Following the announcement by President Obama yesterday of the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board, I did this interview with Radio Free Europe.
Rebecca Hamilton, a fellow at the New America Foundation and author of a book on U.S. foreign policy toward Darfur, called the creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board an “historic first step.”
“It is the first time that the U.S. government has recognized that until now it has had an incoherent approach to atrocity-prevention and it’s taking the first step to begin to remedy that problem,” Hamilton said.
But she said stronger policy in Washington won’t be enough to head off potential atrocities: “I think if we take a step back and look at the really big picture, what’s also clear is that in the 21st Century, it’s very rare that the U.S. government, acting alone, will have the leverage to stop a dictator who is hell-bent on a policy of violence towards his own people. So the question is, what is the U.S. government also doing to set up multilateral structures for early action?”
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