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.
Only a few details trickled out about the Darfur Ponzi scheme when it was unveiled last year, but Slate’s Dan Morrison put the pieces together for this story of “the Bernie Madoff of Sudan,” who helped construct a financial scam worth $180 million that affected an estimated 50,000 people.
In his show, AlJazeera’s Riz Khan focuses on rape crimes in eastern Congo and talks with award-winning photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale and activist Eve Ensler about what can be done to end atrocities against women and girls. Bleasdale emphasized the connection between the conflict and the global electronics industry:
“The minerals we find in DRC – the cassiterite, the gold – none of these are actually consumed in DRC. They’re consumed in the West. (…) We have a responsibility as consumers to understand where our minerals are coming from, to understand that our consumerism is affecting the conflict in DRC.”
Reporting from eastern Libya, AlJazeera’s Jacky Rowland looks at “the ugly face of the revolution:” the backlash against black Africans, in this case Sudanese and Nigerians, living in Libya who are accused of being mercenaries brought in by Qaddafi to suppress the uprising.
It seems the growing anti-conflict minerals movement may have another target beyond eastern Congo. The New York Times reports on how gold mining is helping finance long-standing conflicts in Colombia. One source quoted in the article explains:
“[O]ne reason why the guerrillas and criminal gangs are moving into gold is because it is not just profitable,” but because it deals with a legal product, unlike cocaine. (…) “It’s a way for them to keep their war alive,” he said.
The United Nations moved quickly last weekend to unanimously refer Qaddafi and Co. to the International Criminal Court on allegations of war crimes. Over at the War and Law blog, lawyers Max de Plessis and Christopher Gevers break down the Security Council resolution and highlight what makes this move different from previous cases.