Federal Foreign Office supports Genocide Prevention Seminar
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On Monday, August 10, Tiberiu Galis, Managing Director of the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR) and Dr. Stephan Grabherr, Deputy Consul General of Germany in New York, signed an allocation agreement. The allocated funds by the German Federal Government will enable AIPR to invite two representatives from developing countries to participate in the 2009 Raphael Lemkin Program for Genocide Prevention.
In collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the Raphael Lemkin Center for Genocide Prevention was established by AIPR in 2005. Through the creation of a stronger coalition between nonprofit, government, private and academic institutions, AIPR hopes to help foster an international diplomatic environment that has the capacity to proactively respond to human rights violations and violent conflict before they spiral into war or genocide.
This year two seminars will be organized in Auschwitz. The week-long workshops will provide the participants not only with an intensive introduction to the history and politics of genocide, but also with firsthand immersion into a site with symbolic importance to the study of genocide. In each seminar twenty political actors from different countries are educated about the structural causes of crimes against humanity.
An in-depth analysis of potential genocide prevention mechanisms from institutional, political, human rights, diplomatic, legal, military, economic, psychological, public relations and transitional justice realms constitutes the main focus of the workshops. After these training sessions the participants become members of a semi-formal community, with the Raphael Lemkin Center acting as communication facilitator.
The Auschwitz Institute for Peace is strongly supported by the Special Adviser of the UN Secretary General for the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng.
