Genocide Intervention Network www.GenocideIntervention.net

April is a month where we bear testimony to some of the most gruesome atrocities of the twentieth century. Ironically, the century that brought us the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also witnessed the Holocaust and genocides in Armenia, Cambodia and Rwanda.

Our unique goal at the Genocide Intervention Network is to establish the first permanent anti-genocide constituency. Through our membership program we help to ensure that there is always an educated and determined group of activists who can quickly mobilize to pressure our governments to intervene whenever the threat of genocide arises.

As we remember past genocides and work to end the ongoing genocide in Darfur, you can help the anti-genocide movement grow by asking your friends and family members to become members of GI-Net.

Armenia

On the night of April 24, 1915, the Turkish government rounded up the leading Armenian religious, political and intellectual leaders in the capitol of Istanbul and murdered them. These killings were replicated across the country and the entire Armenian community was forced to relocate to the deserts of Syria. In all, at least 1,000,000 Armenians were slaughtered.

Join the Armenian National Committee of America in their "Click for Justice" campaign.

The Holocaust

April 11, 1933: The Nazis issue a decree defining a non-Aryan as "anyone descended from non-Aryan, especially Jewish, parents or grandparents. One parent or grandparent classifies the descendant as non-Aryan ... especially if one parent or grandparent was of the Jewish faith." This was one in a series of laws that prepared the way for Hitler's "Final Solution" — his attempt to destroy the Jewish people. This year Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, fell on April 16.

Cambodia

On April 17, 1975, after a five-year civil war in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge entered the capitol, Phnom Penh. Three and a half years later some 2,000,000 people had been killed or had died of starvation, as massacres emptied out entire cities into the countryside and introduced the world to the term "killing fields."

Rwanda

On the evening of April 6, 1994, Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana's airplane was shot down. The next morning Hutu hardliners killed moderate leaders, beginning a three-month bloodbath that left 800,000 corpses scattered across the "land of a thousand hills" in rivers, homes and churches.

Darfur

How will history document the genocide in Darfur? What will we tell our children when they ask us what we did to help stop it? When and how will it be commemorated?

The answers to these questions lie in how we choose to respond to the genocide today. The only way we can honor the victims of past genocides is through bearing witness to their suffering. However, in Darfur we have the opportunity to actually prevent more innocents from becoming victims of genocide.

We have the opportunity now to limit the number of dead we remember in the future.

Become a member of the anti-genocide constituency. Help stop the genocide in Darfur. Help the world to remember the genocides of the past. Help prevent genocide in the future.

Global Days for Darfur

To call attention to the escalating violence and the continued failure of the international community to adequately respond to the Darfur genocide, activists across the world have come together to plan “Global Days for Darfur.” This week of rallies, marches and vigils will run from April 23–30 and will highlight that “time is running out” for the people of Darfur.

Rally participants will come together to call on world leaders to adopt — and enforce — tough sanctions on Sudan until it allows the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to Darfur. Already, Darfur activists have planned 195 events across the country!

Please support your fellow activists in speaking out for the people of Darfur by joining an event in your area.

If there are currently no activities planned in your community, we hope you will consider starting your own event during this important week.

You can be part of a “human chain” in Duluth, attend a concert and rally in San Francisco, go to a panel discussion at Auburn University in Alabama, or participate in a “die-in” rally and march in Boston. In addition to these activities in the United States, similar events will be held around the world.

Learn more, register an event you are holding as part of the campaign or search for activities that are taking place near to you.

STAND's National Lobby Days: It's High Time for Higher Grades!

Now more than ever, it's important that our members of Congress know that we expect them to stop this genocide.

Join STAND students around the country from April 16–27 in telling your members of Congress to “make the grade.”

Lobby one of your elected officials in a face-to-face meeting at his/her in-district office or use the anti-genocide hotline — 1-800-GENOCIDE — to tell your elected officials that their voters want to see them make the grade on stopping genocide.

Register online and STAND will send you all the resources you need to make your appointment, get connected with other community groups, prepare for your meeting, and follow up afterwards to hold your member of Congress accountable.

Activist Successes

Iowa Divests

On April 5, Iowa Gov. Chet Culver signed a targeted divestment bill (PDF) requiring the state to divest from companies that support the government of Sudan. The bill passed the state House with overwhelming support and passed the state Senate with unanimous consent late last month.

"Genocide should never be tolerated and the state of Iowa should not directly or indirectly be supporting the deadly campaign in Darfur," said state Rep. Dawn Pettengill of Mt. Auburn, who sponsored and managed the bill in the Iowa House.

Iowa is the first state to pass divestment legislation in 2007, and the eighth state to divest overall. Eighteen other states are currently considering a targeted Sudan divestment model.

Genocide Accountability Act

On March 29, the US Senate unanimously passed the Genocide Accountability Act. If subsequently passed by the House, this legislation will close a legal loophole that currently prevents the US Justice Department from prosecuting people in the United States who have committed genocide in other countries.

Other Genocide-Related News

April 24 marks the 92nd Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. GI-Net recently joined the Armenian National Committee of America to advocate for the passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (PDF), which calls on the President to officially acknowledge that the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War One was, indeed, genocide.

Denial is often termed “the last stage of genocide.” If we do not have the moral courage to recognize genocides of the past, we cannot expect to break their brutal cycle in the future.

Participate in the campaign to ensure the passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution.