President Obama's Cairo Speech: Falling Short on Sudan
"When innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings." President Obama included this brief mention of Darfur in his landmark speech to the Muslim world from Cairo today. Enough joined the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network in issuing a joint statement about the president's speech. What was a "very good speech in most respects....fell very short on the Sudan side," noted Enough Project Executive Director John Norris in a post on our blog, Enough Said. "Sudan is lumped in with the financial crisis, swine flu and Bosnia in a single paragraph. This is enormously disappointing given that the speech was delivered in Cairo, and that Egypt is one of Sudan's most important neighbors."
Recent news from Sudan is grim. Renewed violence in southern Sudan has been so bad that the United Nations Special Representative to Sudan, Ashraf Qazi, announced that the death rate in southern Sudan is now higher than the death rate in Darfur. Meanwhile, a team from Physicians for Human Rights released a report condemning the use of rape as a violent and prevalent weapon of war in western Sudan, including Darfur. Read more about these developments in our blog.
Read an article in this morning's National Journal online, citing Enough, noting that the president "has been slow to tackle some of Africa's most intractable conflicts, leaving many activists impatient and Congress calling for more action." Photo: Associated Press
'How It Ends' Aims to Halt the Scourge of the LRA
 Enough is partnering with the NGOs Invisible Children and Resolve Uganda on June 22 and 23 for "How It Ends," which includes two days of Capitol Hill advocacy, a conference, a rock concert and a screening of The Rescue, a film about rescuing child soldiers from the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group led by the notorious Joseph Kony. These three organizations joined 19 humanitarian, human rights and faith-based groups supporting new legislation requiring the Obama administration to develop a regional strategy to protect civilians in central Africa from attacks by the LRA, and to increase support for economic recovery and transnational justice efforts in Uganda.
Read an article on the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's website quoting Enough's Uganda-based field researcher, Julia Spiegel, and Enough's recent strategy paper, Finishing the Fight Against the LRA.
Read a guest post by Enough Co-founder John Prendergast, writing about the LRA, on CNN commentator Larry King's blog.
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'Come Clean 4 Congo' Video Contest Reaches 300,000
The Enough Project's Come Clean 4 Congo video contest with YouTube is off to a great start. There have been nearly 300,000 views of our videos on our YouTube channel featuring celebrities such as Saffron Burrows, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Sandra Oh, Mary Louise Parker, and Brooke Smith. The contest is asking individuals to create compelling video messages that highlight the link between "conflict minerals" used in cell phones and the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - the deadliest since World War II. The creator of the winning video will be flown to Los Angeles for a screening of their video at an entertainment industry event. Judges for the contest are Oscar-nominated actor Ryan Gosling, actress Sonya Walger from ABC's "Lost," and Oscar-nominated director Wim Wenders.
Visit the contest page at http://www.youtube.com/ENOUGHProject
The Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009
Enough supports the Senate bill on conflict minerals co-sponsored by Senators Durbin, Brownback, and Feingold. Read more about Enough's take on the bill in our blog, Enough Said, and urge your senators to co-sponsor this important bill.
Activities, Actions, Advocacy
- The Enough team joined the Darfur Fast for Life fasting chain last weekend, becoming part of a Sudan advocacy project that has attracted 500 fasters from 33 countries around the world, including members of Congress.
- If you missed the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode, "Hell," that dramatized the plight of former Ugandan "child soldiers" from the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group, you can catch it in reruns on NBC on June 13 and July 18.
- Wear your support for the Enough Project. Click here to order our gray T-shirts from Dialogue. The shirts feature Enough's distinctive exclamation-point logo and a stylized map of Africa in our signature orange color. Fifteen percent of the profits will be donated to Enough.
- Follow us on Twitter! Keep up to date by following 'Enoughproject.'
Upcoming Events
- June 5, 2009
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to address the U.N. Security Council, New York, NY
- June 7-10, 2009
The New Face of Genocide in the 21st Century, conference, Arlington, VA
- June 10, 2009
Connect U.S. Community Meeting, Washington, D.C.
- June 12, 2009
The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court, film screening, New York, NY, at the opening night of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
(Click here for details on the Enough Project's events page.)
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Conflicts in Sudan, Uganda, and Congo were the subject of John Prendergast's interview on the PBS program Foreign Exchange with Daljit Dhaliwal. Watch the video here.
Paco de Onis and Pamela Yates, the producer and director of The Reckoning, a documentary about the International Criminal Court, met with Enough staff to discuss the film. Watch the video here.
John Prendergast discussed our RAISE Hope for Congo conflict minerals campaign on CNN's Inside Africa. Watch the video here.
Policy Assistant Rebecca Brocato comments on violence in Congo:
Humanitarian assistance in the region should be coupled with efforts to dismantle the LRA once and for all, and the United States, which played a role in the recent unsuccessful joint military operation against the LRA, has an obligation to robustly support a new, well organized and coordinated campaign against LRA leadership.
Lee Ann De Reus describes the women she has met at Congo's Panzi Hospital:
People often regard those of us who try to make a difference in places like Congo as brave or courageous. But my part in this is easy...It's the women at Panzi like Balemba who exemplify true courage and bravery. She and the other women like her are not victims but survivors.
Quotes of the Week
The leadership group in Khartoum... [has] seen scores of American diplomats come and go and [has] outfoxed and outlasted them all. They are masters at creating a crisis and then, at American insistence, partially 'resolving' that crisis and thereby creating amongst those Americans an image of being 'someone we can work with.'
Former Special Representative on Sudan Roger Winter in a Sudan Tribune article entitled, "Is the U.S. Selling Southern Sudanese Down the River?"
U.S. policies which maximize political space for Somalis to negotiate...will be of great assistance in promoting an end to the crisis. Conversely, U.S. policies which "redline" Somali groups and movements as terrorist reduce negotiating space for the moderates.
Professor Ken Menkhaus, during his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Africa subcommittee.
Enough in the News
"Genocide Step'" The New Republic article quoting Enough's letter to the President, "A Blueprint for Peace."
"Rape Crisis in East Congo Tied to Mining Activity" Women's eNews article about Enough Co-founder John Prendergast's recent Senate testimony.
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Enough is a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity. Founded in 2007, Enough focuses on the crises in Sudan, Chad, eastern Congo, northern Uganda, Somalia and Zimbabwe. Enough's strategy papers and briefings provide sharp field analysis and targeted policy recommendations based on a "3P" crisis response strategy: promoting durable peace, providing civilian protection, and punishing perpetrators of atrocities. Enough works with concerned citizens, advocates, and policy makers to prevent, mitigate, and resolve these crises. To learn more about Enough and what you can do to help, go to www.enoughproject.org.
© Copyright 2009 Center for American Progress, All Rights Reserved.
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