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5 Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

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5 Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

Posted by Tracy Fehr on August 26, 2011

5 Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

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.

Writing from Goma for The Washington Post, Michael Gerson tries to make sense of the political landscape in the Congo and the more than 30 armed groups operating in the state. Gerson said that eastern Congo demonstrates an absence of government. This is most apparent in the Congolese national army’s incorporation of rebel militias and leaders into its ranks, including former rebel leader Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who serves as an officer in the Congolese national army even though he is currently indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Actress and Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina Jolie, attends the conclusion of the International Criminal Court’s landmark first trial against Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga. In an Associated Press video, she discusses the significance of this case and the importance of internationally denouncing the recruitment and use of child soldiers.

A Christian Science Monitor Africa blog speaks to the indifference on the part of the international community to move from rhetoric to action against the Lord’s Resistance Army. Philip Lancaster critiques the Ugandan and U.S. approach to chase LRA leaders as “a hit or miss approach that will call down more attacks on unprotected civilians as the LRA instrumentalise them to send their twisted message and replace battlefield losses by abducting new fighters.” He calls for an in-depth military analysis that can help lead to a more comprehensive approach to take down the LRA.  

In The New Republic, Joshua Kurlantzick, a fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, discusses implications of the fall of Qaddafi’s regime, which has historically supported insurgencies in other regions of the world including southern Africa. He alludes, “With any luck, a number of long-running civil wars will disappear from the world stage together with Qaddafi himself.”

Alan Boswell guest blogs on Time’sGlobal Spin” about how a month after independence online maps have still not updated to include the new state of South Sudan, which would have happened already if it had been part of Europe or North America.