Eastern Chad

While mainstream media and national security wonks this week fixated on intelligence director Dennis Blair’s remarks about the threat of cyber attacks and the administration’s policy on targeting American terrorists during his briefing for the House, other shifts in this administration’s understanding of national security went largely unnoticed.

In particular, the administration’s point man on national security and intelligence included in this year’s global threat assessment a section devoted to “mass killings” – a “persistent feature of the global landscape,” the report said. Though the actual substance of the brief section is not groundbreaking for those attuned to civilian atrocities committed around the world, the inclusion of the term is significant, signaling a worldview that defines national security threats in a broader, more global framework.

The section states:

“Looking ahead over the next five years, a number of countries in Africa and Asia are at significant risk for a new outbreak of mass killing…Among these countries, a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in Southern Sudan.”

By linking U.S. security concerns and mass killings, the administration has also changed the policy outlook toward genocide and civilian atrocities—as national security threats rather than just humanitarian concerns. Going beyond the moral and legal arguments found in the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, which argues that the international community has the responsibility to protect populations suffering from genocide, mass killings, or human rights violations, the administration has provided a self-interested rationale for engaging in, or even just caring about, the plight of civilians on the other side of the world.

The inclusion of mass atrocities in the threat assessment is also encouraging for many who felt that the blueprint produced by the Genocide Prevention Task Force, convened by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Academy of Diplomacy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, held great promise to set the United States on a path to help avert crises and human suffering. As the museum noted in a recent blog post, Blair’s statement fulfills a recommendation made by the task force in 2008: "The director of national intelligence should initiate the preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate on worldwide risk of genocide and mass atrocities."

Though this doctrinal shift may not translate right away into noticeable changes in the way policy is implemented, it is a significant move toward recognizing the interconnectedness of global conflicts and the exigency of ending mass killings and human rights violations in the world. When they’re ready to start, we’ve got some suggestions of where and how.

Photo: Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair (AP)

Technorati Tags: Eastern Chad Prevention

Longtime rivals Georgetown and Duke will go head to head at Washington, D.C.’s Verizon Center this Saturday afternoon in one of college basketball’s most anticipated games of the season. But it’s a new partnership off the court – set to be announced by students and alumni at the game – that had Enough’s John Prendergast and Houston Rockets star Tracy McGrady clamoring for tickets.

Will you be there?

Watch for more details in the coming days from the Darfur Dream Team.

Technorati Tags: Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad

The Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools program is kicking off the year with the launch of a social networking site and a bi-weekly newsletter. Through these exciting new initiatives, the Sister Schools program hopes to engage a wider audience and foster relationships between Darfuri and U.S. students. Over 350 schools in the last year joined the effort to provide quality education in the Darfuri refugee camps.

With the start of the social networking site, participating U.S. schools will have access to an online community that will connect them with other U.S. sister schools, and eventually, to their Darfuri counterparts in Chad. The site will feature profile pages, blogs, and the ability to share multimedia.

Sister School’s bi-weekly newsletter (the inaugural issue was released today) will provide regular updates on the program, share upcoming events, and feature profiles of participating students and schools. (Sign up to get the next edition here.)

Also, check back in soon to the Darfur Dream Team website for profiles of Sister School’s newly-selected Regional Coordinators.

Technorati Tags: Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad

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 this New York Times slideshow, showcasing photographer Moises Saman’s work. Saman’s photos give us a look at the lives of the Congolese displaced and the work of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, recently called into question for its support of Congolese military operations that committed atrocities against civilians.

To prevent genocide, one needs to speak the truth. These are Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s words, who spoke at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. this week. In a conversation about her experience in working on issues of genocide and mass atrocities from in and outside the UN, she said that speaking the truth as a private citizen and public servant is crucial in bringing an end to these human rights violations. Watch a video of her speech.

