by the night over by the other case which we several cases are actually have extermination is journalists here we know neither the given or thinks about the total Japanese we have in war we can either prevent or punish it or we can just there's a after one and genocide kofi not appeals the General Assembly the adenosine they say how do we overcome this challenge between sovereignty humanitarian intervention because every time we see something like this the country says internal issue scale and Canadian government's regards others have created this commission my intervention and state sovereignty and they've produced this report called responsibility to protect and it sort of looked at how can we get better as an international community as well as the best it's preventing and stopping these things and they will get a continuum so it's prevention reaction it's rebuilding the prevention part is if you hear Jews be culverton if you hear twitch is being called cockroaches and my concern with Christopher just talking about North Korea and Iran is that things like Rwanda which don't have nukes mean we it's benek that they don't fit that paradigm and then we don't pay attention when something like the genocide Nathan before happened so you can commit genocide with simple farming tools you don't need Tomahawk missiles or nukes or f40 knees you can use machetes to commit genocide so we need to get much better at seeing these warning signs we need to get better at the early reaction diplomat diplomatic economic cares the sticks military we need to make sure that we've got the mandated or resources big problem in peacekeeping missions that they're sometimes I'll have the magnates aren't trained don't have the resources we need helicopters for example for the UN mission in Sudan and then the last one is rebuild is one of these indicators for a genocide as if there has been previous mass atrocities you don't end the culture of impunity old people terminable and don't jump start the economy you have the Marshall Plan in Europe we tend to not look at healthy great jobs usually one person at the UN says two things you need is jobs could have been and education for women to help get them outside of that contract so 7p is is use of part in stock power you know the worst atrocity diplomatic atrocity here and a daily basis in Washington from every person I had talked to the White House and Congress is the United States no longer has any leverage in the world that's a gross unnerve estimate the united states most population was continuing ability one when we wield the tools that we have and for purposes that we really want to to accomplish what we can do it so using the tools that are at our disposal hard and soft our tools empower our kind willingness to use a defensive growth my question is more about after genocide has happened specifically kind of talking with examples from Rwanda kind of aimed what do you think the role of communal courts in or could be I was kind of surprised that you didn't list that as one of the things that could be focused on one of his response and how do you think in general on a macro level something like the genocide and you have intervention Network where to take the applicability of the post-genocide Rwanda where connectors justice in the context of a lot of local communal courts which is really one of the ways that you undertake such a massive you did just justice-seeking and Reconciliation see an effort we're not there in Darfur however and in the context of the peace process now introducing elements involving post-conflict judicial mechanisms state local and international is crucial if we're going to have a sustainable peace in Darfur we're not equated on the basis of this current whitewash that's going on don't today to the peace process that they're calling it now production but if a serious peace process were following the footsteps of the failure that we're going to see unfold over the next few months it would involve a comprehensive approach to the issues that have spawned the conflict which been Islamic genocide one of which is the psycho community that needs to be addressed at multiple levels including these can be wall and there were these American dishes for watering this is how those kinds of approaches can be maximizing supported locally at the state level and our drivers especially take especially taken in by the word for urban and Cu use in terms of institutionalizing the movement obviously to a certain degree that's mobilizing people to be pertinent with it and also getting it loaded enough fluid as labor force to help you along with various types of the way on college campuses for example where a lot of this will germinate and develop and it's not modeling Public Interest Research Group type labor or even they made the reference that we respond so well to natural calamity this the same short-term labor in this regard as people for years going down to rebuild the worlds for weekends for short terms any anything like that that might be of interest to this group in terms of actually giving days as opposed to indeed that 50 minutes you were talking about that's a great question so we've are we've studied a lot of how other groups mobilize on their issues so we've met and researched DNR a move on scared of a pack folks on the family looking at how to evade what are the best practices that they use to mobilize citizens to pressure their policymakers and so we've created the with students coming out of Georgetown Angie created the answer to the students and to feticide coalition stand so there's tears of engagements where you can give 15 minutes a week or you can become a chapter leader you can get involved in our student war so it's it's buying for students they come up with the programs there just need to stay within budget and a lot and students for details one of the things that we learned was to Morgan amazing that that's students want to have as much money as possible so we do multiple things throughout the year we've got campaigns like some of the events I mentioned that people can give days as you're hearing or Jedi it's weird that April is a month that every major genocide is commemorated the Holocaust Cambodia Armenia as to did will have many days that you can take actions sorry the waste time so there's that we also team up with enough and say therefore until the National Conference in the fall so we had a thousand people come in November we're going to do it as as often as people want to come to BC train of accountability comes a lot of how to organize kind of fundraise how to write op-eds and then we do that the first two days they hear from experts talking about areas and that's atrocities and then the third name we set up a point for them to go on Capitol Hill and Lobby the members of Congress and in fact between March 29th in April 9th you've got a whole these days you

Channel: CaNANDian

Views: 31,971

Rating: 4.8832116 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher, Hitchens, Discussing, genocide, awareness, and, prevention, at, NYU, 2010, Take, Action, Now

Id: s4KaIoqMC08

Length: 90min 11sec (5411 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/samelemons]

I'm always thrilled and astounded when someone finds a Hitchens video that I haven't seen. Thank you!

[u/Sock1122]

simply magnificent find

[u/NewYorkUniversity]

I remember that!