Category: Op-eds

There are two Sudans: one real and one imagined. In the imaginary Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir’s government is leading a meaningful National Dialogue that will address grievances, reconcile differences, and eventually lead to a democratic state. In this fictitious Sudan, the Sudan Armed Forces fight a just war against unappeasable rebels in the country’s south, while instability and violent conflict are largely a thing of the past in Darfur ...

The world’s newest country, South Sudan, finds itself mired in the complicated fog of war that at its worst could combine the genocidal ethnic targeting of 1994 Rwanda with the warlordism of 1990s Somalia. Tens of thousands have died and millions displaced, and armed rebellions are emerging throughout the country. Village attacks, food aid obstruction, mass rape and child soldier recruitment all are rearing their ugly heads again ...

The replacement of South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar with Taban Deng is a well-tested policy that dates back to the 1980s that the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party has employed to purchase the loyalty of groups opposed to it. Following a shoot-out between the bodyguards of President Salva Kiir and Machar earlier this month, relations between both men worsened, culminating in an attack on the latter’s residence in the capital Juba. Machar fled the city and said he would only return if regional peacekeeping troops were allowed in the country to act as a buffer between ...

Just a day after South Sudan marked its fifth anniversary as the world's newest independent country, fierce fighting between rival factions has resumed, putting the already tenuous August 2015 peace deal in jeopardy. Hundreds are alleged to have been killed in the last few days, and thousands displaced ...

In July of last year, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a landmark speech at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, criticizing leaders who undemocratically change their constitutions to stay in power and emphasizing that the United States would call out such behavior. He pointed to Burundi where a few months earlier, President Pierre Nkurunziza pressured the courts to change the constitution’s term limits so that he could run for a third time. Obama warned that such a tactic could trigger “instability and strife,” as well as hamper “Africa’s democratic progress.” But his words seem to have fallen on ...

Yesterday, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) filed an 11th hour amendment to the financial services appropriations bill to de-fund enforcement of the conflict minerals provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The amendment was adopted by the House Rules Committee and will go to the House floor for a vote today ...

In a recent op-ed, “South Sudan Needs Truth, Not Trials,” South Sudan President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar argue that the only way to bring South Sudan together is through “an organized peace and reconciliation commission with international backing.” In this process, they argue that anyone who tells the truth concerning what they saw or did would receive amnesty from prosecution, even if he or she did not express remorse ...

Like the endangered wildlife he helps protect, Congolese environmentalist Bantu Lukambo is being hunted. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, conservation is dangerous work because it threatens the interests of powerful groups. Several of Congo’s national parks – including Africa’s oldest, Virunga – are under siege. Armed groups and poachers have used these remote areas as sanctuaries and business headquarters, trafficking in ivory, minerals, and charcoal made from old-growth forest ...

The Panama Papers leak and the Global Anti-Corruption Summit convened in London last week by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron have focused attention on corruption and tax evasion, highlighting the extraordinary wealth being hidden to evade international regulation ...

Although Darfur’s atrocities are widely perceived to be a thing of the past, the UN announced in the last week that 138,000 Darfuris have been displaced by conflict since the beginning of the year, joining over four million Sudanese already displaced by ongoing wars in Darfur, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan states. Sudan’s conflicts have produced the third highest prevalence of malnutrition globally, and European governments are so concerned about the influx of Sudanese refugees into Europe that the European Union last week donated $100 million to projects aimed at staunching the flow of those refugees ...