5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

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 latest installation of the bi-weekly podcast series Voices on Genocide Prevention is informative and worth a listen. Host Bridget Conley-Zilkic spoke with Joel Charny of Refugees International, who discusses, among other things, his concern about the “general erosion” of countries’ commitment to refugee rights.

In a recent post on his own blog, Sudan expert Eric Reeves weighs in on the ongoing and loudening discussion over next year’s national elections in Sudan. His post also serves as a useful repository of links to the various reports that have come out in recent months about the election – “all provide extremely gloomy outlooks,” Reeves cautions the potentially optimistic reader.

Keeping up with its recent solid reporting on Somalia, the Economist print edition this week offered this profile of the militant Shabaab group.  The report takes a look at one group – Sufis from the town of Dusamareb – with ambitions to challenge Shabaab. Amid the typical reports these days that pit Shabaab against the flagging Somali government, it is interesting to read about some of the other power dynamics at play in the anarchic country.

Michael Wilkerson of FP Passport provided a useful synopsis of the controversy swirling this week as the International Criminal Court came under attack at the African Union summit, hosted by one of the Court’s most vocal critics -- Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi. As Michael notes, a couple of prominent op-eds came out in support of the Court this week to provide a counter argument to Gaddafi’s din. The fact is, the Court does face some very real challenges, but that is all the more reason for member states to rally behind it.  As former U.N. chief Kofi Annan aptly asked in his op-ed:

One must begin by asking why African leaders shouldn’t celebrate this focus on African victims. Do these leaders really want to side with the alleged perpetrators of mass atrocities rather than their victims? Is the court’s failure to date to answer the calls of victims outside of Africa really a reason to leave the calls of African victims unheeded?

Finally, (though technically from last week,) a moving photo essay from Foreign Policy that illustrates and provides detailed captions about the countries that topped this year’s Failed States Index.  

It’s going to be a bit quieter from us this weekend, but we wanted to leave you with some good reads over the U.S. holiday. And a happy belated Independence Day to Congo, Rwanda, and Canada!

The Enough Team contributed to this post.

• Sudan and South Sudan
• Eastern Congo
• Lord's Resistance Army
• Somalia
• Genocide
• Sexual and Gender Based Violence