Bec Hamilton, as usual, offered incisive commentary on Rice’s speech, calling the U.N. Ambassador out for her vague remarks about what the administration is doing to reinstate services to victims of gender-based violence in Darfur. As she puts it, “We don’t know what is on the list of benchmarks, but we can tell what is not.”

Check out two interesting pieces on Darfur featured in Newsweek. The first, an editorial from Angelina Jolie, questioned whether the Obama administration’s policy in Sudan is really an “evolution of justice.” The second, a photo series, provides a reminder of the incredibly hard conditions of Darfuri refugees and the crossover of violence from Sudan into Chad.

Last, but not least, Jason Stearns’ piece on what may be a budding insurgency in Equateur province in Congo, is definitely worth a read. This area was recently brought into the international spotlight due to the masses of refugees, over 100,000, who have fled across the border to Congo-Brazzaville.

Technorati Tags: Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad Eastern Congo Peace Prevention Protection Punishment Sexual Violence United Nations Violence Against Women War Crimes

Darfur peace talks due to commence today were postponed once again. The meeting in Qatar between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels met a familiar roadblock: divisions within rebel groups.

Despite efforts by U.S. special envoy Scott Gration, Darfur rebels remain split and uncooperative, with as many as 20 different factions existing, said one AFP article. The Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, told AFP that rebel unity is a prerequisite for coming to the table: “We cannot have discussions in Doha if there is no unity. The best way to launch peace talks is to begin with the JEM.”

Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur, leader of one faction of rebels known as the Sudanese Liberation Army,  refuses to participate in the talks—a stance he’s held since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006.

As argued in Enough’s paper on a political settlement for Darfur, a substantive peace proposal must be presented before rebel groups have the motivation to participate in talks as a unified front. The view that rebel unity has to be achieved before the details of the peace proposal can be worked out has only stalled negotiations.

One positive development in the efforts towards peace today: In place of talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels, representatives of civil society, including members of the diaspora, are meeting in Doha to weigh in on the peace process. These consultations are a step forward in including various interests and perspectives of the people of Darfur in the peace negotiations—an inclusion that we hope the international community will insist on when talks actually begin.

Photo: Leader in a camp for displaced people in Riyad settlement (Doug Mercado)

Technorati Tags: Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad Peace Sudan Now

The latest proposition for a Darfur peace process met a tough crowd on Friday, a day after it was publicly released, with criticism ranging from simply ‘it won’t work’ to accusing its authors of “protecting corrupt and merciless leaders."

A “panel of the wise,” led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, unveiled its 148-page proposal for a renewed Darfur peace process this week, opening it up for debate and sign-off by African Union leaders assembled in the capital of Nigeria.

Attention centered on the proposal that a Hybrid Criminal Court be formed to hear the cases of “individuals who appear to bear particular responsibility for the gravest crimes” in Darfur. Sudanese judges would work side-by-side with judges of other nationalities to try cases dealing with crimes in Darfur. Mbeki explained the rationale behind this proposal in his address to the African leaders:

“Exceptional measures must be put in place to assure the people of Darfur that justice will be done, taking into account the objective reality that a number of them have little confidence in the independence and impartiality of their national criminal justice system.”

The proposal doesn’t get into much detail about the AU stance on the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for President Bashir, providing instead more of a review of the AU’s actions toward the ICC to-date (most notably, an appeal to the U.N. Security Council to have the warrant deferred, a request the UNSC turned down). But it does note that the ICC’s mandate is limited and must therefore be supplemented by national judicial systems. (Human Rights Watch clearly interpreted this proposal as a way to potentially sideline the ICC. HRW’s Richard Dicker issued a call for the hybrid court and national law reforms to “not delay the ICC cases for one minute.”)

