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Associated Press is reporting General Laurent Nkunda, leader of the strongest rebel group in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, has been arrested. According to various reports, the feared Congolese rebel leader was apprehended Friday by a joint force of Rwandan and Congolese army troops in Rwanda. The BBC reported Nkunda crossed the border after resisting a joint Rwandan-Congolese operation to arrest him. His arrest removes one obstacle to peace but other rebel groups remain active. In recent weeks Nkunda’s once loyal troops had begun to splinter away from the flamboyant, but tyrannical leader. AP reported around 4,000 Rwandan troops ...

Today marks Day Three of Barack Obama’s presidency. Enough is partnering with the Save Darfur Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network, and STAND for a new campaign to ensure that President Obama makes Darfur a top priority in his first days and weeks of office. In the midst of a financial crisis and wars on multiple fronts, it is more important than ever that we, as activists, make our voices heard on this issue – keeping the new administration’s feet to the fire to bring peace to Sudan, by immediately appointing a special envoy and launching a “peace surge.” A new day ...

We are pleased to announce that we have just delivered a petition to President Barack Obama – signed by more than 39,000 concerned Americans – asking him to take action on Congo. This is the largest ever call to action in the United States on Congo and underscores the growing strength of the Congo activist movement. You can read the press release here. This tremendous effort would not be possible without our friends and allies, including Oxfam America, Amnesty International, Bureau pour le Volontariat au Service de l’Enfance et de la Santé (BVES), Campus Progress at the Center for American ...

When I first met dissident General Laurent Nkunda, Chairman of the National Congress for the Defense of People, or CNDP, in February 2008, I was also introduced to his Chief of Staff, Bosco Ntaganda. Large and tall with searing hazel eyes and wearing a red beret, Ntaganda talked to me for several minutes. He asked me about my nationality, my religious background and my age. I answered his questions while nodding and smiling, but my stomach was churning and my brain was racing. At that time, Bosco Ntaganda had a sealed International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes he ...

You might have been paying attention to other things on January 20, but major developments unfolded in the Great Lakes region of Africa that morning as 3,000 Rwandan troops crossed into North Kivu, Congo, as part of a joint operation with the Congolese army to take on the FDLR, the Rwandan-affiliated Hutu militia. Although Enough has been pressing for international action to remove the FDLR from eastern Congo for quite a while, several aspects of this operation make us uneasy: Bosco “The Terminator” Ntaganda, indicted by the International Criminal Court, and his dissident rebel faction are collaborating with the Rwandan ...

Is your cell phone, I-Pod or Blackberry helping fuel the conflict in eastern Congo? It might very well be. Here is how you can find out, and what you can do to help. Working with a number of partners, we are starting a major effort on conflict minerals in eastern Congo, and this is the first step. Stay tuned ...

The Financial Times recently reported that Jarch Capital, an investment firm led by financier Philip Heilberg (which includes several former United States government officials on its board of directors) has leased a jaw-dropping 4,000 square kilometers of arable land—approximately the size of Dubai—in southern Sudan. The F.T. provided further comment in an editorial entitled “Rhodes Redux,” noting the “deal depends as much on control exerted by Paulino Matip, the warlord whose son’s company claims rights to some of the land, as it does on legal title.”Matip is currently second-in-command of the armed forces of Southern Sudan, but until recently led ...

Dr. Denis Mukwege of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, eastern Congo, has been named “African of the Year” by the Daily Trust newspaper of Nigeria. Dr. Mukwege is the founding director of Panzi Hospital, an extraordinary non-profit organization that, along with other Congolese organizations such as HEAL Africa (a partner of Enough’s RAISE Hope for Congo campaign), are leading the charge to enable the survivors of horrific acts of sexual violence—which are occurring in the context of Congo’s ongoing deadly crisis—to recover and rebuild their lives. When he accepted the award in Abuja, Nigeria, Dr. Mukwege said that “I am pleased ...

Amid celebrations in Mogadishu over the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia’s war-torn capital after their bloody two-year, United States-backed military campaign, the BBC reports that four of the six bases vacated by the Ethiopian troops “have been taken over by [Islamist] insurgents from different factions, seemingly working together.” Not a huge surprise, given the anarchic state of affairs in Somalia today — in case you missed it, the President resigned last month and aid workers are assassinated on a regular basis — and the rapid strengthening of the Islamist shabaab militia throughout the country. However, to be clear, the ...

Gérard Prunier is undoubtedly one of the most astute contemporary analysts of Africa’s Great Lakes region, and his new book, Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe, is required reading for anyone trying to put Congo’s current crisis into broader historical perspective. After the Rwandan genocide, Prunier published The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, a meticulously researched account of the genocide that, like his latest work, provided essential background to aid in understanding the intense and simmering context into which the genocide exploded. Prunier’s new book picks up where his last one ...