Enough Said

We’ve gotten permission to share an excellent recent post by Lane Hartill of Catholic Relief Services. He offers a unique perspective on the conflict minerals trade, writing as though through the eyes of a porter involved in the tin trade in eastern Congo. Here’s an excerpt and a link to the original:

Jules had been hiking all day, slipping his way down the trail to Ndjingala. He pushed leaves as big as dinner plates out of his eyes and shifted the 115 pounds of rocks in the mesh sack on his head. For long stretches of time, all Jules heard was the soft panting of the group of 15 men and the sucking sound of the mud underfoot.

These rocks—heavy with tin ore, known as cassiterite here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—were going to feed Jules' family for a week. But only if he made it to the end of the trail. He'd get a buck a mile: $25 for 25 miles. He was in the home stretch now, only a mile to go. Please, he thought, let the trail be clear. Please, no more roadblocks. Or bandits.

He knew the tricks of the trade: Don't leave the trail, bandits lurk in the bush. Don't get separated from the group of transporters, stragglers are easy targets. Don't stop, not for anything. At the checkpoints, he knew to keep his head down and hand over the few bucks to the men with guns. Whatever you do, don't ask questions. And don't draw attention to yourself.

But then it happened: Word came down the line that a transporter up ahead had been shot at, told to hand over his rocks. The man, stupidly, argued with the men in balaclavas and military garb. Who knows if they were rogue soldiers or bandits. That's when the shooting started. And that had Jules worried.

Jules had started the day before in Bisiyé, a tin ore mine in eastern Congo's North Kivu province. The mine swells with thousands of Congolese from every corner of the country. From high school teachers to grade-school dropouts to army commanders to housewives, all are willing to hike to Bisiyé—estimates have the population there between 12,000 to 14,000—because they know cassiterite means cash.

Read on here.

• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo

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.

Journalist and poet Eliza Griswold recently came out with a new book, The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, that traces personal stories of believers across Africa and Asia. Maggie Fick reviewed the book for Religion Dispatches magazine online, and wove some of her experiences working in east Africa into her commentary.

The French humanitarian aid organization Premiere Urgence published a slideshow of photos from Bas Uele, Congo, an area frequently targeted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. As Enough’s own field staff have highlighted in recent reports, the region has become a haven for the LRA militia because of its remote location; the inaccessibility has also prevented many media reports on the suffering. This series of photos and accompanying narration (in French) gives a rare glimpse of life there.

Time magazine also turned a spotlight on the LRA, this time in a community in southern Sudan where the militia has frequently launched attacks. Reporter Alan Boswell wrote about speculation over the changing nature of the rebel movement, now over two decades old.

A team from NPR created this impressive multimedia piece about the Congo River that makes arch through the country before passing through the capital and flowing out to the Atlantic. The writing, photos, and audio follow the journey of a barge downriver – a trek that this time takes a month – to illustrate how “the way of life along the water route in many ways mirrors Congo's checkered fortunes.”

The Nation is running an expose on the history of human rights by Columbia University professor Samuel Moyn, on newsstands now. Great weekend reading. (HT: Wronging Rights)

• Advocacy
• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Peace
• Prevention
• Sudan Now

With just 128 days to go until southern Sudan votes in a referendum that will likely split the country in two, Sudanese officials and international mediators and stakeholders are entering the final stretch of time in which to stave off potential mass violence that a messy divorce could bring about. In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, Enough’s John Prendergast describes the influential role that the United States played in helping to usher in the 2005 peace deal that ended the long war between North and South and set the stage for next year’s historic choice.

“This all makes the Obama administration's efforts in Sudan nothing short of head-scratching,” Prendergast wrote. Well-publicized disagreements on how to implement U.S. policy toward Sudan have undermined the ability of the United States to positively influence preparations for the likely separation and promote peace in the country. Prendergast wrote:

It's true that internecine battles are par for the course in the shaping of foreign policy. The real problem here is that the decider hasn't decided. The absence of presidential clarity has left allies confused and the Sudanese regime gleeful.

At last, a decision memo is winding its way through the system to President Obama's desk. The hope is that in the very near future he will make some clear decisions about U.S. policy. The most pressing question is how the U.S. and the international community can convince the various parties in Khartoum, the South and Darfur to abandon violence.

The full piece is available online by googling “Obama Is Still AWOL on Sudan.”

