Options for the Prevention of Genocide: Strategies and Examples for Policy-Makers
Prevention is a process, and so are the conflicts that may lead to genocidal violence. Logically we cannot say that a genocide or politicide has been prevented, because we can never know for certain whether mass killings would have occurred in the absence of preventive actions. But we can say that some combination of international actions mitigated the conditions that elsewhere have led to genocide.

When Prevention is Most Effective: What we should do is look at successful interventions in ongoing conflicts that contain the potential for genocidal outcomes. Preventive actions can come into play in three situations.

– Some political mass murders occur after a new minority- based or ideologically-driven elite consolidates power (for example in Burundi, 1965 and in Chile, 1973–74). Diplomacy cannot prevent such elites from taking power, but once in office diplomatic and political pressures need very quickly to be brought to bear to discourage new elites from eliminating their rivals. The instruments are both positive and negative – international assistance and security guarantees for new elites that seek to reach accommodation with their rivals; and credible threats of loss of recognition, assistance, trade and investment if they commit serious human rights violations

– The second point of intervention is in the early stages of internal (revolutionary or ethnic) warfare. We know that the longer civil wars last, the greater the risks that the parties to conflict – especially but not only the government

– will resort to genocidal violence to eliminate their opponents' supporters. The same kinds of diplomatic, political, and economic instruments need to be brought to bear near the onset of armed conflict – but in this circumstance focused on rebels as well as governments. Both sides need inducements, and the threat of loss of international support, to reach ceasefires and negotiate their differences. And both sides are likely to need security guarantees and promises of longer-term economic assistance to reach and implement settlements.

– The third point of intervention is in response to ongoing mass killings. Late-stage intervention uses the diplomatic and political techniques of early prevention but, to be effective, usually requires robust peace-keeping and sometimes peace-making operations. This is both the most common and least desirable option because it is costly and reflects failures of early action. The tragedy of late-stage “preventive action” is that its techniques are mostly familiar to international policy makers – in the UN Security Council, the European Union, the major powers – who have failed to engage in a concerted way until after months or years of deadly conflict. Late-stage intervention Angola and Sudan both come to mind – international efforts contributed (in Sudan are contributing, outcome still uncertain) to the peace process but only after hundreds of thousands of civilians died unnecessarily.

The Macedonian Example
The most instructive examples are ones in which international actors responded early not late in situations that threatened major armed conflict and potential genocidal violence. Serious conflict has twice been averted in Macedonia. When its independence from the Yugoslav Federation was recognized in late 1992 it was widely feared that the Serbian minority, supported by Belgrade, would try to destabilize the new regime; and that political action among Kosovar Albanians would prompt rebellion by Albanians in Macedonia. Either could easily have led to civil war and ethnic cleansing. "Trip-wire” contingents of international troops, first Canadian and Scandinavian, later US, were sent to patrol borders and no conflict ensued. This presence was complemented by extensive diplomatic activity and NGO-led civil society initiatives within Macedonia.

A sharper danger was posed in January 2001 when Albanian militants began an insurgency and gained effective control of parts of western Macedonia. The international – mainly European – response was prompt and diverse. Political/diplomatic pressures were brought to bear on both sides to suspend armed conflict. Incentives (political and economic) prompted the Macedonian government to agree to a national pact that gave ethnic Albanians a greater stake in government. European peace-keepers supervised the disarmament of Albanian rebels. When Macedonian nationalists tried to sabotage constitutional reform, external political pressures were ratcheted up again to keep the peace process on track. Given the rhetoric and initial actions of both Macedonian and Albanian nationalists, the risk of politicidal violence at the onset was high and it is crystal clear that international engagement checked escalation.

Baltic and East Timor Examples: In the early 1990s the newly-independent Baltic states imposed, or proposed, sharply discriminatory policies on their large Russian minorities. Russia threatened intervention, for example by suspending withdrawal of Russian forces. The OSCE, EU, and US orchestrated a sustained diplomatic campaign that dissuaded Baltic nationalist governments from imposing the more draconian of these policies and persuaded the Russians to continue drawing down their troops. The US worked closely with all parties, and along with its European partners engaged in close scrutiny and critique of the policies of the Baltic states.Was there a potential for genocide? Probably not, but if the Russian government had chosen to encourage local Russians to resist, and had backed up their resistance with military assistance -as the Russians did from 1991 onward in Moldova's Trans- Dniester region – there would likely have been serious civil wars in the Baltics with devastating consequences.

In the global South international responses to potentially genocidal conflict have been mostly cautious and misguided (e.g. Rwanda in the early 1990s) or ineffectual (Congo- Kinshasa in the 1990s). One success story occurred in East Timor when Indonesian-backed militias tried to reverse, or sabotage, the results of the 2001 independence referendum. The prompt arrival of Australian (and other Pacific Island) forces checked the militias’ violence and made it possible to reconstruct a devastated society. In the absence of prompt and forceful international action, it is entirely possible that the militias would have resumed the genocidal policies by which the Indonesian military had responded to Timorese resistance from 1976 to the mid-1990s.

Six Guidelines for Prevention and Mitigation
– Multilateral engagement in potentially genocidal situations is more credible than unilateral action.The UN Security Council is not the only source of legitimation; regional organizations like NATO, the OSCE, the EU, and ECOWAS also have credibility and capacity in their spheres of influence.

– Quick and early diplomatic and political responses are needed to adverse regime changes and the onset of internal wars. Quick responses may be even more important than multilateral ones in checking escalation to genocide.

– Effective engagement requires an integrated strategy covering political, economic, and military modalities. Intervenors need to be ready to employ economic as well as diplomatic incentives and sanctions. NGO’s can play a substantial role.

– Political engagement is needed with all parties to conflict, not just regimes, however unpalatable some of them may be.

– Planning for military intervention should be part of the preventive response, not a “last resort.” There should be credible threats of forceful action and deployment in response to the onset of gross human rights violations.

– Long-term international engagement is needed, first to get contenders to reach negotiated settlements, second to carry through with the security guarantees, political support, and economic assistance that keep them from reneging on agreements.

Useful Sources
Bruce W. Jentleson (ed.), Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive Diplomacy in the Post- Cold War World (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield for the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 2000) provides detailed case studies of most of the successes and failures cited above.
Sato Hideo (ed.), Containing Conflict: Cases in Preventive Diplomacy (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2003) gives Asian perspectives on conflict prevention and mitigation.
Michael S. Lund, Preventing Violent Conflicts: A Strategy for Preventive Diplomacy (US Institute of Peace Press, 1996) surveys the “toolbox” of political and diplomatic strategies for prevention.
Peter Wallensteen, Carina Staibano, and Mikael Eriksson (eds.), Making Targeted Sanctions Effective: Guidelines for the Implementation of UN Policy Options (Report of the Stockholm Process on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions, Dept. of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, 2003) gives detailed recommendations for designing and following through on UN-imposed sanctions.