Learn About the Lord’s Resistance Army from Enough
Rarely in human history has such a small group of people caused so much suffering for so many as is the case with the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, in central Africa—for over two decades in northern Uganda and southern Sudan, and now in northern Congo and the Central African Republic. Abducting children as sex slaves and child soldiers is the hallmark of the ruthless Lord's Resistance Army. A Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU) episode that will air on Tuesday, March 31st dramatically portrays the experience of several (fictional) survivors of LRA-related violence in northern Uganda. In conjunction ...
“Pockets of Suffering:” the LA Times Documents the Growing Desperation in Darfur’s Camps
"Desperation grows in Darfur camps," an audio slideshow narrated by Los Angeles Times reporter Edmund Sanders with photos by Lynsey Addario, shows the deleterious impact of the Sudanese government’s expulsion of thirteen international aid agencies from Darfur, which is already being felt acutely on the ground by Darfuris living in internally displaced persons, or IDP camps. Sanders says the conditions in Zam Zam IDP camp in North Darfur are currently the worst he has seen in Sudan in the four years he's been reporting on the Darfur conflict, and among the worst he has ever seen in Africa. Sanders warns ...
The Pope in Africa
Today, Pope Benedict XVI began a six-day trip to Angola and Cameroon, his first trip to the African continent in his capacity as leader of the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict has been criticized for being “Eurocentric,” a charge that would be hard to level against his predecessor, who traveled numerous times to Africa. However, given that, as the New York Times reported yesterday, there are roughly 158 million Catholics in Africa, and that by 2025, “one-sixth of the world’s Catholics, or about 230 million, are expected to be African,” the Catholic Church has rightly decided to focus more efforts on ...
The EUFOR to MINURCAT transition in eastern Chad: It May Not Be Pretty
It would be an understatement to say that there is a great deal going on right now in volatile regions of eastern Chad (which, in case this fact escaped you, borders Darfur). I’ll get to the region’s raging threats of armed banditry and insecurity shortly, but first, a new and looming problem in eastern Chad is that—thanks to the Sudanese government’s callous decision to expel key international aid agencies providing lifesaving aid to Darfur—an additional 1.5 million Darfuris may be forced to flee across the border into another dangerous region in search of food, water, and healthcare. And an on-again, ...
U.S. Mission to the U.N.: A Behemoth of a Statement
An article in today’s Washington Post by the paper’s United Nations correspondent Colum Lynch gave me pause. Lynch describes the new United States Mission to the United Nations building—essentially a U.S. embassy, but at the United Nations headquarters in New York instead of abroad—as “one of a new generation of hardened U.S. diplomatic outposts.” The new building is reported designed to “endure a chemical-or biological-weapon attack,” and is more like a military base than an embassy, with an “impenetrable concrete tower…and no windows on its first seven floors.” As Lynch writes, the construction of more secure embassies began after the ...
Camels Dying, Humanitarian Crisis Worsening in Central Somalia
The United Nations humanitarian news agency IRIN sounded the alarm bells about the gravity of the humanitarian emergency in Somalia, a situation that John Holmes, the U.N.’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, has called the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” IRIN reports that “hundreds of people are at risk in Somalia’s central region of Mudug” because a “severe drought has caused an acute shortage of water.” Local Somali leaders and elders such as Yassin Mohamed Ganni are appealing for help, saying that tens of thousands of sheep and goats have already died in the Mudug area, ...
Feingold Advocates for Change in U.S.-Somalia Policy
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) spoke this week at a daylong conference on Somalia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Senator Feingold—the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs—recognized the difficult situation in Somalia and expressed “optimism for a positive Somali future” in light of new developments both on the ground in Somalia and in the international community’s relationship with the country. The senator’s policy recommendations were firmly in line with those outlined by noted Somalia expert and Davidson College professor Ken Menkaus in his latest strategy paper for Enough; both Senator Feingold ...
Obama: Situation in Darfur is “Not Acceptable”
As reported on our blog last night, President Obama had a strong message on the situation in Darfur following his meeting yesterday with United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon. President Obama emphasized the need for coordinated international action to get lifesaving assistance back on the ground in Darfur by reversing President Bashir’s decision last week to expel 13 international humanitarian organizations and shut down several Sudanese organizations operating in Darfur. The president noted, It is not acceptable to put that many people's lives at risk…We need to be able to get those humanitarian organizations back on the ground. In his meeting ...
The Politics of Proving Genocide in the Bashir Case
As I watched the Hague press conference on television last week, this headline flashed across the screen as soon as the charges were announced: “Bashir not charged on genocide.” This is certainly the sound bite that may stick with some observers, and there are some critics of international justice who will choose to focus on the fact that the Court rejected the Chief Prosecutor’s genocide claims and cast it as a failure. But as Enough adviser Omer Ismail argued last week: Even if the ICC’s pre-trial judges opt to dismiss the charges of genocide, Bashir will still be a war ...
The ICC Debate: Weekend Round Up Edition
In the wake of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant issuance for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and the Sudanese government’s subsequent expulsion of thirteen international non-governmental organizations, or NGOs—which provide lifesaving assistance to beleaguered populations in Darfur as well as in north and east Sudan—there has been vociferous debate regarding the implications of the Court’s decision for justice and peace in Sudan and throughout the world. After a busy week of coverage of the ICC developments, during which a number of leading international organizations as well as most major American and international papers and news sources responded to the implications ...
