Author: Laura Heaton

Blasts from vuvuzelas rang out as word spread that Congolese President Joseph Kabila had been declared winner of the country’s second-ever election since independence. After more than a week of waiting since Congolese went to the polls on November 28, the mood in the eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu was marked by an eagerness for the process to be concluded. “The limbo of not knowing what the results will bring is fatiguing for people,” said Enough researcher Sarah Zingg Wimmer in Goma ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday ...

With the announcement of Congo’s next president expected before midnight tonight, though possibly delayed, the restive eastern part of the country is quiet but wary about what tomorrow might bring. According to the preliminary count by the national electoral commission, tallied by province, Kabila is leading in both North and South Kivu but doesn’t carry a majority in either province. But unlike in other parts of the country, a Kabila victory will likely spur a greater calm in the East than any other electoral outcome ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday ...

An arrest warrant issued this week by the Kenyan high court for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir set off a new diplomatic row. In spite of initial remarks by the Sudan foreign ministry that downplayed the warrant—chalking it up to an internal Kenyan power play on a politically sensitive issue—the ministry announced Tuesday that the Kenyan ambassador was being given 72 hours notice to leave the country ...

When lawyer Emmanuel Katcha*, a father of two, casts his vote in Congo’s presidential election on Monday, he said he will be voting for change. “My voice is like teacher's red pen that I want to use to proofread errors of those in power,” Katcha said, adding that he is frustrated that Congo’s leaders seem to see themselves as “gods, superhuman,” and above the rest of the Congolese. “We deserve patriotic leaders,” he said. With far less international fanfare than the country’s first elections stirred in 2006, Congolese will vote in countrywide presidential and legislative elections. The lead-up to the ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday ...

With voting just three weeks away in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s only second multi-party election since independence, Enough Project field researcher Fidel Bafilemba considers incumbent President Joseph Kabila’s legacy and the way the election process has shaped up to strongly lean in his favor. Bafilemba, who was born and raised in eastern Congo, reflects on the ambitious plan laid out by Kabila five years ago and about how, in the absence of much to show for his tenure, the president is looking for other ways to secure is re-election ...

With large swaths of Somalia inaccessible due to the policies of the militant al-Shabaab group, and hundreds of thousands still suffering in areas controlled by the Somali government, the need for attention to the crisis remains urgent. A multi-media exhibition at George Washington University this week aims to raise the profile of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in East Africa ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday ...