MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: PREVENTION OF GENOCIDE TOP PRIORITY
PanARMENIAN.Net
10.12.2008 14:55 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A high-level U.S. taskforce on preventing genocide
said on Tuesday it expected President-elect Barack Obama to support
its call for a $250 million fund to back emergency action in high-risk
countries.
The Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William
Cohen, issued a report this week calling for prevention of genocide
to be a top priority in the new U.S. administration that will take
office in January.
Albright told reporters at the United Nations on Tuesday the United
States should not bear the burden alone but should lead the way in
taking responsibility to prevent mass atrocities and genocide wherever
they may happen.
She called for the creation of a high level inter-agency mechanism to
coordinate between various branches of the U.S. government to focus on
early warning when the first signs of a problem occur. That should be
backed by $250 million a year to finance specially tailored projects
in countries at risk.
"This modest fund would give U.S. diplomats a potentially pivotal
tool with which to avert catastrophe," Albright said.
Albright, who was secretary of state under U.S. President Bill Clinton,
said the report was prepared with input from many people involved in
Obama’s transition team.
Cohen said the 34 recommendations in the report aimed to create the
mechanisms to ensure early detection and preventative action to stop
genocide before it was too late, retaining the option of military
action as a last resort.
"We believe that president-elect Obama will support it, we don’t know
that for certain but we believe that to be the case," Cohen said.
Albright was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Rwandan
genocide in 1994. She said the report by the taskforce was not a
historical analysis but it did take account of lessons learned when
the international community failed to stop the slaughter of some
800,000 people in Rwanda.
"There’s broad range of foreign policy options between standing
aside and ordering in the Marines," Albright said, emphasizing the
importance of early warning systems and international cooperation to
exert diplomatic pressure.
Cohen said it was vital that the United States not appear to be
"meddling" in a unilateral way.
He said preventing genocide was in the national security interest of
all countries, since it could lead to failed states with the potential
to breed terrorism, Reuters reports.