While reactions to the hybrid court dominated most of the reporting about the Abuja meeting, the AU proposal highlights some essential elements of a political process for bringing peace to Darfur. Some quick thoughts after reading a synopsis of the plan (a useful 18-pager boiled down from the original 148):

-- The panel rightly looks at the conflict in Darfur as a manifestation of a countrywide, decades-old problem: deep inequality in the country, with political power and development opportunities centered in Khartoum. The panel doesn’t provide much detail about how this situation came to be – through ruthless government policies and military campaigns aimed at quashing any opposition – but instead diplomatically attributes the status quo to “the neglect of the Sudanese peripheries by the centre of power and wealth in Khartoum, a legacy that predates independence and has continued to date.” While this explanation is not surprising, it’s also not difficult to see why opposition groups, who have long been on the receiving end of this so-called “neglect,” could accuse the AU of taking an inappropriately conciliatory stance toward the ruling regime.

-- The panel also addresses the importance of making a concerted effort to include a wide array of voices in the peace process, including the Sudanese government, rebels, refugees and displaced people, political parties, civil society including women, the native administration, nomads, Sudan’s neighbors, and “the rest of the international community.” It may seem like a no-brainer to call for “inclusive negotiations,” but Darfur peace processes have fatally overlooked this concept in the past.

Photo: Thabo Mbeki, former South African president and head of the African Union Peace and Security Council. (AP/Mike Hutchings)

Technorati Tags: Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad Genocide International Criminal Court Omar al-Bashir Peace Prevention Protection Punishment Sudan Now

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 discussion over Mahmood Mamdani’s controversial book, Saviors and Survivors, continues in this new review by Sudan scholar and activist Eric Reeves.

In the midst of all the reports last week about the new U.S. policy on Sudan, this one got buried. It’s a brief but interesting NYT profile of Scott Gration, the man at the helm of the U.S. diplomatic efforts, giving a bit of the back-story of how he ended up as Obama’s man in Sudan.

The United Nations’ new Citizen Ambassadorship was awarded to just one American, a photographer from Maryland with a passion for Congo. Emily Troutman was one of five recipients selected from nearly 500 candidates who submitted videos in a contest that asked participants to respond to the question: If you could speak to world leaders, what would you say? This article about Troutman in the Baltimore Sun features two of her videos about Congo, including her winning video “My Message to World Leaders: One Person at a Time.”

Nearly a month has passed since the Guinea’s military regime violently cracked down on pro-democracy protestors in the West African country. Human Rights Watch pieced together the gruesome details of the attack, concluding in a report this week that the violence was premeditated and ethnically charged. This report is just a summary of its findings; the complete version is forthcoming, but HRW notes that it felt compelled to release this early report “because of the gravity of the abuses committed and the need for immediate international action to bring the perpetrators of the abuses to justice.”

Veteran Congo analyst Jason Stearns recently started blogging (add that one to the blog roll), and came out with a very insightful Q&A with an anonymous MONUC official. A couple of key revelations, according to the rep: “The Congolese army is the single greatest threat in the Congo and will probably remain so for the near future,” and “For now, I think we need to stop supporting Kimia II. These operations do more harm than good.” Intriguing.

Enjoy the weekend!

Technorati Tags: Conflict Minerals Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad Eastern Congo Sudan Now

The plight of 17 million refugees and internally displaced persons in Africa, or IDPs, are finally receiving the attention of African of states—or at least five of them. Thursday marked the beginning of the two-day special African Union summit, convened by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, that aims to ratify the Convention on the Protection and Assistance of the Displaced People in Africa. The treaty is the first of its kind to address the issue of IDPs on a continent-wide level and would legally bind participating countries to its provisions.

According to AFP, the draft convention calls for the prevention of forced displacement protection of refugees and the internally displaced, helping victims of conflicts and natural disasters, and providing assistance to IDPs with special needs. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commended these efforts.

Given the occasion, here’s a quick look at the IDP and refugee situations in Enough’s conflict areas, citing figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Sudan: 4.9 million IDPs, 397,013 refugees

Aside from having the world’s largest number of displaced people, about 250,000 people were displaced from South Sudan due to violence in 2009. The large number of Sudanese refugees over the border in Chad is also a huge humanitarian concern; a recent Amnesty International report details the alarming use of violence against refugee women.

