5:30 PM, on February 27, 1997
"Face to Face with Genocide: Patterns of Protection." - a talk by Ms. Felice Gaer Silver Auditorium of the Sachar International Centre on Brandeis campus
- On Thursday February 27, 1997, The Andrei Sakharov Archives at BrandeisUniversity is sponsoring a talk by Felice D. Gaer, Director of the JacobBlaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the American JewishCommittee. The talk will be followed by a question-and-answer period.
Ms. Gaer association with the Andrei Sakharov Archives at Brandeis is not achance one. She was one of the very few active participants in the long-drawndefence of Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, especially during their forcedexile to Gorki. Ms. Gaer, in her capacity as the Director of the International League for Human Rights (a UN affiliate), initiated a series of efforts to putthe case before the UN Commission on Human Rights. This helped raise theawareness of the international community and human rights organizations, which in turn contributed significantly to the eventual release of the Nobel Peace Laureate from the exile. Ms. Gaer's approach to human rights issues is close to the ideas of Andrei Sakharov. In recent years, she participated in several life threatening human rights fact-finding missions to the republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, in the former Soviet Union, under the auspices of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation. Those missions required uncommon courage, and Felice Gaer certainly did not shrink away from carrying out her missions, in the same manner she did not shrink away from missions to the turbulent former Yugoslavia.In addition to carrying on her responsibilities of director of the Blaustein Institute, Ms. Gaer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relation, of The Andrei Sakharov Foundation, a member of the International Human Rights Council at The Carter Center of Emory University. A graduate of Wellesley College and recipient of its 1995 Alumnae Achievement Award, she holds advanced degrees from Columbia University. Ms. Gaer was appointed a public member of the US delegations to the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna (1993), the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995), and the World Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in Istanbul (1996) as well as to UN Commission on Human Rights in 1994, 1995 and 1996.She has led human rights fact-finding missions to the former Yugoslavia, after which she petitioned the War Crimes Tribunal to prosecute ethnic cleansing, rape and other forms of violence against women. She has provided expert testimony at hearings of the US Congress on numerous countries and issues, including human rights abuses against women. Ms. Gaer helped found and is a member of the Washington Working Group on the Human Rights of Women. She also served as Executive Director for European Programs at the UN Association of the US, and as a program officer at the Ford Foundation. While at the International League, she founded its program on Human Rights of Women in 1988.In her talk at Brandeis, Ms. Gaer will look into "one of the great ironies of our times: goverments that control large military forces are reluctant to use them to help save lives in situations of genocide or armed conflict." She is concerned that "by default, it is often the unarmed aid workers or human rights monitors who are on the front lines. There is an urgent need for the development of more effective protection in the field."Citing examples from Bosnia, Rwanda and the Holocaust, Ms. Gaer will discuss some of the international means now available to help protect civilians under threat and explore proposals on what else needs to be developed by international organizations, goverments, and private groups.This important talk, while being quite accessible for people with no special experience in human rights issues, will be of interest to people of good will concerned with what they see happening in the world around them, as well as the scholars of political science and history, human rights activists, supporters of Amnesty International, and defenders of women's rights.Led by her devotion to human rights, Felice D. Gaer put her life on the line defending rights of others. Her testimony and her ideas deserve to be heard.