Enough blogs

Amid Ongoing Election Insecurity, Popular North Kivu Opposition Leader Arrested

Sarah Zingg Wimmer — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:41:45 +0000

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GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- Early on the morning of February 2, Member of Parliament Bakungu Mitondeke and his family were awakened by the arrival of heavily armed soldiers that prompted a firefight between the Congolese troops and Mitondeke’s personal security guards. The Provincial Security Committee had ordered a weapon search throughout the city of Goma, including at the house of Mitondeke. Two soldiers, two policemen, and a security guard died in the skirmish, and an additional six police officers and another security guard were injured.

Once inside the compound, the soldiers allegedly found 10 AK-47 rifles, 10 hand grenades, several smoke grenades, and 50 Congolese soldier uniforms, according to U.N. sources. Mitondeke along with 15 other family members and people at the house, including his wife and children, were arrested, while undisciplined soldiers started looting the private belongings of the parliamentarian, according to neighbors. Close associates of the family later reported that some of family members were tortured. Given Mitondeke’s immunity as a parliamentarian, he was taken to the Supreme Court of Justice in Kinshasa the following day and then put under house arrest, awaiting a possible trial.

Given what the government troops reportedly found, the search and arrest could be plausible and justified, but some civil society members in Goma are vocally protesting the government’s account of the raid and Mitondeke’s alleged culpability. Civil society leaders, including the head of North Kivu’s Intercommunity Group, Alphonso Kubuya, who is an ethnic Hunde like the MP, allege that the cache discovery was fabrication. However, it will be difficult to prove the weapon deposit a forgery amid prevalent accusations that Mitondeke has been collaborating with armed groups.

After Mitondeke was elected as an MP representing Goma in 2006, he left Kabila’s PPRD party to run for a legislative seat in his home of Masisi, as a candidate for Vitale Kamerhe’s Union pour la Nation Congolaise, or UNC, in the 2011 elections. Mitondeke has a large following among his own ethnic Hunde community in Masisi. He reportedly collaborated with the Mayi-Mayi armed group APCLS to affect the allocation of legislative seats by increasing voter registration in Masisi where strong ethnic Tutsi politicians, aligned with the Rwanda linked ex-CNDP, threatened limiting Hunde representation, according to the latest U.N. Group of Expert’s report. According to the group’s research, Mitondeke and the APCLS’s relationship has grown close to the extent that Mitondeke has assumed political leadership of the movement, as well as provided the fighters with weapons and advised against integration into the Congolese army.

Mitondeke has also been accused of being in contact with Colonel Albert Kahasha, who recently defected from the army along with about 30 FARDC soldiers allegedly to create an armed group to fight the ex-CNDP domination in North Kivu and to counter the ex-CNDP’s alleged involvement in influencing the outcome of last year’s elections. The ultimate goal would be to install Etienne Tshisekedi, the main opposition figure and self-proclaimed president, as the legitimate leader of Congo—or to even create a separate Eastern Congo state.

There have also been rumors that Mitondeke was recruiting youth from Masisi and Goma where he allegedly is supporting a militia, according to U.N. sources. General Mayala, the army’s regional commander, who was in charge of the house search, went so far as to say an attack on the city was imminent. The general said six women reportedly were coming from Kibumba were captured trying to enter Goma with explosives the same day Mitondeke was arrested and may have been connected to the alleged attempted rebellion.

Not long before his arrest, Mitondeke told Enough he was among the winners in last year’s parliamentarian elections until the preliminary results were altered to exclude Hunde and other opposition candidates. APCLS responded to such alleged ballot falsification by threatening with attacks, which finally subdued once the electoral commission referred Masisi, along five other electoral districts, to the Supreme Court for cancellation of the legislative elections.

To date, however, it has not been determined how the electoral process in these six locations will proceed. Certainly incidents like the one involving MP Mitondeke have the potential to spur a flare-up of ethnic tension in Masisi, which could possibly endanger a new round of legislative elections in this restive North Kivu territory.

Photo: Congolese crowd gathered to see Vital Kamerhe (Enough Project / Sarah Zingg Wimmer)

Emmanuelle Chriqui: “My Personal Wake-up Call”

Enough Team — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:34:08 +0000

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Editor’s Note: Actress and long-time Raise Hope for Congo supporter Emmanuelle Chriqui opened up during an interview with Enough Project Co-founder John Prendergast about what moved her to take action on Congo human rights issues.

