Genocide prevention topic of human rights banquet

A world expert on preventing genocide will be keynote speaker at the 16th annual human rights banquet in Coeur d’Alene next month. Gregory Stanton, president of the international Genocide Watch, will discuss how local action can prevent atrocities. He will cite examples such as the fall of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, the defeat of dictators Slobodan Miloševiæ in Yugoslavia and Charles Taylor in Liberia, and the effort locally to shut down the Aryan Nations operation in Kootenai County. Stanton is the Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Arlington, Va. In 1999 he founded Genocide Watch, which works to build an international movement to prevent and stop genocide and other forms of mass murder. While serving in the State Department in the 1990s, Stanton drafted the United Nations Security Council resolutions that created the international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Burundi Commission of Inquiry, and the Central African Arms Flow Commission. He also drafted the U.N. Peacekeeping Operations resolutions that helped bring about an end to the Mozambique civil war. The April 22 banquet is presented by the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations and the Human Rights Education Institute. It will be at the Best Western Coeur d’Alene Inn. Banquet tickets are $40 each. Information: (208) 765-3932 or (208) 292-2359.