Author: John Prendergast

Why would the regime in Khartoum decide to escalate right before the South’s independence? There are tactical and strategic reasons. Tactically, the regime is bullying for a better negotiating position on where borders will be drawn and how oil revenues will be shared, with billions of dollars at stake. Regime officials are probing, attempting to ascertain whether deploying a total strategy aimed at setting the South, border areas, and Darfur on fire will draw any reaction beyond rhetorical concern from the international community. Strategically, the regime is doing what it does best: ruling by arson ...

Unfortunately, when we hear about Sudan these days, it is usually about the escalating crises between North and South Sudan and in Darfur. But as we pause to recognize the millions of refugees around the world today on World Refugee Day, we also want to point out that all is not gloom and doom. There are ways we all can get involved to make a difference in the lives of those forcibly uprooted from their homes in Sudan ...

Sunday, as the Khartoum regime was solidifying its military occupation of Abyei and beginning to loot and burn the town, I heard from one of the foremost experts on Sudan in the world, Dr. Douglas Johnson. We agreed that Bashir's government felt certain that it would face no international consequences for its attack on Abyei, which threatens to plunge the North and South back to full-scale war. In the absence of any cost or accountability, to have believed that Khartoum would NOT strike would have been foolhardy ...

This is a picture of me -- when I was 20 years old -- with a family I met when I was visiting a homeless shelter. Michael, the boy on the far left, became my "little brother," and I've been his big brother for the last 27 years. Michael and I wrote a book in dual narrative about our lives together and apart, called Unlikely Brothers, and it comes out today via Random House ...

Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier, musician, and activist and I recorded the video (with a cameo by Enough's Joe Enten, AKA 'MoJoe) to drive home the point that while the independence vote in southern Sudan will usher in the world's newest country, the Republic of Southern Sudan faces many challenges. The main reason the referendum was successful was that the world shined a bright light on the situation and made it hard for the spoilers to ruin the moment. We are going to have to keep the focus on the situation there ...

This is not your typical Mother's Day message. We email, text and call each other from our Blackberry and iPhone regularly. We would have been Facebook friends if we had our own Facebook pages. And surely we would tweet each other if we became twitterers. But underlying all these dizzying 21st century communication tools is one of the saddest secrets in the world involving mothers and daughters. Innocently, inadvertently, we are using communication products that are powered by minerals (conflict minerals) that are fueling the highest rates of sexual violence in the world in a place called the Congo ...

In a piece published today on the homepage of The Huffington Post, actor Ryan Gosling and I share some insights on the conflict in eastern Congo that we heard from survivors of sexual violence and in camps for displaced people. Ryan made this video, "Raise Hope for Congo," with footage shot during our recent trip ...

Three and a half months from now, the world's newest nation will be born: the Republic of Southern Sudan. Heady times for a people who have fought for 50 years for freedom, and won the right to vote in what was a peaceful independence referendum in January. But this road to freedom is filled with danger points, none more so than Abyei, the hotly disputed Connecticut-sized territory wedged within the border between North and South. Mia Farrow and I wrote this post based on our recent trips to Abyei ...

People are still dying in Darfur. Villages are still being bombed. Women are still being subjected to sexual assaults. Tens of thousands have been displaced in the last few months. Actor Don Cheadle and I got together and talked about what can be done in this video, "Bang the Drum for Darfur." ...

This report, based on interviews conducted by John Prendergast and Fidel Bafilemba in North Kivu in November 2010, provides an overview of the extent to which the minerals trade from eastern Congo today remains dominated by a mafia network of military, political, and business interests in Congo, its neighbors, and within the supply chains that connect the mines to international markets ...