JOHN: What spoke to you about these human rights issues and inspired you to get involved?

EMMANUELLE: I heard you and your friend from Darfur, Omer Ismail, and your level of commitment and passion, and it literally moved me to tears. I think that’s what I was searching for. My personal wake-up call. And to be in a space that was intimate enough to really feel and understand what everybody was saying and to be affected by it. That was really the trigger point for me. What was most inspiring of all was the acknowledgment that there was a lot to learn. It wasn’t like from one day to the next, I suddenly would become this massive activist. I needed to learn about the issues. I knew that I was moved, but I needed to understand what was going on. I needed to learn how to speak about what’s going on. I can’t bite off more than I can chew. That was a tough one because initially when you get involved in activism, you feel as though you want to do more, that you’re not doing enough. I started to brainstorm and thought, “My creative side can really help in all of this.” So it continues to be this ongoing learning process that ebbs and flows. I’m at the point where I see the impact that we’ve already made, just in regard to Congo because that’s the issue I really stepped up behind. Stopping the violence against women and girls was something that really resonated with me. How fortunate am I to be a woman with so many freedoms?

JOHN: Where does your desire to become involved like this come from?

EMMANUELLE: I come from a great family where spirituality and awareness are really important. When I watched the film The Greatest Silence, I remember being amazed by the strength and courage of these women. And I remember that it was initially a massive driving force for me. Like a wake-up call. That feeling that even on a really bad day, I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To watch the stories of the Congolese women, seeing how spiritual they are, their sense of community, and the support system that they create among themselves in their villages is mind- boggling to me. That’s the story that needs to be told. In the film, a woman told a story about the worst atrocities I’ve ever heard that can be done to a woman. She was one of the women who started the group of women speaking at that church, almost like a therapy session. Each and every woman spoke about forgiveness and the presence of God in her life. Forgiveness? Presence of God? These women had the worst things happen to them. It was just the biggest strength of character I have ever ever heard of. It makes everything else seem so trivial. We learn from these women.

JOHN: In terms of the Internet tools, what has the most potential for spreading the word?

EMMANUELLE: Getting people to sign and pass on the online pledges or letters or petitions is important. This is going to go to the president so let’s gather as many names as we can. I know that when we did that a few months back, we got thousands and thousands of names. It was so easy: “Take this and put it on your e- mail list. Write a letter to your representative from your heart.” That’s what I did. I wrote a letter from my heart basically saying I rarely do this. I am moved to do this. If you would take two minutes to follow these directions, you will be making such a huge step helping humanity. It’s so easy. It’s already organized for us. We just need to take the few minutes out of our days to start.

This profile and many others were compiled for The Enough Moment, a book by John Prendergast and Don Cheadle about engaged citizens – known and unknown, in the U.S. and abroad – who are mobilizing to help end genocide, rape, and the use of child soldiers in Africa. Visit the Enough Moment Wall to hear people describe their “Enough moment” and to upload a video, photo, or written testimonial of your own.

Check out Emmanuelle Chriqui’s Celebrity Upstanders page for details on her involvement with the Enough Project’s Raise Hope for Congo campaign.

Photo: Emmanuelle Chriqui (Associated Press / Richard Drew)

Beja Cultural Day Highlights Plight and Resilience of Eastern Sudan Community

Juliana Stebbins — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:17:25 +0000

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A diverse group of activists, diaspora, and Congressional staff came together on Capitol Hill last week to draw attention to the marginalization of the Beja people of eastern Sudan by celebrating the group’s rich history and culture. The Beja have inhabited the northeastern lands of Sudan bordering the Red Sea for roughly 6,000 years but are now struggling to maintain not only their land, property, and freedoms but also their existence as a cultural group.

The Beja have survived the rise and fall of several imposing empires throughout the centuries but the current regime is threatening the security of this ethnic group, with little outside attention being drawn to Khartoum’s marginalization of the East. To publicize the plight of the Beja people, the Beja Congress, Beja Friends, and the Institute on Religion and Democracy hosted a Beja Cultural Day to bring to light the silenced atrocities occurring in eastern Sudan and to encourage lawmakers to actively engage on eastern Sudanese issues as well as provide assistance to the region.

