The Sentinel Project is a registered non-profit organization which confronts the greatest human security problem that the world faces today - genocide.

Our mission is “to prevent the crime of genocide worldwide through effective early warning and cooperation with victimized peoples to carry out non-violent prevention initiatives.”

There are many organizations dedicated to stopping genocide, but the Sentinel Project is different. What sets us apart is our dedication to working with victimized peoples to prevent their own genocides in a self-help framework, rather than just lobbying national governments and the United Nations to stage interventions that never happen.

The Problem

It is estimated that over two hundred million people were killed by their governments during the twentieth century - many of them as victims of genocide. These calculated exterminations of unwanted ethnic, racial, and religious groups have claimed the lives of Hereros, Armenians, Jews, Sinti and Roma, Cambodians, Kurds, Bosnians, Tutsis, and many more. The twenty-first century promises to be no different. Today, genocide rages in Darfur, Sudan, a campaign which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since it began in 2003; and this is just one example among many. Time and again, the international community has stood by and done nothing to stop such killings.

The Sentinel Project is built upon three basic facts:

1) Genocide is predictable.

Genocide is never a spontaneous or random phenomenon. Rather, extermination only begins after a long period of planning and preparation. Most importantly of all, most genocides follow similar patterns of development and pass through many of the same stages. Warning signs often include visible, public acts, such as the passage of restrictive or racist new laws; the formation of militias or specialized killing units; immobilization of the target group; broadcasting racist propaganda; arresting or killing the leaders of a target group; and even the perpetration of preliminary attacks and massacres. These actions are rarely secret. The problem is that they are almost always ignored.

2) Genocide is preventable.

Since genocide is a long-term and deliberate process, it can be halted before any killing even begins. Most genocidal governments throughout history have been very cautious and sensitive to both public and foreign pressure during the planning and development process. Sometimes they have even been willing to back down from their plans. While it is true that nothing but military intervention will stop a genocide once the extermination phase has begun, there are many non-violent measures which can disrupt the genocidal process before it reaches that point.

3) National governments and international organizations such as the United Nations are either unwilling or unable to predict or prevent genocide.

Almost every time that genocide has taken place, it has gone unstopped because national governments are usually reluctant to intervene within the borders of another state unless their own interests are directly at stake. Humanitarian considerations and defending innocent civilians are just not good enough reasons. Organizations such as the United Nations, on the other hand, exist to guarantee human rights and defend people against aggression and slaughter. However, the UN and other such organizations are only as strong as the sum of their parts - member states. If the governments which comprise the UN do not wish to intervene to prevent or stop genocide, then the UN cannot and will not do so.

The Solution

The Sentinel Project has been founded to provide early warning of genocide and to promote its prevention. We will do this by:

Early Warning

1) Comparative Risk Assessment: Determining which states have the highest potential for a genocide to take place in the future.

2) Engaged Monitoring: Deeper investigation of the conditions in at-risk states in order to determine how far the genocidal process has advanced.

Prevention

1) Sharing information with advocacy groups who can lobby for intervention by national governments and international organizations. We will not, however, wait for for them to take actions which may never come before moving on to other preventive measures.

2) Engagement and empowerment of target groups in practical preventive measures to disrupt the genocidal process and avert their own exterminations.

For more detailed information about our methods, see the “What We Do” page. Other organizations have sought to do similar work, but never on such a large or in-depth scale as the Sentinel Project. We cannot do this alone, which is why we are forming partnerships and building upon the expertise of other concerned people and organizations such as:

• Genocide scholars
• Advocacy and activist groups
• Survivor communities
• Religious organizations
• Aid and development organizations
• Human rights organizations

This is an ambitious project, but our cause is urgent. To quote the eminent Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer, “The next genocide is just around the corner. We don’t have much time.”

What’s in a Name… and a Logo?

The Sentinel Project has a unique name which sums up what the organization is all about. A sentinel is a guard placed to provide early warning of a surprise attack. Since our goal is to create a world in which genocide never comes as a surprise, sentinel communicates the elements of watchfulness and protection that are central to the Sentinel Project. A project, on the other hand, indicates active work rather than more passive words like “centre” or “institute.”

The Sentinel Project logo is made up of a torch and shield which reflect the elements of watchfulness and protection found in the name. The flame and torch and spell out a stylized “SP” - the initials of the organization.