The Senate bill aimed at devising a strategy for stopping the brutal, 24-year insurgency by the Lord’s Resistance Army passed last night with a record 65 co-sponsors. After weeks of uncertainty when Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R) put a hold on the bill, the victory for anti-LRA activists – a contingent of whom camped out in front of Coburn’s office for 11 days – is particularly poignant.

In a statement issued by lead co-sponsors and longtime champions on the LRA issue, Senators Feingold (D-WI), Brownback (R-KS), and Inhofe (R-OK) noted the delay in passing the bill but were enthusiastic about the outcome. Feingold said:

“The passage of this bill sends a message that the United States will no longer stand by and watch the Lord’s Resistance Army terrorize innocent civilians across central Africa, kidnap thousands of children and force them to become child soldiers. This legislation also sends a clear signal that the United States is committed to working with regional stakeholders to change the conditions that have allowed this war to persist for so long."

Brownback expressed his gratitude to Senate colleagues for appreciating the importance and urgency of the bill, and Inhofe called last night’s affirmative vote a “victory for the countless lives destroyed at the hands of [LRA leader] Joseph Kony.”

But even as Enough, along with advocacy partners Resolve Uganda and Invisible Children, celebrate this progress in Congress, new alarming reports have emerged that a dangerous contingent of the LRA has made its way to Darfur. Based on field research and analysis, Enough confirmed today that a group of LRA fighters have found safe haven in areas of Darfur controlled by the Sudanese government. This development – signaling renewed collusion between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and LRA leader Joseph Kony, both wanted war criminals – demands investigation by U.S. policymakers and the international community.

Enough Co-founder John Prendergast reacted to the news in a press release issued this morning:

"The Khartoum regime's principal tool of war during its 21-year reign has been support for marauding militias such as the Janjaweed, the Murahaliin, and the Lord's Resistance Army," said Enough Co-founder John Prendergast. “Facing no consequences for this destructive method of governing, it is unsurprising that the regime is again providing safe haven for the LRA. Absent a cost for this, we will likely see the LRA unleashed again later this year to destabilize the referendum in southern Sudan."

Amid news of the passage of the Senate LRA bill and revelations about the insurgency spreading to Darfur, Enough’s LRA researcher Ledio Cakaj published his latest report documenting abuses by both the LRA and the Congolese army on civilians in northeastern Congo. It’s a damning look at how civilians bear the brunt of the violence from both sides, while the U.N. mission remains relatively futile when it comes to protecting civilians. The report is a sobering reminder of what’s likely in store for the already traumatized people of Darfur as the LRA continues its march north. It is also a compelling case for why last night’s passage of the Senate LRA bill couldn’t have come soon enough. Now we must focus attention on pushing the companion bill through the House.

Technorati Tags: Advocacy Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Congo Genocide Northern Uganda Prevention Protection Punishment Sexual Violence United Nations Violence Against Women War Crimes

An interesting piece on Bloomberg today featured U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration discussing the ongoing Darfur peace talks in the context of upcoming national elections scheduled for April. As Gration put it, “We have this little window where we really need to get the framework solidified,” said Gration.

Gration is correct that the national election will demand a great deal of time and attention from both the international community and the Sudanese government, and that there are “going to be a lot of things that are keeping us from focusing on Darfur.” Key international actors will also be increasingly eager to put Darfur on a back burner as we get closer to the independence referendum for South Sudan in January 2011.

Yet previous attempts to reach a peace deal for Darfur suggest that the most important thing is to strike a comprehensive peace agreement that can be practically implemented and effectively monitored. This remains a far more important over-arching goal than trying to shoe horn in an agreement before the April election or trying to throw a quick deal together that will not stand the test of time. A lasting peace for Darfur involves lots of complicated issues: refugee and displaced returns, compensation for victims; accountability, what to do with rebel weapons and government militias, power-sharing, and more. It is important to remember that at the end of the day, elections are part of the peace process – not the other way around.

We hope to have some more insights into the ongoing talks between the government of Sudan and the Justice and Equality Movement in the next several days, so stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: Advocacy Darfur and Southern Sudan Genocide Peace

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.

Foreign Policy published an excellent piece late last week about genocide as a national security threat. Michael Abramowitz and Lawrence Woocher laid out a strong case for why the Obama administration should beef up its prevention mechanisms for confronting both genocide and mass atrocities.

Here’s a key graf:

Genocide's negative consequences for the United States are increasingly plain. Mass violence destabilizes countries and entire regions, threatening to spread trafficking in drugs, arms, and persons, as well as infectious disease pandemics and youth radicalization. When prevention fails, the United States invariably foots much of the bill for post-atrocity relief and peacekeeping operations -- to the tune of billions of dollars. And even as Washington is paying, America's soft power is depleted when the world's only superpower stands idle while innocents are systematically slaughtered.

