Enough Said

A weekly round-up of must-read stories, posted every Friday (or on occasion, on Saturday).  Read More »

On February 1, Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, bombed a school in the village of Heiban in South Kordofan on the first day of classes. Eyewitnesses report that eight bombs were dropped and two landed inside the school compound destroying two buildings. No injuries were reported, even though the school was full of students, an outcome the church group that built and supports the school called “a miracle.”  Read More »

The U.N.’s top humanitarian official, Valerie Amos, visited some scenes of the recent bloodshed in South Sudan yesterday and expressed concern about what she said is a deepening humanitarian crisis. Amos’ four-day visit to South Sudan comes on the heels of inter-tribal clashes in Jonglei state where about 140,000 people have been affected by the fighting.  Read More »

On Thursday, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir issued a press statement outlining the reasons why the government of the Republic of South Sudan, or RSS, recently rejected a deal ostensibly designed to avoid the complete shutdown of oil production in South Sudan. Kiir further stressed that lasting peace between Sudan and South Sudan will not be found in an agreement concerning oil alone, but, rather, must be built atop resolutions to outstanding issues related to the disputed Abyei area and the North-South border, in addition to the economic and oil concerns that have recently stalled negotiations between Sudan and the RSS.  Read More »

With primary season well underway, a hardened pack of Republican presidential hopefuls has been in the spotlight for months debating everything from health care reform to moon colonies. Despite the wide range of topics bouncing around the various discussion forums, the acute humanitarian crises in Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan is something the candidates have not felt compelled to comment on. However, Mitt Romney, the current frontrunners, has recently taken the initiative to respond to a questionnaire sent out to all the candidates by the advocacy group Act for Sudan at the beginning of December.  Read More »

The Enough Project’s latest report, “Ensuring Success: Four Steps Beyond U.S. troops to End the War with the LRA,” outlines a comprehensive strategy for helping U.S. and African Union, or A.U., forces end the LRA and bring reconciliation to affected communities. Based on interviews in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Washington, D.C., in December and January, this military and civilian focused approach is comprised of four specific strategies known collectively as TTID: increased special forces troop contributions, robust transportation options, enhanced intelligence capabilities, and renewed commitment to promoting the defections of LRA commanders and rank-and-file fighters.  Read More »

Curious to see and hear the analysts working on Enough’s policy on South Sudan and Sudan? CNN and Al Jazeera recently featured Jenn Christian and Amanda Hsiao, two of Enough’s Sudan researchers, in prominent news broadcasts.  Read More »

In a newly released industry white paper the Intel Corporation praised the Securities and Exchange Commission’s, or SEC, process for instituting rules concerning conflict minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In section 1502, the conflict minerals provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, Congress empowered the SEC to draft regulations requiring, among other things, companies to disclose whether they use conflict minerals from the Congo in their products.  Read More »

2011 was a year of unprecedented action on behalf of freedom and human rights. When citizens flooded streets throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. and other countries dropped their long-standing presidential allies and demanded new leadership. When massive human rights abuses loomed in Libya and Ivory Coast, the international community acted decisively. That backdrop makes it all the more puzzling why the two countries where human rights abuses are worst in the world—Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo—have received such comparatively tepid international responses.  Read More »

In March 2004 the U.N.'s IRIN news service reported on the events of the previous month near Tawila in North Darfur—a brutal episode in which 30 villages were burned to the ground and more than 200 people killed. Eight years later, events of a rather different sort were transpiring. The man who had been presiding over the slaughter of civilians in the Tawila area, Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal, was now presiding over the wedding of his daughter to the Chadian President Idriss Déby. On the guest list? Ibrahim Gambari, special representative to the peacekeeping force in Darfur known as UNAMID. Sudan expert Eric Reeves wrote this guest post.  Read More »