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.
Foreign Policy published an excellent piece late last week about genocide as a national security threat. Michael Abramowitz and Lawrence Woocher laid out a strong case for why the Obama administration should beef up its prevention mechanisms for confronting both genocide and mass atrocities.
Here’s a key graf:
Genocide’s negative consequences for the United States are increasingly plain. Mass violence destabilizes countries and entire regions, threatening to spread trafficking in drugs, arms, and persons, as well as infectious disease pandemics and youth radicalization. When prevention fails, the United States invariably foots much of the bill for post-atrocity relief and peacekeeping operations — to the tune of billions of dollars. And even as Washington is paying, America’s soft power is depleted when the world’s only superpower stands idle while innocents are systematically slaughtered.
Marcus Bleasdale’s stunning photographs from his new book Rape of a Nation were published in this slideshow on Burn magazine. Bleasdale’s deep familiarity with Congo, a place he has worked for many years, is apparent in the intimacy of this collection.
This feature piece by AP reporter Malkhadir Muhumed describes the use of radio in blasting out Shabaab propaganda on one station – and countering with reports from the fragile U.N.-backed government on another. Loyalty to the government station runs its risks, but as one father of nine said, "I know I’m risking my life. But I need a different point of view.”
In this interview, The Root spotlighted award winning playwright Lynn Nottage, with whom Enough worked last fall to bring a staged reading of her play Ruined to Washington. Nottage talks about the research that went in to writing the play, set in a brothel in modern-day eastern Congo, and what she hopes audiences will take away. As the interview reinforces, she’s an exceptional spokesperson for the Congo cause.
The March/April edition of Foreign Policy magazine includes this exclusive collection of photographs from some of the world’s most acclaimed war photographers. The slideshow includes remarkable testimony from the photographers for added context, often including insights about the scene that was transpiring right outside of the frame.