While the afternoon was filled with festive traditional dancing and live music, a panel of representatives from Beja advocacy groups, prominent members of the Beja diaspora, and Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), a champion for Sudan issues in the House of Representatives, used the event to convey the desperate state of eastern Sudan and commemorate those who died in the January 2005 Port Sudan Massacre.

The challenges the Beja people face are similar to the struggles experienced by other cultural groups marginalized by the National Congress Party, NCP, throughout Sudan: The lucrative land of eastern Sudan is exploited at the expense of its inhabitants; the community is ostracized for their culture differences from the dominant Arab regime; the Beja have fallen victim to unimplemented “peace agreements;” and they are subjected to politically induced states of economic and physical desperation. These hardships, however, are exacerbated because their suffering is underreported and consequently under attended to in comparison to other marginalized groups in Sudan.

Much of the international community’s attention has been focused elsewhere: on the Khartoum regime’s campaign of displacement and genocide in Darfur, the South’s civil war and separation, and the ongoing conflict along the North-South border. What is not captured in the media is the Sudanese government’s exploitation of the East’s natural resources and strategic location along the Red Sea. Although the Beja live on some of the most valuable land in the country and host the lucrative Port Sudan, they have some of the lowest humanitarian indicators in the country. The eastern population is plagued by alarmingly high levels of poverty, malnutrition, infant and maternal mortality rates, poor health and education services, and treatable diseases. Omar Hammad Gimi of the Beja Congress asserts that the Khartoum regime has not only induced these intolerable conditions, it has maintained them by refusing entry to necessary humanitarian organizations.

Moreover, six years after the Port Sudan Massacre, the Beja people still live in fear of military targeting from the Khartoum regime. On January 25, 2005, 22 Beja were killed and hundreds more were injured at a peaceful protest calling upon the government to allocate more representation and resources to the region. Violent oppression of these pleas for better treatment and respect for human rights is still an unfortunate reality for the oppressed Beja people of eastern Sudan.

Beja advocacy groups used the opportunity of the cultural day not only to proudly display their rich history but also to call upon Congress to pass a resolution that recognizes the Beja people as a marginalized group within Sudan, prioritizes humanitarian assistance to the eastern region of Sudan, and pressures the regime in Khartoum to cease human rights abuses inflicted upon the Beja.

Photo: Beja advocates perform a traditional dance (Enough / Juliana Stebbins)

Fox News Coverage of Bible College Bombing Highlights Need for U.S. Engagement

Annie Callaway — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:37:21 +0000

Last week, Russian Antonov planes bombed the Heiban Bible College in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan. The Sudanese government denies it was behind the attacks, but eyewitness accounts combined with the government’s history of using Antonovs to attack civilians leaves this proclamation of innocence with little credibility. However, regardless of where the blame lies, it is clear that volatile relations between the governments of Sudan and South Sudan are coming at a massive expense to the civilian population.

Greta Van Sustren of Fox News recently interviewed Reverend Franklin Graham, president of the Christian evangelical group Samaritan’s Purse. The group has supported the Bible College since its founding in 2007. In the interview, Graham notes that this was hardly the first time an institution supported by Samaritan’s Purse was targeted, with previous attacks aimed at schools, hospitals, and designated U.N. food-drop areas. Watch the clip:

Since June, the Sudanese government has been refusing to allow humanitarian aid to reach hundreds of thousands of people living near Sudan’s southern border, causing many to flee to refugee camps in South Sudan. Samaritan’s Purse has begun setting up new initiatives to aid in the influx of people who have been forced from the North. However, these camps offer little respite as they have also been subject to a string of bombings.

Van Sustren observed, “I don’t think people realize the number of people this involves...we have so much attention on other ‘hot spots’ in the world, but this has an enormous impact on thousands of people.” Graham validated this observation, noting that there are 300,000 Christians and 400,000 Muslims living peacefully together in the region, yet the Sudanese government continues to indiscriminately attack both groups.

