Description: How can we detect and deter genocide? And how can we learn to understand and prevent public denial of and lack of interest in the deliberate physical annihilation of groups? In this book leading experts in the field--social scientists, human rights researchers, journalists, and lawyers--address these questions, scrutinizing such recent examples of genocide as the Iraqi gas attacks on the Kurds, the Tutsi-Hutu conflicts in Burundi, and the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia. Using evidence gathered by various nongovernmental groups, the contributors analyze a wide range of issues of current concern. They discuss, for example, how we can define and recognize genocide, how we can renew our commitment to preserving life by reflecting on past genocides, how citizens' organizations can mobilize public opinion against specific instances of persecution, how our understanding of genocidal massacres, pogroms, and riots is shaped by the media with all of its biases, and how we may be able to create new legal means of enforcing the U.N. Genocide Convention. "We know", says Fein in her introduction, "that not responding to genocidal massacres tells the perpetrators that they can get away with murder. If this pays off, they are more likely to strike again....Once policy elites recognize that we may pay a long-term price for tolerating genocide, they may consider swift sanctions against the perpetrators to be a strategic means to proect both national and international security".

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