President Obama and Sudan: A Blueprint for Peace (Activist Brief)
From President Obama's appointment of a special envoy for Sudan to the expulsion of 16 aid groups from Darfur, the past several weeks have brought both welcome first steps and the development of a potential humanitarian disaster to the situation in Sudan. Many activists have grown understandably and increasingly frustrated given the seeming lack of urgency and relative silence from the Obama administration in addressing the looming humanitarian crisis in Darfur ...
A Comprehensive Approach to Congo’s Conflict Minerals – Activist Brief
Companies that produce electronics that could contain conflict minerals from eastern Congo have a responsibility to ensure that their business dealings are not inadvertently helping to fuel atrocities. This is not an easy task, but it is achievable ...
A Comprehensive Approach to Congo’s Conflict Minerals – Strategy Paper
Companies that produce electronics that could contain conflict minerals from eastern Congo have a responsibility to ensure that their business dealings are not inadvertently helping to fuel atrocities. This is not an easy task, but it is achievable ...
Can You Hear Congo Now? Cell Phones, Conflict Minerals, and the Worst Sexual Violence in the World
The time has come to expose a sinister reality: Our insatiable demand for electronics products such as cell phones and laptops is helping fuel waves of sexual violence in a place that most of us will never go, affecting people most of us will never meet. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the scene of the deadliest conflict globally since World War II. There are few other conflicts in the world where the link between our consumer appetites and mass human suffering is so direct ...
Why Activism (Still) Matters for Sudan… And What You Can Do
The Obama administration offers a fresh opportunity for the United States to meaningfully engage in an effort to bring peace to Sudan at a time when the stakes have never been higher. Nevertheless, policymakers still need the collective voice of activists to keep the conflict high on their agendas and to generate public support for making tough decisions. We explore the impressive accomplishments of Sudan activists to date; the windows of opportunity for peace in Sudan; and what you can do. The bottom line: thoughtful, persistent activism makes a difference. The genocide in Darfur won’t end overnight, and there are ...
Testimony of John Prendergast Before the House Appropriations Subcommittee for State Foreign Operations
East and central Africa is battered by an arch of chronic conflict that stretches from Somalia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congo and Sudan alone account for nearly eight million deaths due to the legacy of war in the past two decades. Although the United States has provided billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, support for peacekeeping missions, and electoral assistance, this aid has not yet succeeded in altering the dynamics that have kept this region dangerously destabilized ...
Peace on the Rocks: Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement
The precarious peace between northern and southern Sudan stands at a crucial crossroads. Intended by its architects as the cornerstone of peace in a country fractured by conflict, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, has been hamstrung by the National Congress Party’s intransigence, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement’s growing pains, and the international community’s neglect ...
What the Warrant Means: Justice, Peace, and the Key Actors in Sudan
The issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudan’s sitting head of state for crimes against humanity offers the Obama administration a chance to catalyze multilateral efforts to bring about a solution to Sudan’s decades-long cycle of warfare. One of the crucial missing ingredients to conflict resolution efforts has been some form of accountability for the horrific crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated by the warring parties in Sudan, primarily the Khartoum regime. Peace without justice in Sudan would only bring an illusion of stability, without addressing the primary forces driving the conflict ...
Testimony of John Prendergast Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The precarious peace between northern and southern Sudan stands at a crucial crossroads. Intended by its architects as the cornerstone of peace in a country fractured by conflict, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, has been hamstrung by the National Congress Party’s intransigence, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement’s growing pains, and the international community’s neglect ...
Somalia After the Ethiopian Occupation: First Steps to End the Conflict and Combat Extremism
President Barack Obama has inherited a dangerous and fast-moving crisis in Somalia—one with profound implications for regional and international security. While some within the new administration will be tempted to continue to place short-term counterterrorism goals ahead of a more comprehensive strategy approach as was done during the Bush administration, the shortcomings of this approach are abundantly clear: violent extremism and anti-Americanism are now rife in Somalia due in large part to the blowback from policies that focused too narrowly on counterterrorism objectives. The new U.S. national security team must make a clean break by defining and implementing a long-term ...
