Early this morning, Sudan has endorsed the African Union's "peace road map" to avoid an all-out war with South Sudan. This came after South Sudan had endorsed the AU's plan themselves. The AU's plan includes seven specific steps, including a deadline of this Tuesday to restart negotiations and a three-month grace period after that to agree upon a more concrete solution.

Just yesterday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution that would take "appropriate measures," including nonmilitary sanctions, if Sudan and South Sudan did not resolve all outstanding issues, namely border disputes, uneven divisions of oil revenues, and the citizenship of Sudanese and South Sudan peoples. As previously mentioned, tensions have flared between the two nations just a few months after South Sudan's July 2011 independence, which followed a peace treaty signed in 2005. 

President Obama spoke this morning at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. to observe a Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust and announce the launch of a new Atrocities Prevention Board. Obama was introduced by author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Both speakers gave moving testimony on the horrors of the Holocaust and how we can achieve the promise to "never again" allow such atrocities to occur.

Obama spoke to the need to more formally intervene to prevent mass atrocities and genocide, saying "national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your own people." He said that "never again is a challenge to us all," adding that "remembrance without action changes nothing."

Genocide is one of the most difficult issues for peace activists to address. Many people who are ardent pacifists will make an exception to their anti-war stance if genocide is occurring. Whether we are trying to prevent or stop genocide, intervention is necessary. But what kind of intervention: diplomatic, economic, military, educational? Should the intervention emerge from within a country's sovereign borders, or should it be imposed by an external power? And what role can nonviolence play in stopping or preventing genocide? 

Nonviolence is not complacency or inaction, or giving into corrupt leaders to appease them. The term nonviolence comes from the Sanskrit word ahimsa and refers to action that does no harm and is intended to show reverence and respect for life.

Citizens for Global Solutions organized the first ever Indiana Genocide Prevention Summit, held on Saturday, March 31, in Indianapolis. The summit brought organizations, students, teachers, genocide survivors, activists, and concerned citizens from across the state.

Indiana is seemingly far away from the killing fields of Syria, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is even farther away in time from the mass graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, or Auschwitz. At the Indiana Genocide Prevention Summit though, it was clear that many of us from Indiana had the power and bore the responsibility for genocide prevention.

We could either build a movement to engage our communities and our politicians in genocide prevention. Or let the words "Never Again" be meaningless once again.