UN Action Plan to Prevent Genocide - Juan E Mendez of Argentina, Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide

"In the 20th century, genocides and state mass murder have killed more people than have all wars" - Institute for the Study of Genocide.

Prevent Genocide International notes that:

On April 7, 2004 in a speech in Geneva commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1994 Genocide In Rwanda, UN Secretary General Kofi Annn announced his future appointment of a Special Advisor on Genocide Prevention and launched an Action Plan to Prevent Genocide. The Five Point Action Plan includes:

1) preventing armed conflict which usually provides the context for genocide,
2) protection of civilians in armed conflict including a mandate for UN peacekeepers to protect civilians,
3) ending impunity through judicial action in both national and international courts,
4) information gathering and early warning through a UN Special Advisor for Genocide Prevention making recommendations to the UN Security Council on actions to prevent or halt genocide, and
5) swift and decisive action along a continuum of steps, including military action.

Immediately prior to his speech Annan and members of the UN Commission on Human Rights who he addresses observed two minutes of silence to commemorate the lives of the more than 800,000 people killed in Rwanda between April 7 and July 17, 1994.

On July 12, 2004 Mr Annan informed the United Nations Security Council that he had chosen Juan Mendez, a human rights advocate, lawyer and former political prisoner from Argentina, as his first Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide.



Photo: Juan E Mendez, the UN's first Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (Sudan Tribune)
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