Fox News’ coverage of the Bible College bombing is a welcome boost in attention to the need for greater U.S. engagement in the region. It generates more urgency for the government to seriously consider the recommendations made by a coalition of human rights groups in a letter sent to U.S. Ambassador Rice last week. The letter urged the U.S. to “take a leading role in planning a cross-border aid operation into Sudan to ensure delivery of much needed food and medicine to vulnerable populations in the war-torn South Kordofan and Blue Nile States.”

Enough Report: The International Contact Group and Steps Towards Stability in the Great Lakes

Annette LaRocco — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:54:30 +0000

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This coming Thursday and Friday Washington, D.C., will host the latest meeting of the International Contact Group on the Great Lakes region. Since the early 2000s, the contact group, a body that consists of representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the European Union, and the United Nations, has met on a quarterly basis to focus on political, diplomatic, security, and development issues in the Great Lakes region of Africa. A new Enough Project report, “The International Contact Group and Steps Towards Stability in the Great Lakes” by Enough Policy Analysts Ashley Benner and Aaron Hall, presents key policy recommendations that the contact group should adopt to further promote peace, development, security, and economic diversification in the Great Lakes.

Given the depth of knowledge the representatives attending the meetings possess—both about the diplomatic world and the realities on the ground—the contact group meeting provides a unique opportunity for key donor countries to coordinate regional policy.

Recent developments in the region, including the fraudulent Congolese elections, the continued deterioration of security along the Rwanda-Congo border, and the deployment of U.S. military advisors to the region to pursue the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, have brought the Great Lakes nations to a critical turning point. It is from within this context that coordinated, harmonized political and diplomatic efforts from the key donor countries of the contact group can have a significant impact.

The contact group’s policy focus neatly aligns with Enough’s key issue areas. The four main policy subjects to be discussed at the upcoming meeting in Washington are the Congolese elections, security sector reform in Congo, conflict minerals, and armed groups and regional dynamics, including the LRA. Enough’s policy recommendations for the contact group are as follows:

Congolese Elections

Call for the resignation and reconstitution of the Congolese electoral body, CENI, in order to make it a more equitable and representative body.
Enact strong consequences and accountability measures for electoral fraud and manipulation by the current government.
Strongly and publicly condemn all state-led efforts to suppress citizens’ rights.

Security Sector Reform in Congo

Focus coordinated assistance on the opportunity with greatest potential to affect change—military justice, which both fights impunity and reforms army behavior.
Address the issue of pay to soldiers and other military personnel.
Lead a sustained and coordinated security sector reform package with the government of Congo and national army, in concert with key donors possessing military expertise, as well as significant bottom-up input from civil society organizations, women’s groups, and local leaders.

Conflict Minerals

Work with the U.S. government to begin a multilateral negotiation process to form an internationally agreed upon certification scheme for conflict minerals.
Support the establishment of a regional monitoring mechanism to verify whether mines and traders are conflict-free.

Armed Groups and Regional Dynamics, including the LRA

Engage vigorously with governments in and outside the Great Lakes region and the African Union to secure more capable troops to apprehend the LRA’s senior leadership and protect civilians.
Coordinate to provide more robust intelligence and transport capabilities vital to enabling the troops to locate key LRA commanders, analyze LRA activity, identify threats to civilians, and act quickly on information.
Pursue a two-tiered defection strategy that encourages LRA commanders and rank-and-file fighters to leave the group, adding a pull factor to the push factor of the military strategy.

Read the full report “The International Contact Group and Steps Towards Stability in the Great Lakes”

Photo: Congolese soldiers marching in formation (Enough / Laura Heaton)

Somalia: Challenges to Dictatorship through Black Hawk Down, 1976-1990s

Mollie Zapata — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:16:37 +0000

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Editor's Note: This week's post in the series Enough 101 looks at the history of Somalia from dictator Mohammed Siad Barre's rule to the end of Western military engagement in the early 1990s, building off of last week's post that covered colonialism to independence to dictatorship from 1840 to 1976.

USC - United Somali Congress

SNM - Somali National Movement

UNOSOM - U.N. Operation in Somalia

UNITAF - Unified Task Force

In 1976, the SRC officially marked the end of military rule by dissolving itself and ceding power to its own creation, the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, or SRSP. Major General Mohammed Siad Barre, who assumed power in a coup in 1969, remained the president and headed the Soviet-aligned SRSP.