Marcus Bleasdale’s stunning photographs from his new book Rape of a Nation were published in this slideshow on Burn magazine. Bleasdale’s deep familiarity with Congo, a place he has worked for many years, is apparent in the intimacy of this collection.

This feature piece by AP reporter Malkhadir Muhumed describes the use of radio in blasting out Shabaab propaganda on one station – and countering with reports from the fragile U.N.-backed government on another. Loyalty to the government station runs its risks, but as one father of nine said, "I know I'm risking my life. But I need a different point of view.”

In this interview, The Root spotlighted award winning playwright Lynn Nottage, with whom Enough worked last fall to bring a staged reading of her play Ruined to Washington. Nottage talks about the research that went in to writing the play, set in a brothel in modern-day eastern Congo, and what she hopes audiences will take away. As the interview reinforces, she’s an exceptional spokesperson for the Congo cause.

The March/April edition of Foreign Policy magazine includes this exclusive collection of photographs from some of the world’s most acclaimed war photographers. The slideshow includes remarkable testimony from the photographers for added context, often including insights about the scene that was transpiring right outside of the frame.

Technorati Tags: Advocacy Conflict Minerals Darfur and Southern Sudan Eastern Congo Genocide Peace Prevention Protection Sexual Violence Somalia United Nations Violence Against Women War Crimes

A week ago, and for just three brief hours, French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid a visit to Kigali, the first by a French leader since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The trip capped off steady improvements in relations between the two countries in recent months, which for years have been strained over France’s role in the genocide. As further evidence of France’s effort to “construct a relationship of confidence,” French authorities arrested a woman alleged to be a ringleader of the Hutu Power movement that orchestrated the premeditated attacks on Rwanda’s Tutsi population.

On the night of April 6, 1994, Madame Agathe, as she was known, reportedly had a straight view of the Rwandan president’s plane as it was shot out of the sky and landed on the grounds of the Presidential palace. The assassination set off a countrywide killing spree that would leave 800,000 people dead in 100 days. It was part of a plan that Madame Agathe allegedly helped hatch from her place of prestige: as the president’s wife.

On Tuesday, French authorities arrested Madame Agathe in a Paris suburb, where she has lived since French authorities airlifted her out of Rwanda in the early days of the genocide. Her name has been near the top of Rwanda’s long list of genocidaires living in countries where they are protected from prosecution by legal loopholes or lack of political will. France’s refusal to extradite wanted genocidaires and disinterest in pursuing them on French turf has been a major point of contention between the two countries, but now it seems France is taking the lead in devising clear ways of prosecuting the likes of Madame Agathe.

During a visit to Rwanda by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that paved the way for Sarkozy’s trip, France announced the formation of a unit within Paris’ Tribunal de Grande Instance that will help expedite war crimes and genocide cases committed in France or abroad. The unit will include language specialists and historians, and while it isn’t yet operational, French authorities seem eager to start filling their docket: A week before Sarkozy’s Kigali visit, police arrested a Rwandan doctor in a small southern French town who had been dubbed the Butcher of Tumba and accused of killing Tutsis near the Rwandan university town of Butare. A French court will decide in early June whether to extradite Dr. Sostene Munyemana.

Post-genocide, relations between Rwanda and France hit an all-time low in 2007 when the government of rebel leader-turned-president Paul Kagame cut diplomatic ties with France in reaction to a French report accusing nine Kagame associates of shooting down President Habyarimana’s plane in 1994. The very dramatic diplomatic split – which sent even French affiliated with non-governmental organizations in Rwanda packing – was accompanied by a call for a Rwandan commission to investigate the downing of Habyarimana’s plane. The Mutsinzi commission, named for its lead author, revealed its findings in January, which pin responsibility for the Habyarimana assassination on members of Hutu Power, including his own wife.

In spite of the obvious self-interest of Kagame’s government in the commission’s report, the investigation that produced it was serious and thorough, according to Rwanda expert Philip Gourevitch, writing for the New Yorker blog:

[The Mutsinzi commission] traces the history of earlier investigations into Habyarimana’s assassination and the genocide, and draws on these findings (which have never before been collected and cross-referenced) to build its own. The Mutsinzi commission brought in independent British ballistics experts to establish the trajectory and origins of the missiles that struck the plane; and, in passages of the report that read like pure farce, they traced the mystery of the black box from the cockpit, which kept disappearing and reappearing and ultimately vanished.

As Gourevitch pointed out, the timing of the Mutsinzi report and the reestablishment in November of diplomatic relations between Rwanda and France is significant. Undoubtedly, the French got a sneak peek at the Mutsinzi findings, and “the normalization of relations amounts to France’s acceptance of the report’s conclusions,” Gourevitch wrote.

