Protection

In their forthcoming book, The Enough Moment, John Prendergast and Don Cheadle present the stories of celebrities, activists and survivors who have dedicated their lives to advocating for human rights in Africa. It all begins with an "Enough Moment" -- an experience in your life when you realize you have to stand up, speak out, and organize with others on vital human rights issues in Africa.

The book hits stores Sept. 7, but you don’t have to wait to share your own Enough Moment. We’re interested in hearing your story now, so we’re gathering video versions of personal Enough Moments.

Just begin the video by introducing yourself: Tell us your name, where you live, and what you do. In three minutes or less, describe how you are involved in fighting for human rights in Africa, and the moment in your life that prompted you to take action.

Most importantly, be yourself. Film your video in a simple, natural environment. It's just you, on camera, sharing your story.

Want to see an example? Here's Enough's own Mari Wright sharing her Enough Moment.

When you're finished with your video, upload it to YouTube with the tag "enoughmoment." Please title it “[your name]’s Enough Moment.” For example, John would title his video “John Prendergast’s Enough Moment.” Finally, email the link to us at yourmoment@enoughproject.org.

Later this summer, we'll be launching a special Web site, www.enoughmoment.org, where your video will appear alongside other Enough Moments from celebrities, activists, and survivors.

To learn more about the book and to pre-order your own copy, click here.

Thank you, and we look forward to hearing about your Enough Moment.

• Advocacy
• Africa
• Conflict Minerals
• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Eastern Chad
• Eastern Congo
• Genocide
• Northern Uganda
• Peace
• Prevention
• Protection
• Punishment
• Sexual Violence
• Violence Against Women
• War Crimes

This post originally appeared on Huffington Post.

Deep in the mountains that separate the Democratic Republic of the Congo from Rwanda, largely hidden from public view, a war has been raging for the past 14 years. In this gruesome conflict, rape is frequently the weapon of choice, and a wide array of armed groups with many different patrons fight mercilessly for control of mineral riches.

There is no easy solution to ending the war in Congo, which has claimed more than five million lives, making it the most lethal conflict since World War II. But the Wall Street reform legislation signed into law by President Obama includes a far-reaching provision designed to reduce the horrific violence. Building on the work of a coalition of a dozen major humanitarian organizations and industry pioneers, the bill establishes a new mechanism that will limit the ability of armed groups to profit from the illicit mining and sale of cassiterite, coltan, and wolframite and other "conflict minerals."

My colleagues and I have been working for months to pass this provision, and by partnering with the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, and several other key allies in the House and Senate, including Rep. McDermott and Senators Brownback, Dodd, Durbin, and Feingold, we were able to secure broad, bipartisan support for a requirement that companies doing business in the Congo and adjoining countries disclose both the provenance of the minerals they use and the efforts they have taken to ensure that their dollars do not directly or indirectly support armed groups that employ rape as a tool of war and otherwise perpetuate the conflict.

Let there be no mistake: this is only one critical step of many that must be taken to stop one of the world's longest running wars. But it is a major step.

To be effective, this action must be paired with other efforts. By companies, who will need to build on the work of peers who have already started to develop conflict-free supply chains for the minerals they use. By consumers, who will need to make conscientious choices about the products they buy. By regulators, who will need to ensure that the disclosure process is taken seriously, and that loopholes are not reopened. And by Congress, which will need to carefully monitor the effectiveness of the new mechanism, and take other steps to enhance the ability of the United States to work for peace in places like Congo.

Several of those efforts are currently under consideration in the Foreign Affairs Committee. One that is a particularly high priority for me would overhaul U.S. foreign assistance programs for the first time since 1961, thus enabling our nation to more effectively and efficiently target and deliver our aid dollars.

In these difficult economic times, it is sometimes hard to understand why we should care about what happens in faraway and largely forgotten places like the Congo. But in our increasingly globalized world, conflicts in even distant corners of the world can create ripple effects – from mass migrations and the spread of infectious disease, to deforestation and the depletion of other key natural resources – that impact the current and future well-being of Americans.

Despite the difficult challenges we face here at home, Americans are a generous and compassionate people. Our values compel us to fight injustice wherever it occurs, and to reduce the suffering of innocents. The men, women, and children of the Congo have endured unimaginable hardships for more than a dozen years, and it is time for us to act. The conflict minerals provision in the just-passed Wall Street reform bill is an important first step in changing the situation in that beleaguered country.

The author is the Democratic Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He represents the 28th District of California.