In July 1977, Somalia invaded Ethiopia in an attempt to regain the Ogaden area largely inhabited by ethnic Somalis. During the Ogaden War, which lasted until March 1978, the Soviet Union sided with Ethiopia and defeated the Somalis. As a result, Barre expelled all Soviet advisors from Somalia, renounced communism, and sought alignment with the West. From 1978 to 1988 the U.S. and Somalia maintained an amicable relationship.

Under pressure from the U.S. and other Western countries, Barre held sham parliamentary elections in December 1979. These elections and the subsequent re-shuffling of the government resulted in Barre gaining complete control of all government functions.

Through the 1980s, conflict in Somalia simmered as armed groups sprang up in opposition to the Barre regime. Ongoing skirmishes in the border regions between Somalia and Ethiopia kept tensions high between the neighbors. While the U.S. continued to support Barre and provide Somalia with weapons, he turned around and used those arms against his internal opponents. In 1987, Amnesty International documented widespread human rights violations in Somalia, resulting in major cuts in U.S. aid.

By the end of the 1980s, Barre’s control was limited to the area around the capital of Mogadishu, and in 1990 the U.S. withdrew all assistance, abandoning the Somali state to the final stages of complete collapse. In January 1991 Barre was ousted from Mogadishu by forces of the United Somali Congress, or USC, a Hawiye clan-based group.

From December 1991 to March 1992, the country was torn apart by clan-based warfare. The Isaaq clan based in the north, the Daarood clan-family in the south, the Ogadeni in the west, the Dir in the east, and the Hawiye in central Somalia all fought for power in the streets of Mogadishu and the surrounding countryside. (See a map of ethnic clan distribution throughout Somalia as of 2006.) In the capital, an estimated 25,000 people were killed, 1.5 million fled the country, and 2 million were internally displaced over a four-month period.

In addition to the fighting, Somalis suffered from a severe famine from 1991 to 1993 that devastated crops, leaving between 240,000 and 280,000 people dead and up to 2 million displaced.

On May 17, 1991, the Isaaq-dominated Somali National Movement, or SNM, declared the secession of the north from the southern regions, calling the new country the Republic of Somaliland. This move served to insulate Somaliland from the upheaval and famine in the south, enabling the region to develop more quickly and peaceably than the rest of Somalia.

Back in Mogadishu, the United Nations negotiated a peace deal between two major combatants in 1992, and the limited U.N. Operation in Somalia, or UNOSOM, deployed in April 1992.

Spurred by images of the devastating famine and the end of Barre’s rule, the U.S. reengaged in Somalia. In December 1992, the United States and other nations launched Operation Restore Hope. Led by the Unified Task Force, or UNITAF, the mission was designed to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to suffering Somalis. With an expanded mandate, the U.N. peacekeeping mission UNOSOM II took over from UNITAF in May 1993, but soon faced major security obstacles, most famously the downing of two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters In October 1993 during the First Battle for Mogadishu. The incident, which left 18 American service members dead, signaled the beginning of the end of U.S. military engagement. Then U.S. Ambassador to Somalia Robert Oakley estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 Somalis were killed and wounded during the battle. U.S. forces withdrew in March 1994 and UNSOM II left one year later.

Following the example of Somaliland, the area of Puntland (literally the horn of the Horn of Africa) declared itself autonomous, not independent, in 1998.

With clans taking over leadership and governance of the various regions of Somalia, by the late 1990s the situation was described as “neither peace nor war.”

Still Counting the Dead in South Sudan’s Jonglei Conflict

Nenad Marinkovic — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:06:02 +0000

JUBA, South Sudan -- The long-standing Lou Nuer-Murle feud in Jonglei state claimed the lives of a large number of civilians when some 6,000 Lou Nuer youth attacked the rival Murle in Pibor town at the end of December and early January. United Nations officials in the country cannot provide the exact number of people killed, but the U.N. estimates that 140,000 people were affected by the violence.

While the United Nations and the government are working to provide emergency relief for those affected on the ground—a situation that the U.N. humanitarian chief called “terrible”—some 70 Murle and 88 Lou Nuer are housed at the Juba Teaching Hospital, undergoing treatement. These patients, among the most severely injured, are a stark reminder of the challenges the new South Sudanese nation faces.

