Genocide Watch

Genocide Watch has three levels of Genocide Alerts.

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

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

A Genocide Emergency is declared when genocide is actually underway.

Current Alerts

• Syria - Recent upsurge in protests in May 2011 have been met by strong, violent responses from Syria's Security Forces, especially in the city of Daraa. Genocide Watch warns that there is an imminent threat of genocidal massacres and mass atrocities against protesters committed by Alawite troops and police loyal to the Assad government. Starting on June 7, 2011, citizens have been fleeing from the city of Jisr al-Shughour, fearing a backlash from militia, following the deaths of 120 military personnel. Accurate reporting is still inaccessible due to Syria's media-censorship and blockade of foreign reporters. Nevertheless, the situation has the potential of transforming into an all-out bloodbath that the international community should move to halt. UN Resolutions spearheaded by France should be backed by all nations.

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

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

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

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

• Chad - BBC News reports that "Chad's government has accused Sudan of 'exporting the genocide' in Darfur across the border," while the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof writes "Over the past week, Sudan has sponsored a full-scale invasion of Chad, seeking to oust Chad's president and replace him with the warlord who has overseen the murder, rape and pillage in those border areas. Sudan seems determined to extend its genocide to Chad, and the upshot is that the catastrophe of Darfur may now be multiplied manyfold."

• Zimbabwe - Genocide is a process and not an event. The Mugabe regime has committed genocide before and it has begun the genocidal process again. Beginning on May 19, 2005, Operation Murambatsvina ("Operation Drive out the Filth"), having already left 700,000 homeless, and directly impacting the lives of a further 2.4 million, is the most recent manifestation of the Mugabe/ZANU-PF's systematic progression toward a governmental policy of overt mass murder.

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

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

• Uzbekistan - Six years ago, a series of bombs exploded in the administrative center of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. That same day, President Islam Karimov stated that "in order to save peace and calm in the republic," he was willing to sacrifice the lives of a few. Although the context of his declaration implies that he is referring to terrorists, the subsequent arrests of more than 7,000 Uzbeks reveal that the president's perception of a national threat actually means anyone who disputes his absolute authority. Genocide Watch has concluded that the government of Uzbekistan is using the real threat of Islamic extremism as a pretext for silencing popular expressions of discontent.

• Kenya - Genocide Watch has called a Genocide Alert because of genocidal massacres that are increasing daily in Kenya in the wake of a disputed election between President Mwai Kibaki, who is a member of the Kikuyu ethnic group, and Mr. Raila Odinga, who is ethnically a Luo. Ethnic riots have broken out in Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret, and numerous other places in Kenya. People have been pulled from their cars and their identification cards checked for their names, which symbolize their ethnic identity, and then killed if they belong to groups being targeted. Hundreds of people have already been murdered. Today a church in Eldoret was locked and the people inside were burned to death by a mob.
  Ethnic massacres are an indicator that the risk of genocide in Kenya has risen to Stage 6, the Preparation stage. Kenya has not yet descended into actual genocide. However, the next stage in the process is actual genocide, and Kenya is close to that stage.
  
  
• Burundi- The people of Burundi have been confronted with war, genocide, economic decline and tyranny for over five decades.  At least two major genocides have occurred since independence in 1962.  In 1972, the Tutsi army murdered a whole generation of young, educated, and prosperous Hutus, a genocide that cost at least 150,000 lives.  1993-1995 brought a deluge of mass murders of both Hutus and Tutsis, culminating in a civil war that cost 300,000 lives.

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

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