Start of Main Content
Genocide Prevention

Announcements and Recent Analysis

Page 28 of 48

  • The Colombian Elections and Prospects for Peace

    On Sunday, May 25, 2014, Colombians went to the polls to elect their next president. Electoral rules are such that if no candidate receives 50% of the vote, a second round (a run-off) occurs between the two candidates that received the most votes in the first round. Given relatively strong showings by “non-traditional” or “third parties” in the election (more about this below) and historically high levels of protest ballots cast for no candidate (“voto en blanco”), no candidate cleared the 50% threshold. The two top vote-getters, incumbent President Juan Manuel Santos (who received 25.66% of the vote) and Óscar Iván Zuluaga (who received 29.26% of the vote) will face one another in a run-off on June 15, 2014.

  • Eyes on Mali

    The civil war in northern Mali is flaring anew, and with it, possibly, the risk of mass atrocities.

    Tags:

  • Central African Republic: Forecasting Outcomes and Drivers of Conflict

    Since December 2013, the Central African Republic (CAR) has experienced a rapid escalation in armed violence, with nearly 650,000 internally displaced and over 300,000 seeking refuge outside of the country, and a looming humanitarian crisis. Reports call CAR a “hell on earth” with descriptions of wide-spread ethnic violence that is increasingly being described as ethnic cleansing. In the midst of what has occurred on the ground, the Early Warning Project is also examining the accuracy of forecasts derived both from our statistical risk assessment and also from our expert opinion pool. In our statistical risk assessment, CAR was ranked in the top 15 countries most at risk for a state-led mass killing episode, defined as “the deliberate actions of state security forces or other armed groups result in the deaths of at least 1,000 noncombatant civilians over a period of one year or less.”

  • Alarmed By Iraq

    Iraq’s long-running civil war has spread and intensified again over the past year, and the government’s fight against a swelling Sunni insurgency now threatens to devolve into the sort of indiscriminate reprisals that could produce a new episode of state-led mass killing there. The idea that Iraq could suffer a new wave of mass atrocities at the hands of state security forces or sectarian militias collaborating with them is not far fetched.

    Tags:

  • The Rwanda Enigma

    Contemporary Rwanda is puzzling because it provokes a polarized reaction. Many observers laud Rwanda as one of Africa’s greatest developmental successes, but others warn that it remains dangerously prone to mass atrocities. In a recent essay for African Arguments on how the Rwandan genocide changed the world, Omar McDoom nicely encapsulates this unusual duality...

  • Journey to Rwanda

    A report from Mike Abramowitz, director of the Museum's Center for the Prevention of Genocide, who is in Kigali with a Museum delegation to participate in the 20th anniversary commemorations of the genocide in Rwanda.

  • Chad: Does Regional Instability Contribute to the Risk of a Mass Killing?

    In our statistical risk assessments, Chad currently ranks among the 30 countries worldwide at greatest risk of an onset of state-led mass killing. At the same time, our pool of experts has set Chad’s risk at 8 percent, low compared to several other countries in that Top 30. For example, our experts’ current forecasts for Iraq and Pakistan, both in the Top 30, are 22 and 23 percent, respectively, and for Myanmar, 38 percent. Considering the relative instability of Chad’s neighbors and Chad’s history of coups and ethnic conflict, why do our experts see such a low chance of a mass killing episode, and what might change their predictions?

  • Will the UN Human Rights Council Adopt a Resolution on Sri Lanka?

    The Early Warning Project’s primary goal is to assess risks of mass atrocities, but our expert opinion pool lets us glean insights into related issues, too. For example, we can ask experts to predict how international institutions, such as the United Nations or the International Criminal Court, will respond when atrocities occur. Right now, we’re asking our experts to consider whether or not the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will adopt a resolution concerning Sri Lanka during its 25th regular session, which began this week and ends March 28. 

  • States Aren't the Only Mass Killers

    We tend to think of mass killing as something that states do, but states do not have a monopoly on this use of force. Many groups employ violence in an attempt to further their political and economic agendas; civilians often suffer the consequences of that violence, and sometimes that suffering reaches breathtaking scale.

    Tags:

This Section

Country Case Studies
Country Case Studies

Find information on historical cases of genocide and other atrocities.