Category: Blog

I recently returned from spending two weeks in Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad. It was an incredible trip and, thanks to modern technology, I was able to regularly share my experiences with Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools, or DDT, participants and supporters through Enough Said and Facebook. One such experience was meeting Umda Tarbosh, an inspiring leader and dedicated teacher at DDT partner school Darasalam A in Goz Amer camp ...

This week's post in the series Enough 101 looks at a brief history of Sudan since the state's independence in 1956 through the signing of the CPA in 2005, which ended the nation's second civil war ...

Last Friday night, Alrick Brown’s feature film “Kinyarwanda” premiered at the independently-owned West End Cinema in Washington, DC to a sold-out theatre. The film, based on actual accounts of survivors from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, weaves together the stories of six fictional Rwandan individuals whose lives cross paths during the genocide. The film, which made its debut at the 2011 Sundance Festival, won the festival’s Audience Award in the World Cinema Drama category, and is currently playing for a limited time in eight major US cities that also include: New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco ...

Blasts from vuvuzelas rang out as word spread that Congolese President Joseph Kabila had been declared winner of the country’s second-ever election since independence. After more than a week of waiting since Congolese went to the polls on November 28, the mood in the eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu was marked by an eagerness for the process to be concluded. “The limbo of not knowing what the results will bring is fatiguing for people,” said Enough researcher Sarah Zingg Wimmer in Goma ...

In a move this week that had been a long time coming, Enough partner organization Global Witness officially pulled out of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, or KP, due to its “refusal to evolve and address the clear links between diamonds, violence and tyranny.” The announcement was significant given the organization’s role as a key architect in the creation of the international diamond certification scheme and as an official observer since the KP’s launch in 2003 ...

This week, a long-awaited—and rare—preliminary military trial took place for Sadoke Kikunda Mayele, a former Mayi-Mayi fighter indicted for mass rape. Mayele was the chief of staff of the armed group Mayi-Mayi Sheka until his arrest in October last year. Mayi-Mayi Sheka, together with the FDLR and some army deserters, are allegedly responsible for the mass rape of an estimated 387 civilians in 13 villages in the Walikale territory in the summer of 2010. Arrest warrants have been issued for Sheka, Mayele and six other fighters. Mayele is the only one in custody, while the hearings for the others proceed ...

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday ...

In the latest apparent ploy to defy the International Criminal Court, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir kept First Lieutenant-General Abdelrahim Mohammed Hussein on board as defense minister this week while shuffling his cabinet around to include more opposition parties. He kept the most powerful posts under his ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, including finance, oil, foreign affairs, and interior in addition to defense ...

While Congo sifts through the ballots from the presidential and parliamentary elections, a group of Washington, D.C., based policy and advocacy groups focused on human rights in the Congo gathered Tuesday with partners and policy makers on Capitol Hill to discuss the recent elections and its implications in the ongoing battle against impunity for war criminals in Congo ...

You'd think by the second decade of 21st century — with the development of international accountability and prevention mechanisms — that the use of starvation would have disappeared from the arsenal of war weapons because it bears too high a cost for the perpetrator. The people of Sudan would beg to differ, George Clooney and I write in an op-ed appearing on TIME.com today ...