Photo: President Obama and Sudan Special Envoy Scott Gration (AP)

• Advocacy
• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Peace
• Prevention
• Sudan Now

A disturbing revelation about the recent mass rapes in eastern Congo emerged from the pages of The New York Times yesterday: the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo knew the violence was unfolding from the very first day. According to figures updated today by the United Nations, at least 240 women, children, and some men were raped during the four-day long spate in late July and early August.

The Times’ Josh Kron and Jeffrey Gettleman got their hands on an internal U.N. email from July 30 – the day the raping spree broke out – that mentioned that the ruthless rebel group known as the FDLR had overtaken the town of Mpofi. The email, sent by the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination organization, noted that one woman had been raped. It advised aid groups to avoid the area.

Contrary to what the email and a U.N. humanitarian bulletin reveal, officials with the peacekeeping mission initially said that they were unaware that rebels were raping women in Mpofi until August 12 when the International Medical Corps alerted them. When presented with the evidence of the July 30 email and the August 10 bulletin, U.N. officials suggested that initial reports about FDLR movement and rapes were commonplace enough to not initially raise concerns about a large-scale operation. “At the time, there was one alleged rape and no reason to believe that this was happening on a mass-scale as later reported,” said Roger Meece, a U.N. special representative, in reference to the email.

As the NYTimes pointed out, the Mpofi tragedy is just the latest in a string of instances in which mass violence broke out with peacekeepers nearby, and alarmingly, it seems that the U.N.’s default response is to plead ignorance.

Enough’s eastern Congo based researcher Fidel Bafilemba noted that in addition to the one rape case that the U.N. knew about, a series of FDLR/Mayi-Mayi attacks on villages nearby Mpofi, including the kidnapping of two Indian co-pilots and nine Congolese, were unmistakable signs that should have prompted peacekeeping troops to be more alert. Civil society activists in Goma have a pessimistic view about the potential for MONUSCU to improve its response when civilians are in danger. A number of local leaders interviewed told Enough that the U.N. peacekeeping mission may stay in Congo for a century and reformulate its mandate as many times as necessary, but indifference and inaction towards Congolese citizens will not change.

So is the U.N. peacekeeping mission simply in over its head, even after 11 years of being deployed in eastern Congo? One longtime U.N. official who recently served in eastern Congo, seemed to think so: “There is a kind of general state of incompetence, which is linked to apathy,” said Karl Steinacker. “If you realize you can’t deal with the situation, you may just decide to do nothing.”

The U.N.’s new special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Margot Wallström, said on Tuesday that the U.N. is investigating its response in an effort to improve implementation of a joint government-U.N. strategy for addressing sexual violence. In particular, U.N. peacekeepers must be trained to better respond to reports of sexual violence since they are often best placed to be first responders, Wallström said. However, she noted that the U.N. faces the challenge of being pressured to drawdown its presence in Congo, while also being expected to mount faster and more effective responses. “So we are expected to do more at the same time with less peacekeepers,” Wallström said. She noted that at the time of the recent North Kivu attacks, 80 blue helmets were stationed in an area over 300 square kilometers.

Meanwhile, a number of teams from the U.N. and aid organizations have been dispatched to Mpofi and the surrounding area to assess the needs of survivors.

• Eastern Congo
• Prevention
• Protection
• Sexual Violence
• United Nations
• Violence Against Women

In late July, WikiLeaks unveiled new evidence that suggested Pakistani officials’ double-dealing as both an ally and enemy of the United States. The documents reveal that the Pakistani intelligence service supported the Taliban’s efforts to fight U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan while receiving hundreds of billions of American dollars for its efforts against terrorism. Not surprisingly, the story captured headlines for days, including this New York Times editorial.

A double game of sorts is also taking place in Sudan, whose intelligence and security apparatus—The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein reminds us—also benefit from U.S. training and support. Though CIA support to Sudan’s intelligence arm appears to have aided U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Iraq and other terrorism hot spots, the strategy also has significant consequences for Sudan, most of which are at odds with the Obama administration’s stated policy objectives in the country.

Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services, or NISS, has played a central role in maintaining the current Khartoum regime’s hold on power. The organ acts as a blunt instrument for the regime, and in its assertion of control over the population, has committed massive human rights violations, war crimes, and humanitarian atrocities. The expansive security and intelligence apparatus is known for its use of brute force, torture, and harassment against perceived enemies of the state, including political opposition, independent journalists, and civil society leaders.