Murle elders, men, women, and children—some as young as five months old—are struggling to survive. For many severely wounded patients at the hospital the likelihood of recovery is entirely dependent on whether someone from their family or from the community is able to tend to them and can afford to provide them with medicine and food.

The patients lay on beds or on the floor with broken limbs and severe head wounds, in a chilling silence that accentuates the grim atmosphere of the inadequately equipped hospital ward. There is not enough medical care, they complain.

Kenya is a middle-aged woman with two broken legs. She said doctors rarely come to check on her. She told Enough that the last time the doctor saw her was at least a week ago. Kenya shares a room with four-year-old Nyibi, who has a bullet wound in his thigh, and nine-month-old Paul, who was struck in the head with a machete while he was on his mother’s back when she was murdered.

“An elderly woman died last week as she could not move and had nobody to bring her neither food nor medicine,” said Mary Boyoi, a human rights activist and famous South Sudanese musician. As a Murle living in Juba, Boyoi is raising funds to help Murle patients. She said some patients are in desperate need of blood, but there aren’t enough donations. She is using the funds she raises to pay for blood donations in addition to providing medicine and food.

“The condition of these people is very serious, and we need help,” Boyoi said.

Rivalry over access to water and grazing land in Jonglei has become more deadly given the availability of arms and lack of state capacity to provide security. Fueling the intensity of the violence is the impression among the Murle that the government is biased toward the Lou Nuer. But youth from both communities have taken charge of meting out retributive justice for past grievances.

Across the hospital grounds is the Lou Nuer ward, separated as comes naturally to the two communities, but the arrangement is helpful in this environment where emotions run high.

The atmosphere in the Lou Nuer ward is remarkably different, even cheerful, as some 88 people, mainly youth, are counting the days before they go home, they said. Their recovery has been quicker, partly because their wounds are typically less severe and because of generous support from the large Lou Nuer community in Juba. Most are young, strong men who were at the time of attacks fit enough to march to Pibor town in a deadly quest for Murle.

In interviews at the hospital they say they attacked the Murle in revenge for the Murle’s attack on Lou Nuer in August 2011, when some 700 Lou Nuer died and 38,000 cattle were stolen. The August attack was, however, the Murle’s reprisal for Lou Nuer attack in June 2011.

“The government must get involved,” a group of young Lou Nuer patients said, speaking all at once. They accuse the Murle of stealing cattle and abducting children and women.

“If the government doesn’t get involved, we will do it on our own and finish each other off,” said Tut, a young Lou Nuer man.

The Lou Nuer patients at Juba hospital blame the government for ineffective disarmament. They said the government took their weapons away twice and left them vulnerable to Murle attacks.

“We do not have to tell the government what is happening. They can see by themselves. They can either do something or keep watching,” Tut said.

Disarmament of Murle and Lou Nuer communities in Jonglei is an issue of fierce debate in Juba. Some warn that the government's vows to go ahead with forced disarmament are dangerous. Results of the past disarmament attempts in Jonglei have only heightened tensions, leaving one community vulnerable and giving the other an advantage militarily. Fear of this outcome has also prompted communities to fight back fiercely against the SPLA soldiers who come to carry out the disarmament. Valerie Amos, the U.N. humanitarian chief, told the press in Juba that is “very important to disarm people,” but she quickly added, “Everyone must lay down their weapons.”

In a recent policy paper on the violence between the Murle and the Lou Nuer, Enough warned that undertaking a disarmament campaign in the current highly charged context in Jonglei would be a grave mistake and should be postponed. Rather than conducting a forced disarmament campaign, Enough recommended a non-violent, community-engaged disarmament process once greater trust and goodwill between the two communities is established. Disarmament must also be accompanied by the deployment of South Sudan security services to lessen the need for young local men—so candidly expressed by the Lou Nuer youth at the hospital—to take community security into their own hands.

5 Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

Laura Heaton — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:08:38 +0000

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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.

