Genocide Watch Report July 2020

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Genocide Watch has creatively adapted its work to

predict, prevent, stop and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder while ensuring the

safety of our staff and our Alliance Against Genocide member organizations. Genocide Watch staff

must work virtually, rather than in person in an office. Rather than allowing the pandemic to

handicap our work, Genocide Watch has thrived.

Using the power of virtual communications, Genocide Watch has conducted hundreds of meetings

with its ten person staff in the US, Canada, the UK, and Spain. Our three-person Management

Team is located in Northern Virginia and Montreal, Canada. Genocide Watch has actively

participated in international meetings to plan projects for genocide prevention, including meetings

at the National Security Council, the State Department, and with Alliance partner organizations in

Washington DC, Nigeria, and Iraq.

Genocide Watch’s operational methodology to maintain timely and reliable information on threats

of genocide has four pillars: Staff Development, Digital Education, Virtual Communication, and

Revitalization of the Alliance Against Genocide.

Staff Development:

Genocide Watch has always relied on brilliant student interns to assist Dr. Gregory Stanton in

developing reports and educational resources on genocidal processes that are communicated to

policy makers to warn them when preventive action is needed. These student interns do not receive

monetary compensation, but they receive course credit for their work. Guided by his mentorship,

leadership, and breadth of experience, Dr. Stanton has created a highly sought after, formative

internship program that has launched many interns’ careers in genocide prevention.

Genocide Watch maintains a loyalty among its former interns that lasts for years. To ensure that

COVID-19 did not impede Genocide Watch’s ability to report on threats of genocides, in March

2020, three former Genocide Watch interns currently working in law, anti-human trafficking and

global public health organizations designed and developed a virtual internship program for the

Summer of 2020. They recruited ten extraordinary summer interns from universities around the

world. Several of the interns have Masters degrees in genocide studies, political science, and law,

and others are continuing their studies in masters or doctoral programs. Our interns are students in

subjects as diverse as mathematics, economics, journalism, public policy, and public health.

Utilising the interactive communications platform, Microsoft Teams, Dr. Stanton and the threeperson

Management Team trained the ten Summer Interns from the United States, Canada, the

United Kingdom and Spain. The Summer 2020 internship class has developed several new genocide

prevention resources. Genocide Watch intends to continue the virtual internship program in Fall

2020. We will sponsor virtual internships even after the COVID crisis has ended.

Virtual internships make it possible for Genocide Watch to benefit from the skills of students

around the world, including those who cannot afford to move to Washington, DC, and students who

are still engaged in taking courses or writing Masters or Ph.D, theses.

Digital Education:

Introduced by Genocide Watch’s Senior Program Manager,

Deanna Wilken, staff members have produced interactive

reports housed on the Timestream platform. Timestream is a

platform originally developed by the Ntrepid Corporation to

provide law enforcement and government policy agencies with

software to organize the histories of crimes, conflicts, and other

complex social processes. Ms. Wilken recognized that

Timestream is ideally suited to organize the detailed histories of

conflicts that have either resulted in or may lead to genocides.

It is an educational tool that can be very helpful to teachers

and students who are studying genocides.

It is more powerful than PowerPoint because it permits

one click access to supporting charts, photos, news articles, and

reports that enrich the presentation of historical data.

Click here to view Timestreams on

Myanmar’s Genocide of the Rohingya, and India’s threats to Muslims in Assam.

Co-created by interns Naveen Bhatia and Alexandra Sharp,

Genocide Watch has launched a new Podcast Series:

Conversations on Genocide. Genocide Watch has a Zoom licence

to record the audio and video of interviews. We subscribed to

SoundCloud to disseminate the podcasts to our listeners. Click

here to listen to the first episode, featuring Dr. Gregory Stanton,

the Founding President of Genocide Watch. Genocide Watch aims

to publish a new episode once a month and will be featuring

genocide experts and survivor testimonies.

Virtual Communication:

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Stanton has been

collaborating with key U.S. policy makers to plan U.S.

government actions to assist Nigeria in stopping

genocidal massacres against Christians in northeast and

central Nigeria. In June, Dr. Stanton spoke at the

National Security Council with former Congressman

Frank Wolf. They argued for a U.S. Special Envoy to

investigate the crimes against humanity in Nigeria. Dr.

Stanton also spoke at press conferences on the genocide

of Christians in Nigeria organized by In Defense of

Christians and by the International Campaign on Nigeria,

both Alliance Against Genocide members organizations.

Led by intern, Eric Ross, Genocide Watch created an interactive map illustrating the

increased frequency and intensity of Boko Haram, Fulani jihadist, and ISIS in West Africa

attacks against Christian civilian populations.

In June, Dr. Stanton’s statement on Turkey’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern

Syria was included as evidence in the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s virtual

hearing on Safeguarding Religious Freedom in Northeast Syria.

To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide, Dr. Stanton spoke about the

“Cost of Denial” in a special webinar event for the Post-Conflict Research Center in Sarajevo.

Intern Linda Zheng published a country report on current genocide denial in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Genocide Alerts were published for Venezuela (written by Alexandra Sharp) and the Democratic

Republic of the Congo (written by Tom Shacklock). Intern Fiona Neibart published a report on

Myanmar’s on-going genocide against the Rohingyas.

Developed by intern Sarah Kane, Genocide Watch utilized its MailChimp license to send

updates about its Genocide Alerts, its virtual projects, and its new educational resources via a new

bi-weekly newsletter sent to member organizations in the Alliance Against Genocide, to key policy

makers in the US, UK, Europe, and the UN, and disseminated to our subscribers.

Revitalization of the Alliance Against Genocide:

Genocide Watch has never tried to build an organizational empire. Our purpose is to be a catalyst to

encourage the organization of anti-genocide organizations around the world, and to coordinate a

network of those organizations, the Alliance Against Genocide.

Chief Operating Officer, Vanessa Cardenas, worked with Alliance Coordinators Olivia Dudley and

Julia Sierra to revitalize the Alliance Against Genocide by creating a new website to be launched

this Fall. The Alliance has 68 active member organizations in 30 countries. The new Alliance

website will be used to disseminate communications by Alliance members through direct links to

their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and other social media.

In addition to the new Alliance website, intern Lauren Salim has created an Alliance

newsletter disseminated to Alliance member organizations highlighting their most recent work.

We are planning a virtual meeting of the leaders of all Alliance member organizations this Fall.

With gratitude,

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton

Founding President