Members of the NISS, including former head Salah Gosh, helped direct mass atrocities in Darfur, and continue to fuel insecurity in the region by illegally smuggling arms to government forces, obstructing peacekeepers' access to recent sites of violence, even carrying out attacks on the internally displaced population, according to the most recent U.N. experts report. The NISS has functioned as a paramilitary force in oil-rich areas—ones that are most prone to violence should diplomatic efforts between North and South Sudan fall apart. Today, NISS officials serve as Khartoum’s spies in South Sudan, where, according to conversations with SPLM officials, they liaise with dissident elements in the South. Southern officials believe that this sort of contact is the reason several militias have emerged in the region.

There is much less talk of the NISS’s role outside Sudan’s borders, but its agents have also played a pivotal role in Sudan’s relations with its neighbors. At the height of the Sudan-Chad proxy war in 2008, the NISS oversaw the supply system that funneled machine guns, automatic rifles, grenade launchers, vehicles, fuel, etc. from Khartoum to Chadian rebel groups, even working with opposition leaders on their attack strategy, according to a U.N. report from November 2008. Given this, it’s not hard to imagine that the NISS was also involved in Khartoum’s support to the Lord’s Resistance Army—a terrorist group by U.S. accounts.

In short, the United States is empowering an organization that has both a history of instigating conflict and insecurity in Sudan’s peripheries, and of spreading arms and instability outside of Sudan’s borders. This is at odds with the Obama administration’s hopes of finding a resolution in Darfur and implementing the peace agreement between the North and South; nor does it sit well with the goal of preventing terrorism from entering the region.

This CIA-NISS connection poses an interesting dilemma for the Obama administration as it pushes for a credible and fair referendum in South Sudan. With U.S. counterterrorism efforts shifting to the al-Qaeda network in Yemen and Somalia, it seems the U.S. government will depend more on its Sudanese assets. If so, what compromises will the Obama administration be willing to make to maintain this “highly valuable” ally as it enters into the eleventh hour of a stalled referendum process and an all-but-dead Darfur peace process?

Photo: Salah Gosh, former head of Sudan's intelligence and security apparatus.

• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Peace
• Prevention
• Somalia
• Sudan Now
• United Nations
• War Crimes

Enough recently had the opportunity to travel with actress and activist Ashley Judd on her second trip to eastern Congo. John Prendergast accompanied Ms. Judd to the region, where they worked closely with Enough’s field researchers to visit camps for Congo’s displaced people, mines, local civil society organizations, and hospitals treating survivors of sexual violence.

“We really drilled down into the causes and solutions,” reports Prendergast. “Ashley mixed real compassion for survivors of sexual violence with probing analysis of the issues that drive the violence."

CNN.com published the first report about the trip this morning. Here’s a portion of the piece, which captures Ms. Judd’s thoughts on the trip in her own words:

CNN: In general, how should travelers planning humanitarian missions prepare emotionally, mentally and practically for journeys to remote and possibly dangerous places?

JUDD: Number one: Check your motives. That's the most important thing.

Number two: Understand the local context. Educate yourself. Reach out to experts, both at the policy level as well as the grass-roots level. Read books about the history of the place. And also be savvy about the particular historical perspective that the author may have.

Watch documentaries. I watched "Born into Brothels" before I started spending time in brothels in Mumbai, India, and it was very helpful for me to kind of spiritually fortify myself because I had the visual.

I knew what they looked like, what they sounded like, before I went, and so that helped me skip over the visceral shock of walking into these phenomenally crowded, fetid brothels.

I had a spiritual director in my life and a spiritual community with whom I stay very current -- and that's enormously important to me.

Because eastern Congo is what it is, it's such a severe place and the problems are so huge, I had my crisis of faith and my breakdown within 72 hours of getting here. Normally, it happens like three weeks into a trip, but this place just cut me off at the knees immediately, and I had to reach out to people with whom I'm walking this walk -- both through e-mail and through telephone -- and that sort of helped me have that breakthrough and tap back into my resilience.

Click here to read the full piece and check out more photos by Jeff Trussell of Ashley Judd in Congo.

• Advocacy
• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo
• Peace
• Sexual Violence
• Violence Against Women

Disappointment hung in the air yesterday outside the Kenyan embassy in Washington D.C., where members of the Sudanese diaspora and human rights activists gathered to protest the Kenyan government’s recent reception of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. “We’re here to protest the Kenyan government allowing the dictator Bashir to go safely into Kenya and return back home,” said Khalid Gerais, a member of the Nubia Project. “We are here with our friends, the Americans, to protest this action for all Sudan, from north to south, east to west, for the whole country.”

Despite being a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, Kenyan officials did not arrest Bashir when he arrived on Friday to participate in a ceremony for Kenya’s new constitution. In response, Darfur activists arranged protests, in both Los Angeles and Washington D.C., to convey their disbelief.

