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.
Jane Bussman, the comedy writer who stumbled upon the shocking story of Lord’s Resistance Army brutality when she traveled to the Central Africa on a different mission, gave an entertaining and insightful interview to Religion Dispatches magazine. Inspired at first by the plan of tracking down the “hot” and “wise” activist John Prendergast (ehem, her words), Bussman’s The Worst Date Ever, in the end, documents the abuses committed by the LRA and highlights some of the heroes who have dedicated their lives to protecting survivors.
Dana Goldstein of The Daily Beast wrote an in-depth piece examining the Obama administration’s response work
to the conflict, and sexual violence in particular, in eastern Congo. Secretary Clinton’s trip to Goma nearly a year ago raised high hopes for direct U.S. engagement in the region. Goldstein tracks the $17 million pledged by Clinton during her visit, and asks advocates their impressions of the administration’s track record in Congo so far.
Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air, interviewed New York Times East Africa bureau chief Jeffrey Gettleman about his work in some of the world’s worst war zones. For the past three years, Gettleman has been based in Nairobi covering 12 countries in the region. He shares some startling stories about reporting about the continent’s “un-wars,” as he calls them – conflicts not motivated by ideology but by criminal and opportunistic goals.
Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s independence – sometimes with fanfare, sometimes with lamentation for the lack of progress in the vast country since 1960. NPR’s feature story captured the bittersweet nature of the occasion.
The alternating joyful, indifferent, and disturbed expressions in this series of photographs published by the BBC had a similar effect – of conveying the very mixed feelings surrounding Congo’s highly anticipated independence anniversary. As one school headmaster said, “No, no, I don’t want to go back to the colonial times with Belgium. But why can’t we work together?”