Genocide in Darfur Investigating the Atrocities in the Sudan

This book is comprised of essays by U.S. government officials and personnel from nongovernmental organizations. The authors range from those who were involved in designing the project; hiring and training the investigators, interpreters and support personnel; and the investigators themselves. Numerous scholars, not all of whom were directly involved with the project, also provide commentary on the value and significance of the project.

In response to the ongoing mass murder of Black Sudanese groups in the Darfur region of Sudan by Sudanese government troops and Arab militias, the US government sent the Darfur Atrocities Documentation Team to various points along the Chad/Sudan in order to interview refugees from Darfur. Based on their investigation, US Secretary of State Colin Powell formally announced that ‘genocide has occurred in Darfur and may still be occurring.’ The United States officially accused the government of Sudan of perpetrating genocide - the first time that any government has officially and publicly accused another government of genocide. As a result the United States played a key role in pressuring the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution calling for several measures, including an official UN Commission of Inquiry to conduct a genocide investigation in Sudan itself. This was the first time that any signatory of the Genocide Convention actually triggered provisions of the Convention requiring a UN Security Council response while genocide was occurring. This book is comprised of essays from contributors who were involved in designing the project and hiring and training investigators, interpreters, and support personnel; US government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) officials involved in the genesis of the project as well as the analysis of the data; and numerous scholars, not all of whom were directly involved with the project, who critique aspects of the documentation project as well as its significance.

Part 1: The Background on Darfur 1. Disaster in Darfur: An Historical Overview Robert O. Collins 2. Moving Beyond a Sense of Alarm Over the Atrocities in Darfur Andrew Natsios Part 2: The Investigation 3. Creating the ADT and Making It Work: Turning a Good Idea into Reality Nina Bang-Jensen and Stefanie Frease 4. Survey Methodology and the Darfur Genocide Jonathan Howard 5. The Critical Link: Interpreters Helge Niska 6. Moving into the Field and Conducting the Interviews: Commentary and Observations by the Investigators Samuel Totten and Eric Markusen Part 3: The Genocide Determination 7. Making the Determination of Genocide in Darfur Steve Kostas 8. A New Chapter of Irony: The Legal Definition of Genocide and the Implications of Powell's Determination Jerry Fowler 9. Prosecuting Gender Crimes Committed in Darfur: Holding Leaders Accountable for Sexual Violence Kelly Dawn Askin Part 4: The Significance of the Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project: A Precedent for the Future? -- The Perspective of 'Outsiders' 10. The Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project: A Precedent for the Future? A Perspective from Washington, D.C. Taylor Seybolt 11. From Rwanda to Darfur: Lessons Learned? Gerry Caplan 12. Proving Genocide in Darfur: The Atrocities Documentation Project and Resistance to Its Findings Gregory H. Stanton 13. Atrocity Statistics' and Other Lessons from Darfur Scott Straus Afterword

Samuel Totten is a Professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and co-founding editor of Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal. He has also been a Fulbright Fellow at the Centre for Conflict Management, National University of Rwanda. Eric Markusen (MSW, University of Washington; Ph.D., University of Minnesota)was Professor of Sociology and Social Work at Southwest Minnesota State University and a Senior Researcher with the Department of Holocaust and Genocide Studies of the Danish Institute for International Studies.