Since then, France-Rwanda relations have been on the up-and-up, leading to this week’s stunning move against Agathe Habyarimana. This case, a quick and tangible follow-up to Sarkozy’s visit, seems to signal that France’s commitment to mending ties with Rwanda goes beyond carefully crafted statements (which, it must be noted, still stirred controversy because while the French president acknowledged “a sort of blindness” to the genocidal dimension of Habyarimana’s regime, he stopped short of issuing a formal apology). For his part, President Kagame, often a vocal critic of countries that refuse (for some justifiable reasons) to turn over apprehended genocidaires to Rwandan authorities, addressed the issue of extradition at a press conference this week. While Kagame shoulders much of the blame for the judicial system’s serious deficiencies, his point was valid: “If they don't trust our justice system, let them use theirs to try these cases. All we are asking for is justice.”

Finally, 16 years on from the horrors of 1994, Kagame’s sentiment is beginning to sound a little less like wishful thinking.

Photo: A genocide survivor prays at a memorial in Rwanda (AP/Sayyid Azim)

Technorati Tags: Genocide

Religious leaders from all walks of faith came together on Capitol Hill this morning to pray for peace in Sudan. One theme united the calls to action and prayers offered by speakers representing the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities: Peace for Sudan cannot wait; peace for Sudan must come now.

In their speeches, religious leaders drew not only from their faith, but from personal experience. Archbishop Vicken Aykazian of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America spoke of the parallels between Darfur today and the genocide of Armenians in the past. Reverend Gloria White-Hammond shared the sense of urgency and indignation among Sudanese women working for peace in Darfur: “We will not and we cannot wait. We want peace and we want it now.” Imam Johari Abdul-Malik reminded the audience of the North-South conflict that America, too, had undergone. He said, “We stand for justice, equality, human rights, and religious freedom.”

The prayer breakfast, organized by the Interfaith Sudan Working Group, was followed by a unique advocacy push. Hoping to stir members of the House and Senate into action, the organization dropped off copies of the popular children’s book Humpty Dumpty in each office, as a reminder of how fragile the situation in Sudan is right now.  

Photo: Board Chair Emeritus of Lutheran World Relief Kirk Betts speaks at the Interfaith Prayer Breakfast for Peace in Sudan. (Enough/Amanda Hsiao)

Technorati Tags: Advocacy Darfur and Southern Sudan Genocide Prevention

This post co-authored with Enough policy advisor Omer Ismail originally appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.

Most governments don’t acknowledge it. The Sudanese president dismisses it. Darfurians demand that it be recognized. Academics, activists, and lawyers dispute whether it is still occurring or whether it occurred at all. International Criminal Court (ICC) judges debate standards of evidence surrounding it. The nature of recent attacks this past week by Sudanese government forces and militia allies against defenseless civilians potentially augurs its resurgence. And if a fledgling peace process continues to move forward, then any evidence of it ever happening may well be swept under the rug.

The “it” in question is Darfur’s genocide. Seven years after a small rebellion in western Sudan by Darfurian insurgents unleashed a massive counter-insurgency strategy by the Sudanese government and its Janjaweed militia allies, the debate continues: What should be done about the genocide? How can justice and peace simultaneously be pursued?

The ICC’s recent ruling that genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir are possible gives new life to the issue. And responding to a YouTube question posed by the Enough Project, President Obama appeared to reverse his administration’s stated policy of an “ongoing genocide” by referring to it in the past tense. How do we make sense out of all this?

In our eight trips into Darfur over these past seven years, we have never met a Darfurian who does not believe genocide has occurred. But genocide is ultimately the subject of international law. The Genocide Convention states that the crime pertains when a party intends to destroy – in whole or in part – a particular group of people based on their identity. Although judges will ultimately rule on this, we believe the evidence for genocidal intent is there.

Eyewitness reports this past week of aerial bombardment of villages followed by attacks on civilians populations by armed horsemen echo back to a period just a few years ago when much of Darfur was literally on fire. These reports are emerging simultaneous to a series of framework ceasefire agreements, thus complicating the Darfur landscape further. What we do know, though, is that these recent attacks and their aftermath reinforce a disturbing trend: evidence of the human rights crimes that have been and are being committed is being concealed and compromised.

The ruling party in Sudan responsible for the bulk of the crimes in Darfur is covering up the evidence for previous and ongoing human rights crimes in five unique ways.  The international community must act now – in the context of peacemaking efforts – to blow the lid off this elaborate and deadly cover-up.

First, most of the aid agencies that were thrown out last year by President Bashir were working quietly to support survivors of sexual violence and to protect thousands of women and girls from rape. One of the principal tools of war in Darfur has been systematic rape, a factor in any argument supporting the existence of genocidal intent. By removing most of the groups that were protecting or caring for rape survivors, the cover up is on.

Click here to continue reading.

Photo: Darfuri women carry firewood

Technorati Tags: Darfur and Southern Sudan Genocide Omar al-Bashir Prevention Punishment