Thirteen countries in the world face the threat of genocide - Iraq, Afghanistan, eight nations in Africa and three in Asia, a US researcher told an international conference on preventing genocide here on Tuesday.
Sudan, Myanmar, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are in greatest danger of mass bloodshed, Barbara Harff of the US Centre for International Development and Conflict Management, told the conference.
The other eight countries on the danger list are Somalia, Uganda, Algeria, China, Iraq-despite the US-led regime change, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
Sudan, Myanmar, Burundi, Rwanda and the DRC all meet five of the six risk factors outlined by Harff who, at the Clinton administration's request, designed in the 1990s a theoretical model for risk assessment and early warning of genocide.
The factors are prior genocide or politicise; upheaval since 1988; existence of a minority elite; exclusionary ideology; the type of regime and trade openness.
Somalia, Uganda, Algeria and China meet four of the six factors, while Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Ethiopia meet three, Harff said in a presentation of her November 2003 report to representatives from 50 countries attending the Stockholm conference.
Harff said that with her model "we can narrow the timeframe and identify warning flags that a genocide is in the making a few months prior to its onset".
But Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who was in the Swedish capital, rejected the assertion that his country was again at risk of genocide, after the 1994 bloodshed that claimed the lives of up to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
"There's no such threat in my opinion," he told reporters after bilateral talks with the host of the conference, Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson.
Harff's remarks came during discussions on the early warning signs of genocide, on the second day of the three-day conference.
The secretary general of the International Committee of the Red Cross told delegates that speedy responses were crucial in preventing a repeat of the World War II Holocaust and the massacres in Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the mid-1990s.
His comments echoed those of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who told the conference on Monday that the slaughter in Yugoslavia and Rwanda could have been prevented if the world had taken action.
Annan recommended the creation of a "Committee on the Prevention of Genocide" and the introduction of a special rapporteur on preventing genocide, who would report directly to the UN Security Council, the UN's top decision-making body.
The conference is scheduled to conclude on Wednesday, when delegates are to adopt a declaration that should serve as a political basis for future discussions on preventing genocide.
The 50 countries at the conference were also due to approve a document committing themselves to providing shelter to people threatened by genocide.
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