Annette LaRocco's blog

Two high-ranking officials traveled to Bangui, Juba, Kampala, and Kinshasa last week to address the coordination of regional efforts to defeat the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. There were several important advancements in the regional initiative that came out of the recent trip.  Read More »

Eight years after the official end to the war in Congo, violence endures in the eastern portion of the country as the region remains overrun with rebel groups leaving civilians to bear the brunt of weak civilian protection measures. A horrific example of this is the latest round of attacks on civilians by the FDLR rebel group took place on January 2 and 3 in a remote area of eastern Congo’s South Kivu province.  Read More »

Renewed inter-communal violence in the restive Jonglei state has recently displaced as many as 50,000 people in and around the town of Pibor, South Sudan. The violence began in late December, when a column of 6,000 Lou-Nuer youths approached the town, which is largely home to members of the Murle community burning smaller villages and a Medecins Sans Frontieres clinic along the way.  Read More »

Earlier today,Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal CourtLuis Moreno-Ocampo briefed the UN Security Council about the situation in Darfur, urging the international community to act on the Court’s arrest warrants for Sudanese officials and lambasting Chad and Malawi, which are both State parties to the ICC, for failing to arrest President Bashir on recent visits.

But the crimes of these individuals do no stop in Darfur. In addition to well-documented instances of indiscriminate bombing and forced displacement of civilian populations in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, there is evidence of ethnic cleansing of the Nuba people on the part of the government of Sudan.  Read More »

Malnutrition, extreme poverty, soaring illiteracy, lack of health and education services, and susceptibility to drought and food insecurity are challenges facing the civilian population of a marginalized area of Sudan. The first region which comes to mind is, of course, Darfur, the site of Khartoum’s devastating campaign of displacement and genocide and the focus of much international attention over the past decade. However, these conditions are commonplace throughout much of Sudan’s restive, yet often ignored, eastern region.   Read More »

With the recent African Union, or A.U., announcement of the selection of a special envoy, many keen observers of anti-LRA initiatives have been wondering: Who is Francisco Caetano José Madeira, and what will he contribute to the efforts to end the destabilizing activities and atrocities committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army? A lifelong Mozambican diplomat with familiarity in the Great Lakes region as well as years of service to both the United Nations and the A.U., Madeira brings over three decades of diplomatic experience to the post of LRA special envoy.  Read More »

A bipartisan group of 62 Members of Congress sent a letter this week to President Obama urging the administration to recalibrate U.S. policy towards Sudan in order to address the serious humanitarian and security crises that millions of civilians are facing.  Read More »

Just over a month ago, President Obama announced the deployment of U.S. military advisors to assist regional efforts to apprehend senior Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, commanders, protect civilians, and encourage defections from the rebel group. This is a welcome step forward in the President's implementation of the 2010 LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, but according to the latest LRA Strategy Report Card released today the U.S. still needs to do more.  Read More »

In a shocking phone interview broadcast by Congo’s RLTV television station on November 6, the presidential candidate for the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, or UDPS, Etienne Tshisekedi declared himself president. His inflammatory statement appears to play into the hands of the ruling party.  Read More »

Ntabo Ntaberi Cheka is one of 65 candidates running for the Congolese National Assembly in the Walikale electoral district in the North Kivu province of eastern Congo. This should be unremarkable in an election that features 18,000 candidates running for the 500 seats in the National Assembly. But Ntabo Ntaberi Cheka’s story is far from unremarkable. Cheka is Mai Mai militia leader currently under Congolese indictment for mass rape.  Read More »