There's a bigger question again about how to do prevention. It's not simply about putting out the early warning. The early warning was put out on Abyei; everybody knew that this was coming. This was intentional, and still it happened. So this idea that we fail to stop these things because there's not awareness about them, or that we need better early warning information, I'm increasingly skeptical of. I think it's about how you move that information into the policy process.
Rebecca HamiltonI think fundamentally the bigger question is, what are we expecting peacekeepers to do? Are they actually, as the traditional conception would have it, keeping peace, in which case they're not there to actively intervene and stop violence? When we send them into these places, do we expect they will respond forcefully?
Rebecca Hamiltono this idea that we fail to stop these things because there's not awareness about them, or that we need better early warning information, I'm increasingly skeptical of.
Rebecca HamiltonThings always seem less dire when you're in the country than when you're outside. I don't exactly know why it is, except that people just have to get on with their life, so they do. And you don't have time to do anything other than keep going.
Rebecca HamiltonNo question that the spotlight on Darfur has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. And that's deeply problematic, because it hasn't disappeared because Darfur has been solved.
Rebecca HamiltonYou have to simplify - there is no other way to reach a mass audience. And you have to feed them evidence of their own success to keep them motivated.
Rebecca HamiltonI think people felt like they did everything they had been told they should do to fix the problem, and it still wasn't fixed. Then you have these other parts of Sudan, [which] in actual fact have been left on the back burner for way too long, so there was this scramble, probably a year ago now, to focus on the fact that this peace agreement was basically falling apart.
Rebecca Hamilton