Sudanese blogger Amir Ahmad Nasr makes a compelling call for a refocus on the late southern Sudanese leader John Garang’s concept of a ‘New Sudan.’ With political dissent on the rise in Sudan, there’s a “real chance for change,” Nasr writes for Al Jazeera. But Sudanese working for sweeping reform would do well to recognize Garang’s reframing of Sudan’s internal conflict:

Rather than talk in terms of either the counter-productive Arab Muslim north versus African Christian south narrative or Darfur's Arab versus African tribes storyline, he took an honourable stance and made an important valid observation. He affirmed Sudan's pluralistic nature and mixed identity, and emphasised the crucial fact that all Sudanese citizens, regardless of their backgrounds, were suffering under a murderous and repressive dictatorship.

Never seen as a fully cohesive organization, the recent election in Congo has highlighted just how many competing interests exist within the Congolese army. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting examined some of the key fissures, particularly in the East, in relation to the roles the various subgroups played in advancing their interests in the flawed election.

Adventure tales set along the Congo River seem to be cropping up with surprising frequency of late. The most recent, narrated by Phil Harwood, appeared as an excerpt in the Guardian this week, complete with a YouTube video. The introduction plays up the stereotypes of such an adventure in a way that people with more than just a vague sense of Congo might find grating, but it certainly does sound like a thrill and is worth checking out.

The ‘responsibility to protect’—as an emerging international norm and a moral imperative—is getting a lot of attention these days, especially as efforts to stem the violence in Syria intensify. In a thoughtful piece for The Atlantic, Shadi Hamid considers the role of the United States as the concept gains traction.

“Drones for human rights”? That’s the concept put forth by Genocide Intervention Network co-founders Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Mark Hanis in an oped in The New York Times. Their proposal—which they don’t wholeheartedly endorse just yet but seem eager to spark a debate about—rides on the responsibility to protect as justification for violating state sovereignty. Sniderman and Hanis use the state-directed violence in Syria as an example, but they just as well could have cited Sudan:

It may be illegal in the Syrian government’s eyes, but supporting Nelson Mandela in South Africa was deemed illegal during the apartheid era. To fly over Syria’s territory may violate official norms of international relations, but governments do this when they support opposition groups with weapons, money or intelligence, as NATO countries did recently in Libya. In any event, violations of Syrian sovereignty would be the direct consequence of the Syrian state’s brutality, not the imperialism of outsiders.

Of course, video footage captured on cell phones and satellite imagery are testing these concepts as we speak, and the fact remains: Political will—not just raw information—is the crucial ingredient determining where and how the international community intervenes.

Sudan Army Targets School in Latest Attack on Civilians

Nenad Marinkovic — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:19:03 +0000

On February 1, Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, bombed a school in the village of Heiban in South Kordofan on the first day of classes. Eyewitnesses report that eight bombs were dropped and two landed inside the school compound destroying two buildings. No injuries were reported, even though the school was full of students, an outcome the church group that built and supports the school called “a miracle.”

A Christian Evangelical group Samaritan’s Purse has supported the school since it opened in 2007.

With the opening of classes, the school grounds were full of students, teachers, and families. Zachariah Boulus is a teacher at the school and was on campus when the bombing took place. Zachariah said when the planes first began circling, he was not expecting the school would be bombed, but when the first bomb dropped, people ran or lay down.

“I don't even know where my wife and children are because they ran for safety near the mountain,” he said.

Remnants of the Bible school in Heiban, South Kordofan after the SAF bombings on February 1. (Photos: Saied Mohammed)

In a letter to Ambassador Rice yesterday, a coalition of human rights groups, including the Enough Project, American Jewish World Service, United to End Genocide, Jewish World Watch, Investors Against Genocide, Stop Genocide Now, and Act For Sudan, called on the U.S. to continue diplomatic efforts to open access to humanitarian agencies while considering options for delivering aid to the region without Khartoum’s permission.

“The humanitarian situation on the ground has deteriorated to such an extent that the imperative to save lives now outweighs these logistical and political concerns,” the group said, adding that special consideration must be made to address the possibility that circumventing Khartoum’s approval for the humanitarian operations could further impact access in Darfur.

The ongoing military campaign by SAF in South Kordofan, which began in June, and the total shutdown of humanitarian corridors are threatening to deepen the humanitarian crisis. A full-scale famine may force up to 500,000 people to flee to South Sudan, according to the World Food Programme.