Democratic Republic of Congo: 2 million IDPs, 367,995 refugees

During the first six months of 2009 alone, more than 800,000 people were displaced in eastern DRC—the highest rate of newly displaced in the world. These displacements are among the “catastrophic” civilian costs of a United Nations-backed Congolese military operation launched this year. Click here to read Enough's latest strategy paper on the situation.

Uganda: 710,000 IDPs, 7,548 refugees

Two-thirds of the 1.8 million people who were displaced at the height of hostilities between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, have returned. However, challenges remain to ensure that returnees have access to basic services.

Somalia: 1.3 million IDPs, 559,153 refugees

After his mission to Somalia, Walter Kaelin, Representative of the U.N. Secretary General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, concluded that the international community has failed displaced Somalis.

He said, “Existing humanitarian aid is pitifully insufficient compared to the needs of the displaced who often face severe protection risks and marginalization.”

Photo: Displaced by fighting, people arrive at a camp in eastern Congo. (Enough/Laura Heaton)

Technorati Tags: Africa Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad Eastern Congo Northern Uganda Somalia Zimbabwe

Women and girls who have fled violence in Darfur continue to face rape and attack as refugees in eastern Chad, according to a report out today from Amnesty International. The human rights organization asserts that the attacks not only occur when women leave refugee camps to collect firewood but also within the camps, leaving women with few places to seek refuge from the threat of rape. An alarmingly wide array of people are responsible for the attacks, including Chadian villagers, members of the Chadian National Army, aid workers, family members, and school teachers. Amnesty International says that perpetrators of the violence enjoy near total impunity and calls for immediate international action.

Amnesty’s reminder of the ongoing horrors refugee women in Chad comes just as the United Nations Security Council passes a resolution demanding an end to the use of sexual violence as a tool of war. Tomorrow, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will take a hard look at the very same topic at a hearing titled “Violence Against Women: Global Costs and Consequences.” I’ll be there to cover it, since the hearing draws together many of the leaders charged with directing U.S. efforts to combat violence against women internationally. Follow me (amanda4Enough) on Twitter starting at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow for the play-by-play.

Here’s a look at the speakers:

The Honorable Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, Department of State
The Honorable Stephen Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Department of State
Major General Patrick Cammaert, Former Military Advisor to the UN Secretary General, Former UN Force Commander for the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
The Honorable Donald Steinberg, Deputy President, International Crisis Group, Former Ambassador to Angola 
Ms. Geeta Rao Gupta, President International Center for Research on Women 
Ms. Esta Soler, President and Founder, Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF)

Stay tuned for an update post-hearing.

Photo: Darfuri women search for firewood

Technorati Tags: Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad Eastern Congo Sexual Violence Violence Against Women

UPDATE: Sister Schools Program coordinator Stella Kojo-Kenyi reports that since last night's airing of The Rachel Maddow Show, 31 U.S. schools have signed up to partner with Darfuri schools in the refugee camps in eastern Chad.

On her show last night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interviewed Houston Rockets star Tracy McGrady and Enough’s John Prendergast about why they founded the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program. Appearing in a primetime segment, McGrady and Prendergast discussed the challenges that persist in Darfur, where nearly 3 million people are displaced from their homes due to violence that began there in 2003 and continues today.

The segment aired as world leaders gather in New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly, where President Obama captured headlines with his first address to the Assembly. As Maddow explained, activists who were optimistic about President Obama’s leadership on the Darfur issue “so far have been disappointed.” But, she added, “the pressure is not going away,” in part because of celebrities “who won’t let it go away.”

Have a look:

To learn more about Darfur Dream Team and find out how you or your school can become part of the Sister Schools Program, check out the DarfurDreamTeam.org.

Technorati Tags: Advocacy Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Chad Genocide Peace Sudan Now Tracy McGrady