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.
In an oped for African Arguments, International Crisis Group’s Ned Dalby spotlights the unique opportunity for ending the Lord’s Resistance Army, given the recent attention directed at the brutal 25-year insurgency by the African Union and the U.S. government. But he cautions that the opening will be missed if strong political commitment from regional leaders, especially Congo’s Kabila and Uganda’s Museveni, the U.N., the U.S., and the African Union wanes. As Dalby emphasizes the “Reason For Optimism” is fragile indeed.
Responding to media coverage about the U.N. Group of Experts’ most recent report on Congo, which, by the group coordinator’s own account “misrepresented” the findings, author and Congo Siasa blogger Jason Stearns sought to set the record straight. “Unsurprisingly, the report steers somewhere between the stark opposites of ‘Dodd-Frank is going to bring peace to the eastern Congo’ and ‘Dodd-Frank has plunged hundreds of thousands into misery,’" Stearns writes. Read “Does the UN think Dodd-Frank has ‘backfired’?” for details.
The social media-savvy State Department’s latest experiment with public engagement, the Twitter press conference, took a heated turn when the spokeswoman offered an unsatisfactory response to a question about the U.S. government’s uneven handling of government-sponsored crimes against civilians in Sudan versus in Libya and Syria. "[D]oes the United States of America have no standards regarding its responsibilities in the face of genocide and crimes against humanity?" asked Eric Cohen from Act for Sudan. Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy covered the exchange and the subsequent outcry by Act for Sudan.
For readers who followed Enough’s earlier partnership with the playwright and cast of the award-winning play “Ruined,” the strikingly beautiful face of Condola Rashad will likely be familiar. Rashad movingly played the role of Sophie, a Congolese rape survivor, in Lynn Nottage’s play and came to D.C. for a staged reading at the Kennedy Center in 2009. The New York Times profiled Rashad for the rising star’s Broadway debut, quoting “Ruined” director Kate Whoriskey about the actress’s innate talent.
Nairobi-based photojournalist Jonathan Kalan wrote this thoughtful reflection on his recent travels to Ituri over Christmas and life here in the Kenyan capital. “Africa Not Fit For Print; The 'Light' Side Of The 'Dark' Continent,” published by Huffington Post, culminates in a call to action that we can all get behind:
It's this, the 'good news' out of Africa, that needs to be — is begging to be — told, shared, exported. But there will be no content if there are no readers, advertisers, or funders.
So here's the call. Speak up, stand up, and demand both sides of the story.