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5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

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5 Best Stories You Might Have Missed This Week

Posted by Laura Heaton on July 10, 2009

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.

Don’t miss Robert Kaplan’s great analysis of the Sri Lankan government’s strategy that dealt the final blow to the Tamil Tigers. In some ways, delivering a conclusive blow to a 26-year insurgency is an impressive feat, so should the United States reference this playbook on the battlefield? Kaplan says most definitely no, unless it is just viewed as a set of lessons for what not to do. Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

A report from Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC, out last week pinpointed the causes and results of Liberia’s 14-year civil war and condemned a number of prominent individuals  (including the current president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf) for direct or indirect involvement with rebel groups responsible for the violence that left a quarter of a million people dead. According to the TRC report, the most notorious perpetrator is Prince Johnson, a former rebel leader and currently a senator in Liberia. This interview with Senator Johnson by Glenna Gordon captures his very defiant response.

The podcast series Voices on Genocide Prevention posted this special report by Scott Simon of NPR’s Weekend Edition reflecting on the recent shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and anti-Semitism in the United States today. A thoughtful tribute to the officer who lost his life and spotlight on the vital importance of continuing the fight to prevent genocide.

With President Obama touching down in Ghana today for his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as the U.S. president, Human Rights Watch issued this letter imploring him to use the occasion – while virtually all eyes on the continent are on him – to speak forthrightly about the importance of justice and democracy. Given the battering these principles have taken recently, (the African Union’s defiant move to back a president wanted for war crimes against his own people in Darfur comes to mind first,) President Obama needs to congratulate Ghana on its governance and development but cannot stop there. As Georgette Gagnon, the Africa director Human Rights Watch, pointed out:

Ghana’s progress on human rights is commendable, but it will have little meaning if left as an isolated example. President Obama should encourage Ghana to promote abroad what it practices at home.

It’s always nice when we can close the week on a positive note, which is, unfortunately, rare, but here goes… In honor of President Obama’s first trip to Africa, the ONE campaign released this upbeat video of Ghanaians prepping for his much-anticipated arrival. Hat tip to Eileen White Read.