Author: Meghna Raj

Last month Enough and Resolve Uganda partnered with Invisible Children for the “How It Ends” Lobby Days. The two-day event brought together over 1,700 young activists from across the United States. They met with members of the House and Senate to encourage their elected officials to support and co-sponsor the Lord's Resistance Army LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009 (S. 1067 in Senate and HR 2478 in the House). As Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) noted in a recent blog post, after a long period of neglect by the international community, the tide appears to be shifting to ...

In today's Huffington Post, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) draws attention to the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and its continuing campaign of terror in Uganda, Central African Republic, and most recently in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. For over 20 years LRA leader, Joseph Kony and his rebel army have forcibly abducted thousands of children for use as soldiers and sex slaves. And although the conflict waged by the LRA is Africa’s longest running war, U.S. policymakers and the international community have been startlingly unengaged. However, as Senator Feingold notes – and the very fact that he blogged about this ...

Earlier this week, Mia Farrow and the Enough Project met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to talk about the ongoing genocide in Darfur. During the meeting, we discussed the urgent need for immediate and effective action to end Sudan's crises. Last night, Senator Reid highlighted the situation in Darfur though a statement he issued for the Congressional Record. He echoed our plea to stop continuing to make Darfur a backburner issue, saying: The terrible situation in Darfur deteriorates with each passing day. But we don’t hear much about it. It has long since faded from the front pages ...

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, has been a well-spoken advocate for Somalia for a number of years. Today, he sent a letter to the White House calling for broad, long-term engagement with the volatile East African country. Senator Feingold commended the president's leadership on the swift military action that enabled Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillip's rescue, but rightly pointed out that piracy in Somalia, "is a symptom of the state collapse and instability on land; thus, any military actions we take will only be stopgap measures." Feingold linked the decline in ...

This week, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) discussed the recent expulsion of NGO's from Darfur during his weekly Pen and Pad with reporters: "It is a grievous situation, a dangerous situation, to literally a million people or more, women or children. I have been to the camps. They are in very bad shape, and it is incomprehensible that they don't have clean water, and how they, how we will not lose literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people." Hoyer has been discussing possible Congressional action with the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and the ...

A press conference on Capitol Hill this week drew a powerful line-up of prominent Darfur advocates from Congress, faith-based and secular organizations, and Hollywood to jointly denounce Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s expulsion of aid agencies from Darfur and discuss the way forward. The panel unanimously declared that Bashir has now made himself culpable for the additional lives that will be lost as a result of the aid gap. “Bombs from the air and bullets even from close range can miss, but starvation hits everyone,” said Enough advisor Omer Ismail. Rabbi David Saperstein, Director and Counsel for the Religious Action Center, ...

Last week, Congressman Alcee Hastings introduced House Resolution 241, commending the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir earlier this month. Several members of Congress have released statements advocating the court’s decision, but this resolution marks the first formal legislative action supporting Bashir’s arrest warrant. Addressing the House of Representatives, Hastings called the ICC's action, "a major step forward in the name of justice, humanity, and rule of law." Hastings acknowledged that the international court’s warrant by no means heralds an end to the conflict in Darfur, but said it is movement in ...

This week, Senator Feingold (D-WI) delivered a floor statement on the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. His remarks shed light on a woefully underreported humanitarian crisis. The LRA, led by ruthless rebel leader, Joseph Kony, originated in Uganda more than 20 years ago. This small army has since spread its campaign of terror into northeastern Congo, Central African Republic, and southern Sudan. In what's being called the Christmas Massacre, the LRA killed at least 620 civilian and abducted more than 160 children in northern DRC this past December. Senator Feingold spoke specifically about the U.S.’s reaction to the LRA’s long ...

Two important budget-related measures have recently been in the news. Last Thursday, President Obama released his first budget, while earlier in the week Congress submitted the details of its latest appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2009. Both offer important insights into U.S. government thinking regarding challenges abroad. Highlights regarding Enough’s issues from the “State and Foreign Operations” section of the appropriations bill include: $250.2 million for U.N. peacekeeping operations, with up to up to $16 million to support UNAMID training. $1.517 billion for contributions to the international peacekeeping account, with directions to fully fund UNAMID and to fund oversight missions ...

At Susan Rice’s Senate confirmation hearing this morning for the post of United States ambassador to the United Nations, Senator John Kerry asked how the U.S approach to ending the conflicts in Darfur, Congo and Zimbabwe would be different in the incoming Obama administration. Rice asserted that the U.S. would take a leading role at the United Nations in addressing the “thorny challenges of peacekeeping in the context of Darfur and Congo and the autocracy in the context of Zimbabwe.” Rice cited two main challenges the international community faces with regard to ending the conflicts in Darfur and Congo: Lack ...