U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Susan Rice and the White House issued statements condemning the latest attacks by the SAF in South Kordofan and Blue Nile on civilian targets, as well as Sudan’s denial of humanitarian access to the two areas.

“I am outraged,” Rice said. She added that even though no casualties were reported, this attack “underscores the viciousness of Sudan’s ongoing military campaign in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.”

The White House statement conveyed deep concern about the ongoing fighting and lack of humanitarian access in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states and urged the Sudanese government “to grant immediate and unconditional humanitarian access to civilian populations in need in these areas.”

While the statement is a welcome note of acknowledgement of the severity of the situation and the likelihood that humanitarian conditions will worsen, the increasingly brazen attacks by the Sudanese government on obviously non-combatant targets offers little consolation that Khartoum will welcome aid any time soon.

“The events of February 2 demonstrate how the Enough Project works effectively with our partners, fusing field reporting on humanitarian crises, together with policy analysis in influential news media, such as USA Today, and leadership in human rights advocacy,” said Enough Project Executive Director John Bradshaw. “The strong statement from the White House on the emergent situation in Sudan and South Sudan is very much in line with Enough’s analysis. Now the U.S. should take a leadership role, acting in concert with the larger international community, and without or without the permission of the Khartoum regime, to deliver food and medical aid to civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.”

U.N. Humanitarian Chief in Jonglei, South Sudan: 'It’s a Terrible Situation'

Nenad Marinkovic — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:42:47 +0000

Sudan Valerie Amos in Jonglei AP resized.jpg

JUBA, South Sudan -- The U.N.’s top humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, visited some scenes of the recent bloodshed in South Sudan yesterday and expressed concern about what she said is a deepening humanitarian crisis. Amos’ four-day visit to South Sudan comes on the heels of inter-tribal clashes in Jonglei state where about 140,000 people have been affected by the fighting.

Amos visited Pibor town in Jonglei state, the epicenter of recent violence between the Lou Nuer and Murle tribes.

“It’s a terrible situation, and I was able to see people who have lost their loved ones, their possessions and livelihoods,” she said at the press conference in Juba. Amos warned that the humanitarian crisis South Sudan faces is much broader than initially estimated when also factoring in the refugees from the southern states of Sudan, Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

“I’d like to emphasize my concern about the situation in South Sudan broadly,” she said. “The situation is very precarious, and the risk of a dangerous decline is very real. The scope of this crisis cannot be ignored.”

Humanitarian agencies are pre-positioning emergency supplies in Jonglei and have very limited time to assist those affected by the crisis before the rainy season begins in March or April. Access to the affected population is under most circumstances limited due to lack of infrastructure, especially paved roads. The dirt roads that exist will become muddy and impassable because of the rains, posing an even bigger challenge to aid agencies.

“Pre-positioning of supplies is the key,” Amos said.

OCHA estimates that 80,000 refugees from South Kordofan and Blue Nile are now in South Sudan and reports there is urgent need for increased food assistance and emergency relief. In addition, the World Food Programme, or WFP, warns that up to 500,000 refugees may ultimately flee to South Sudan due to growing famine in the southern states of Sudan.

“We have requested access to South Kordofan and Blue Nile from the Sudanese government,” Amos said. But such access is still not forthcoming.

The U.N. has made an appeal for $760 million from the international community to meet humanitarian needs in South Sudan for 2012. Amos warned that the crisis could be even wider and additional appeals would have to be made.

“I think that amount may increase as a result of some other actions that may happen, not only the oil shutdown but also if there’s a large movement from Sudan to South Sudan,” Amos said.

“We can only do so much,” she said, adding that the leadership of the South Sudan government is vital in humanitarian efforts. Amos is scheduled to meet with President Salva Kiir and other senior officials tomorrow, the last day of her visit.

At Thursday’s press conference, Amos sounded an alarm about recent moves by the South Sudanese government to shut down oil production. She warned that the decision would negatively affect many people in need, as the government’s loss of revenue hinders its ability to provide services. Oil accounts for about 98 percent of South Sudan’s budget.

“Humanitarian needs will inevitably increase, and the combined efforts of the government, the aid community, and the donors will not be enough,” Amos warned.

Photo: U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for South Sudan, Valerie Amos, engages with local government officials in the village of Walgak (AP)