“I have both the right and the duty to write to you, for my heart is seething with indignation, and I was not endowed with the gift of speech merely to make myself an accomplice by remaining silent.”
So wrote Armin T. Wegner in 1933, in an open letter to Adolf Hitler to express his deep [...]
This blog recently referred readers to a speech by Gareth Evans on R2P, calling it ‘probably best available detailed introduction to the concept, including its origins, significance and current challenges’. Now Gareth’s book on The Responsibility to Protect is about to be launched, with events in New York (today), London (22 September), Brussels (7 October) [...]
Photo: Orbinski in Goma, DRC (c) 2007 Steve Simon
“The [Rwandan] genocide was a collective act. What made it possible, what made that final political crime possible was the absence, the erasure of seeing the other, of knowing, of feeling, of being with the other. And when that’s removed, then politics can become genocidal.â€
“We are responsible [...]
‘There is a spectrum of anti-civilian thinking that ranges from rejection, exception, ambiguity and regret. We must understand this better, gauging exactly what ideology civilians are up against in a given war.
‘Besides R2P, we should understand the R2K – reasons to kill. Getting inside the anti-civilian mindset of our opponents, we might find ways to [...]