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.
The Solutions for Hope project begun by Motorola Solutions is making strides to source conflict-free minerals from eastern Congo. In this new video produced by the company, the project’s leaders show how miners' working conditions are improving with safety equipment and how the conflict-free supply chain works. It’s an encouraging initiative that needs to be duplicated in the region, particularly by jewelry companies for gold.
Writing for The Atlantic, Lauren Wolfe of the group Women Under Siege highlights “The Misogyny Behind an Attempted Assassination of a Man in Congo,” Dr. Denis Mukwege. Quoting Human Rights Watch senior researcher Anneke Van Woudenberg, Wolfe describes what the attack may mean about a deteriorating trend in the long conflict in eastern Congo:
"When there starts to be attacks on individuals like him, it makes so many lower-level people scared and it silences people," she said. "I'd say we're at a peak of attacks on civilians and those who speak out. When I heard about Dr. Mukwege being attacked, my antennae began vibrating, saying that we're in real trouble again in eastern Congo."
Agence France-Presse ran an alarming feature by reporter Hannah McNeish about prisoners on death row in South Sudan. “To sentence someone to death who doesn't have a lawyer, is unable to challenge evidence…that is clearly an egregious miscarriage of the law, something which should not be permitted in any society,” David Deng of the South Sudan Law Society told McNeish. AFP’s Wil Davies also produced a video featuring interviews with convicted women.
American scientist and author Rachel Carson played a significant early role in the environmental movement through her thorough research and groundbreaking, controversial writings on the detrimental effects of pesticides. In a New York Times profile written 50 years after the publication of her most famous work that offers inspiring lessons about the power of personal commitment to a cause, Nancy F. Koehn focuses on the persistence that enabled Carson to produce such influential work in spite of person challenges:
[Carson's] story underscores the power of calling others to thoughtful action. At a time when Americans’ confidence in their business and government leaders is low, her journey offers a forceful example of one person’s ability to incite positive change.
Inspired after learning of the ongoing atrocities committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry wrote the song “Freedom Fighter” condemning the followers of Joseph Kony. Rolling Stone highlighted Aerosmith’s new album and featured a link to the song.