Author: Emily Roberts

Last month, in the wake of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the Enough Project, Genocide Intervention Network and Save Darfur Coalition partnered in hosting a webcast to address the question of whether the warrant was helping or hindering peace in Darfur. While there have been many developments since the airing of the webcast, there are a few important take-away points that remain applicable, and we wanted to highlight them now that a recording of the webcast is available for viewing (below). While the United States is certainly taking positive steps in the direction of ...

As the longtime chairman of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is often one of the first in Congress to speak up on the Senate floor or in committee hearings about issues related to African conflicts and humanitarian situations. This week, he delivered a powerful message to activists that drew on the experiences from his own life that compelled him to focus on the world’s gravest crimes against humanity, and he implored activists to once again raise the alarm for the situation in Darfur and for a comprehensive strategy for Sudan as a whole. Speaking at the ...

The recent visits to Sudan by Special Envoy Scott Gration and Senator John Kerry are promising signs of a renewed U.S. engagement in achieving sustainable peace. As a senior member of the SPLM put it, these developments at a crucial time in Sudan’s history have the potential to “open new doors, new avenues, and new opportunities and trying to work out resolutions of the Darfur crisis as well as implementing the CPA." The window of opportunity is indeed open, and Senator Kerry’s recent statement that Khartoum would allow some foreign aid to be restored is a hopeful indication that the ...

This week, more citizens in the United States are holding events in recognition of Genocide Prevention Month. With commemorations for six genocides occurring in April, the organizers wanted to affiliate events to create sustained attention to past atrocities throughout the month, while also inspiring people to take action to create a world where such atrocities can no longer happen. Here are a couple of events coming up this week: The Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C. is hosting a screening of The Notebooks of Memory, a documentary about the Rwandan gacaca court, a community-based judicial process being used to ...

Activists across the country are continuing to make noise about the Sudanese government’s expulsion of 13 international humanitarian aid organizations, which has left an estimated 1 million internally displaced people in Darfur without food, water, and access to health care. Two activist groups have had successful events in California and Indiana recently: Last Sunday, Jewish World Watch led an Interfaith Street Seder for Darfur outside the Los Angeles Federal Building. Two-hundred activists, Darfuris, and political leaders rallied to call on the Obama administration to make Darfur a priority and push the government of Sudan to restore humanitarian aid operations. On ...

Genocide Prevention Month continues this week with many events around the United States and the world. By commemorating and focusing renewed attention on past atrocities, organizers of this month hope to inspire people to take action to help create a world in which such atrocities can no longer occur. Here are a few events coming up this week: Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel will be speaking at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, on Monday, April 6 at 8:00pm in the Simon Forum. A survivor of the Holocaust, Wiesel has devoted himself with the situation of the Jews and ...

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A recent post on Change.org’s Stop Genocide blog profiles the current leader of our student-run partner organization, STAND. Between playing in a band and being a full time senior at Swarthmore College, Nick Gaw finds time to lead STAND’s Leadership Team – the backbone of the organization, which has a network of over 850 middle schools, high schools, and colleges nationwide. Nick is just one of thousands of students who are making a difference in places like Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo by taking part in the anti-genocide movement in the United States. STAND is currently looking ...

A Diplomatic Note: "A formal communication between an ambassador and a minister (usually the foreign minister) of this host government or another ambassador." Back in 2007, the U.S. State Department, in an attempt to offer the public an “alternative source to mainstream media” as well as an “opportunity for participants to discuss important foreign policy issues with senior Department officials,” created its first ever blog, DipNote. In the welcome section the State department spokesman said: “This blog represents your opportunity to engage State Department officials, to contribute to the discussion of U.S. foreign policy.” Creating a sense of transparency and ...

On Tuesday morning Enough team members met with Vital Voices’ Fern Holland Award-Winner Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu. A passionate young journalist from the South Kivu province, Chouchou has been a brave and pioneering voice for survivors of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo through radio broadcasts. Chouchou founded South Kivu’s Association of Women Journalists (Association des Femmes des Médias du Sud Kivu or AFEM) in 2003, which works to increase women’s representation in the media, mentors female journalists, and advocates for women’s rights, particularly in rural communities, in eastern DRC. Chouchou shared her experiences collecting stories from rape ...