Air Defense for South Sudan is a Less Bad Option than the Alternatives
In a recent post for Think Progress, guest blogger Lauren Jenkins raises some salient concerns about the provision of air defense capabilities to the Government of Southern Sudan. Given that Enough endorsed this approach in a press release that same day, it’s worth taking a moment to address some of these concerns. Providing air defense capabilities to the South Sudan government is neither an ideal response to the rising violence in Sudan, nor a step that should be undertaken rashly. But the chilling reports coming out of the Nuba Mountains suggest the wider potential for mass violence in the region ...
Why Africa’s Great Lakes Region Needs a Special Envoy
At the blog Congo Siasa, Jason Stearns reinforces several points on the urgency of an envoy, including the need for a position capable of coordinating senior U.S. diplomatic engagement with Congo and its neighbors. Jason rightly notes that an envoy should report to Secretary Clinton in order to coordinate policy across the department. Adding to the conversation, I think this organizational chart for the Africa bureau from State’s foreign affairs manual explain why Congo policy is currently falling through the cracks ...
5 Lessons from Congo for Afghanistan Mining
The recent report that Afghanistan has mineral deposits worth $1 trillion has led several writers to make a broad comparison to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s worth delving into the less obvious links between mineral resources and instability in eastern Congo to illustrate the potentially grave effects of a minerals rush in Afghanistan ...
Update on the Chebeya Assassination
Events surrounding the murder of Congolese human rights defender Floribert Chebeya are developing rapidly, with significant political fallout in Kinshasa ...
Why Nintendo?
We decided to focus on Nintendo in today’s email to Enough followers to contrast the company's lack of engagement with others who have taken some important steps forward to address conflict minerals in their supply chains ...
A Step Forward on Conflict Minerals via Financial Reform
The prospects of actually passing legislation to hold companies to account on conflict minerals increased dramatically this week, with the addition of Amendment 3997 to the financial reform bill that is advancing in the Senate ...
New Study Shows Severity of Sexual Violence in South Kivu, Congo
Last week the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Oxfam America published an in-depth report investigating sexual violence in eastern Congo ...
A Compelling Proposal on Conflict Minerals
Given the complexities of the mineral trade and the many powerful vested interests who continue to profit at the expense of Congo’s crisis, it can tempting to say that it’s just too difficult to do something about this problem. But a new proposal written by Congo specialists Jason Stearns and Steve Hege powerfully and succinctly suggests otherwise ...
U.S. Official Undercuts Sudan Policy, Misunderstands Elections
There’s been no shortage of high-level attention to Sudan as of late, but the senior U.S. official who spoke to Reuters this week about Sudan’s upcoming elections not only fails to grasp the nuances of the administration’s Sudan policy; the official also seems to fundamentally misunderstand how elections work ...
Digging In: Recent Developments on Conflict Minerals
Congo’s mineral wealth continues to play a central role in the country’s conflict dynamics. Despite the upsurge in displacement and atrocities during 2009, multinational companies continue to purchase minerals from the war zone ...
