Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers

The Jane Bancroft Cook Library will host a talk on “Preventing Genocide, A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers,” by Mike Abramowitz, director of the Committee on Conscience at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. He will speak on the subject of the Genocide Prevention Task Force report issued in 2008 and the concrete steps recommended to the Obama Administration and to the United States Congress to prevent genocide. Co-hosted by New College, USF Sarasota-Manatee and Humanity Working to End Genocide, the talk will take place at 10:30 am on the first floor of the library. The talk is free and open to the New College and University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee communities.

On the 60th Anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in December 2008, the Genocide Prevention Task Force, convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the American Academy of Diplomacy and co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, issued a call to action on genocide. The task force report, Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers, concluded that genocide and mass atrocities threaten core American values and national interests, and offered guidelines on how the U.S. Government can prevent crimes in the future.

Abramowitz’s discussion with students has been scheduled the day after a public talk on the same subject, Sunday, February 28 at 3 pm at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota. That free event is being co-sponsored by Humanity Working to End Genocide, the Jewish Federation of Sarasota-Manatee, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Hyatt Regency Sarasota. For more information on the public event, contact Bernie Ehrlich from Humanity Working to End Genocide, 351-8341.

The Committee on Conscience guides the genocide prevention efforts of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Prior to his appointment as Director, Abramowitz worked as a reporter and editor for The Washington Post since 1985. Among the subjects he covered were local and national politics, foreign policy, health care and business. Between 2006 and 2009, Abramowitz was White House correspondent for the Post, covering a variety of subjects, including the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the crisis in Darfur. He also served as the National Editor of the Post between 2000 and 2006, helping supervise coverage of national politics, the federal government, social policy, science and national security.

Abramowitz graduated from Harvard University after majoring in Government. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a Marshall Memorial fellow of the German Marshall Fund and a media fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

For more information, please contact (941) 487-4888 or email events@ncf.ed