Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.
If you’ve been following the work Enough is doing to investigate the links between Congo’s conflict minerals, the electronics industry, and the conscience-shocking sexual violence perpetrated against Congolese women, children, and men, the revelations in this BBC story will come as no surprise. But the article is excellent, and whether you need a primer or a refresher, it is well worth a read. Pass this one around to friends and family too. It’s definitely the type of article that can help fuel a groundswell of consumer concern, because, through our cell phones and electronic products that we rely on daily, we all may be linked to the devastating violence in Congo today.
The debate over Mahmood Mamdani’s controversial book, Saviors and Survivors, continues in this book review from Richard Just at The New Republic. Richard Just doesn’t really come down on either side of the debate but presents a discussion of the “sometimes contradictory impulses of liberal foreign policy,” offering up Gareth Evans’ book on the Responsibility to Protect doctrine as an example of the other pole on the spectrum between anti-imperialism on one side and utmost deference to human rights on the other. Good reading for the long weekend.
Just returning from an impressive month of research in Sudan, human rights lawyer and author Bec Hamilton gave an insightful and informative interview on PRI’s The World, responding to the assertion from the departing U.N. peacekeeping force commander that the war in Darfur is over and discussing the conditions in which 2.7 million Darfuris currently live. During her trip, Bec spent time in camps for displaced people in Darfur, where local women spoke to her about the troubling effect that President Bashir’s expulsion of aid agencies last spring has had on women who have been raped.
Al Jazeera reported this week on the opening of the trial of Francois Bazaramba, who is accused of committing genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Bazaramba is being tried in Finland, where he has lived since 2003. As an Amnesty International legal officer quoted in the story noted, “It’s an example other states will apply in their jurisdictions so there will be no safe haven for perpetrators of these international crimes." However, even the first day of proceedings was rocky. It will be an interesting case to watch unfold.
To end this week on a lighter note, I’ll offer up this fabulous collection of photos from Vanity Fair of Africa’s self-proclaimed “King of kings,” who this week celebrated the 40th anniversary of seizing power in Libya. (HT to my dear colleague and blogging partner Rebecca Brocato, who is leaving Enough this week after an exceptional year as a valued member of our policy team. We will miss you, Rebecca.)