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.
NPR’s Talk of the Nation did a 35-minute-long segment on the challenges that lay ahead for South Sudan. Host Neal Conan spoke to NPR’s Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, reporting from Juba, South Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and fielded questions from folks who called in.
Human Rights Watch published this useful primer on the trial of LRA colonel Thomas Kwoyelo, who is being charged with a range of crimes that include “grave breaches of willful killing, taking hostages, and extensive destruction of property,” HRW says. The Q&A provides some good insights about why Kwoyelo wasn’t given amnesty (7), despite a law aimed at enticing LRA fighters out of the bush, and the significance of the new Ugandan court that is trying him (3 & 6).
While South Sudan celebrated a raucous independence in the southern capital, The Independent’s Daniel Howden reported from “the wrong side of Sudan’s new border” – the Nuba Mountains, which continue to come under attack by the Sudan Armed Forces. He writes:
In the villages young men march in the heat of the day with sticks carved to look like rifles; in the hills women and children spend their days hiding in caves to escape the bombs; and in the fields a few farmers brave the barrage to plant crops while the rains last.
The Boston Globe’s Big Picture features a collection of photographs called “A new nation rises,” taken by a variety of photojournalists over the past several months leading up to last Saturday’s independence. From scenes of cattle keeping, to nighttime in a market, and worshippers in a church, the set provides a wider view of the new country beyond the celebrations of Saturday.
With Sudan’s partition on everyone’s mind, G. Pascal Zachary argues in The Atlantic that there is a case to be made for other African nations to “scramble the old colonial borders.” He writes:
“The cult of colonial borders has been a cornerstone not only of diplomacy between African nations but of the assistance programs of foreign governments and multinational non-governmental organizations. (…) But letting these countries reform into smaller nations might actually reduce conflict, increase economic growth, and cost less in foreign aid.”