In Washington, Jimmy Mulla, from Voices of Sudan, presented a letter on behalf of the Sudanese diaspora to a Kenyan embassy official. “We are here to express our outrage that Bashir an indicted war criminal be allowed in Kenya—a country that has signed on to the ICC statute,” Mulla said in an email. Mulla believes that peace and security in the region will ultimately benefit Kenya—which borders South Sudan—economically. “If we have peace in all of Sudan, it is good for Kenya as well,” he said.

Melissa Delbon contributed to this post.

• Advocacy
• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Genocide
• International Criminal Court
• Omar al-Bashir
• Peace
• Punishment
• Sudan Now

There are 132 days left until two decisive votes take place in Sudan. That deadline, and the increasing unlikelihood that it will be met, prompted the Obama administration to send an expanded negotiating team under the leadership of former ambassador Princeton Lyman to Sudan last week. These extra “diplomatic boots on the ground,” as the State Department called them, and the display of high-level engagement that they represented, are a necessary and welcome step. But, without a clearly spelled-out Sudan policy from the top, one that defines which incentives and pressures the administration is willing to deal out and what actions or inactions will trigger those responses, the expanded U.S. ground presence will not have the necessary direction to do its job effectively.

In the eleven months since the unveiling of its Sudan policy last October, the Obama administration has appeared more consumed by infighting than the implementation of its approach. Over the weekend, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof outlined the failings of President Obama’s approach to Sudan thus far and, more importantly, the potential human cost of continuing to fail. He wrote:

“(…) Mr. Obama is presiding over an incoherent, contradictory and apparently failing Sudan policy. There is a growing risk that Sudan will be the site of the world’s bloodiest war in 2011, and perhaps a new round of genocide as well. This isn’t America’s fault, but neither are we using all of our leverage to avert it. (…) [T]he problem isn’t that the administration is too busy to devise a policy toward Sudan but that it has a half-dozen policies, mostly at cross-purposes.”

According to sources, including the Washington Post’s article on the administration’s intensified efforts in Sudan, the president and his advisers are currently reviewing U.S. policy toward the country, and are notably “mulling over incentives” to secure the Sudanese government’s cooperation. Incentives are of course necessary, but so are pressures, not in the least because there should be some consequences for the role that the government has played in the recent deterioration of the situation in Darfur. As Kristof points out, Khartoum “sees that it pays no price for misbehavior,” and this only encourages it to continue on a path that makes peace more elusive.

In recent weeks, the Sudanese government has stepped up restrictions on humanitarian aid organizations, quietly expelling a handful of workers in the last month and blocking humanitarian access to a camp for displaced Darfuris in the south. The government has also proposed “domesticating” the Darfur issue, a strategy that may sound good in theory, but that many believe is an attempt to extricate the international community from the peace process altogether, and may ultimately solve the Darfur “problem” through massive violations of the rights of the displaced. Alarmingly, reports indicate that the U.S. has signed off on the dubious plan. Preparations for the two referenda are not going well either; the Abyei vote seems indefinitely stalled as tensions on the ground mount, while substantive preparations for the southern referendum only recently started. Yet while the administration has intensified its efforts on the referendum, it has stayed largely silent on Darfur.

In the little time left until the two referenda, it seems that the administration has decided to prioritize a smooth southern referendum over other issues and principles, including some of those outlined in its original policy. In doing so, the administration has opened itself up to manipulation by Khartoum and a government that can dangle the prospect of a failed or insecure referendum before U.S. diplomats, while stalling or fueling other issues however it sees fit. Bashir’s brazen visit to Kenya last week, which solicited only ‘disappointment’ from President Obama, shows just how far he can push the envelope. The right decision for the president to make at this juncture is to return to the administration’s October policy, one composed of both incentives and pressures and one that looks at the conflicts in Sudan comprehensively.

Photo: President Barack Obama and U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Major General Scott Gration (AP)

• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• International Criminal Court
• Peace
• Prevention
• Protection
• Punishment
• Sudan Now

This article originally appeared in Global Post.

WASHINGTON — In central Africa there is a proverb: The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

Recently, the U.S. Congress, with the support of advocacy groups, faith-based organizations and concerned citizens nationwide have shown that they understand our national connection to the horrific conflict in eastern Congo and have taken their first bite of elephant.

The conflict in the Congo is one of the most complex the world has ever seen. As American citizens we should realize we can only do so much, but more importantly we should realize that we can do something.

Like it or not, the most effective way to create political will in the United States is by amplifying people’s voices through their dollars and consumption habits. The recent passage of a conflict minerals provision embedded within the Dodd-Frank Financial Regulatory Reform Bill is a testament to a group of American citizens and policymakers understanding the ways we can make a difference, and understanding that small steps and persistence will ultimately yield success.

The new bill requires U.S. companies that use tin, tantalum and tungsten — the three T’s — as well as gold, to annually disclose their methods of determining whether their materials originated from the Congo or not and in turn, whether through acquiring those minerals they have directly or indirectly funded armed militants.
Like any legislative reform, the provision has its critics. Some complain that this method of resolving the issue of conflict minerals is over-simplistic, and that the new law will require burdensome reporting requirements, lead to de facto boycotts on mining in the region and create job losses causing increased instability.

The truth of the matter, however, is that inaction on this issue is unacceptable and — for companies that source minerals from eastern Congo and hope to continue to move along the path of the status quo — tantamount to complicity.

The trade in minerals comprised of the 3T’s as well as gold is a primary driver of the conflict in Congo, which has claimed more than 5 million lives, displaced millions more and is directly responsible for a reported 1,100 rapes per month.

These minerals are primary components of the vast array of gadgetry we now consider essential in our everyday lives — mobile phones, laptops, mp3 music players and jewelry to name a few. There is no escaping the connectivity. The new bill is intended to combine U.S. government, private sector and consumer pressure to bolster the government and civil society of the Congo and to reduce the presence of armed groups in the region known to have committed some of the worst human rights atrocities in history.

Both the bill and the Enough Project are working to create legitimate, legal and peaceful mineral trade programs in Congo that would benefit both private sector development and war-weary communities that have absorbed so much destruction.

The Enough Project is categorically opposed to any form of boycott and we are urging our supporters to pressure companies who use these minerals to commit to producing conflict-free products. With the passage of this recent legislation, companies can now make a positive impact in the Congo.

However this is just the tip of a much larger spear. Governments, companies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) need to go further by implementing three critical steps to creating a legitimate mineral trade in eastern Congo. We propose starting with a framework to trace, audit and certify.

To continue reading, click here.

Photo: Tin ore (Sasha Lezhnev/ Grassroots Reconciliation Group.)

• Advocacy
• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo
• Peace
• Sexual Violence
• Violence Against Women
• War Crimes

Kenyan officials today welcomed Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to a signing ceremony for Kenya’s new constitution, in direct contravention of the state’s legal obligations as an International Criminal Court signatory, to arrest the indicted sitting head of state. Bashir is wanted by the ICC for multiple counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Kenya’s public repudiation of international law demonstrates an alarming lack of commitment to accountability for war crimes. It also raises numerous questions about the government’s support for the ICC’s ongoing investigations into post-election violence in Kenya, as well as the motivations behind this gesture of friendship to Bashir, so close to the potential split-up of Sudan.

Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula was unapologetic about his government’s decision: "There are no apologies to make about anybody we invited to this function because I am sure we are enhancing peace and security and stability of this region more than anything else.”

While the first ICC arrest warrant initially resulted in international isolation for Bashir—last November, his attendance at an Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting in Turkey was canceled in response to international pressures, as was a trip to an African Union summit in Nigeria last October—more recently this trend has reversed. This year, visits to Egypt and Libya have escalated to travel in ICC signatory states, including Chad, and now Kenya. Bashir’s visit to Kenya is a continuation of this growing willingness to flout international law, and an alarming statement of the line the Obama administration is willing to toe with regard to Khartoum.

As David Bosco says on Foreign Policy, there is little doubt that the U.S. knew about the trip in advance. Special Envoy Scott Gration is currently in Sudan, engaged in talks. Yet it appears that no pressures were brought to bear—on a Kenyan government that has strong relations with the U.S.—to prevent the vist from taking place. The lack of U.S. commitment to accountability that took place today sends a clear signal to the Sudanese government that the Obama administration is willing to sacrifice some of its own core policy objectives, mostly notably justice for the people of Sudan, in order to achieve others, namely the upcoming South Sudan referendum. In so doing, the administration sends the go-ahead for future acts of intransigence—for non-implementation of the CPA and an indefinite hold on the Darfur peace process—ultimately weakening the administration’s position vis-à-vis Khartoum and undermining any U.S. strategies going forward.

Enough’s official statement can be found here.

Photo: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Genocide
• International Criminal Court
• Peace
• Prevention
• Punishment
• Sudan Now