• Advocacy
• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo
• Peace
• Prevention
• Protection
• Punishment
• Sexual Violence
• Violence Against Women

Working for an organization that has focused since its inception on drawing attention to conflicts that remain obscure to many Americans – despite being some of the world’s deadliest – it was remarkable to see Congo in so many prominent headlines recently.

One of the leading stories last week was of course President Obama’s signing of the Wall Street reform bill. But several news outlets delved into the 2,300-page bill and highlighted the provision that addresses the role that U.S. companies play in funding atrocities carried out by militias in eastern Congo.

In a front page story in The Washington Post, reporter Mary Beth Sheridan wrote about the impact the new law could have on thousands of U.S. companies:

"This is one of those issues that is below the radar for about 99.9 percent of Americans. . . . Everyone has their cellphone up against their ear, nobody is thinking of Congo or conflict minerals. But everybody's got some, potentially, right next to their ear," said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), speaking recently at the Center for American Progress.

Although little noticed by the public, the provision in the regulatory bill could have a broad impact. It applies not only to electronics companies, which are major users of Congolese tantalum, but also to all publicly traded U.S. firms that use tin and gold.

"This is a law that is going to affect virtually the entire U.S. manufacturing sector," said Rick Goss, vice president of environment at the Information Technology Industry Council.

CNN’s The Situation Room also picked up the story and aired this segment by Mary Snow that features an interview with Enough’s John Prendergast and the viral “I’m a Mac” video by actress and activist Brooke Smith for the RAISE Hope for Congo campaign. (By the way, the video spoof now has an astounding 570,000 views.) Here’s the full clip:

One other prominent article was this analysis piece out of Kigali and Kinshasa by Reuters. Quotes from industry and mining interest groups in the region help illustrate the challenge ahead to ensure that the regulations enacted by the Securities Exchange Commission, the agency charged with devising the plan to implement the law, aren’t weakened by interests who benefit from Congo’s unregulated trade in minerals. Many of those groups seem to have quickly adopted the tactic of crying foul on behalf of the miners whose livelihoods depend on the minerals industry in eastern Congo.

On that point: In reality, of course, the well-being of miners in Congo is forefront on the minds of proponents of this new law. Across the board, from Congress, to advocacy organizations, to U.S. government agencies, to the Congolese government, people pushing for regulation of the mining industry in eastern Congo emphasize the importance of creating alternate employment opportunities and of working closely with industry leaders to ensure that the law doesn’t lead to a boycott. The status quo is far from defensible. The new law won’t be a silver bullet that ends the war in eastern Congo, but it is an important step that confronts some key components perpetuating the conflict: funding for armed groups and lack of Congolese government oversight.

The blogosphere too was abuzz with posts about the new conflict minerals law, culminating today with a post by Congo expert Jason Stearns. He summed up the various points of criticism raised in recent posts by writers critical of the law, and addressed them one by one. Stearns pointed out that while many issues need to be addressed to end the conflict in eastern Congo, regulating the supply chain for conflict minerals doesn’t preclude action on the host of other issues. He wrote:

Yes, I wish we could have greater engagement in strengthening the Congolese judiciary and police. I wish there could be meaningful land reform and that disputes over farming rights could be settled by expert mediators (UN Habitat is beginning to do this). I wish we could have transparent democratic institutions throughout the country. But none of those issues stand necessarily in contradiction with due diligence in the minerals trade. I can't tell you how often I have been in meetings with officials at the State Department, insisting that they help in security sector reform and in paying attention to the return of Congolese Tutsi refugees. Nothing much came of that. Now that we have a chance to help promote meaningful reform in the minerals trade, I think we should seize the opportunity.

• Advocacy
• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo
• Peace
• Prevention
• Protection

After six years in existence, the U.S. anti-genocide movement that sprang up as a result of the outbreak of genocide in Darfur is valuable example of how a dedicated group of people can bring to light a serious social wrong -- even one obscure from the day-to-day lives of most Americans  -- and convince Americans to care and act.

The Enough Project, the Genocide Intervention Network, and Save Darfur Coalition are teaming up today at the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas to share the narrative of the anti-genocide movement and some lessons learned along the way. The movement literally put Darfur on the map for millions of Americans. Activists have turned out for rallies, sent emails and letters to their elected officials, organized events in their hometowns to raise awareness, and found other ways to creatively press for U.S. leadership to end the conflict in Darfur and promote peace in all of Sudan.

We hope that the conversation will give bloggers here in Vegas and the viewers who tune in via the live stream ideas about how to build a national movement around a niche issue, make U.S. foreign policy accessible to a broad audience, and involve people across the country in policy-making. Here’s the line-up:

-- John Prendergast, Enough Project
-- Martha Bixby, Save Darfur Coalition
-- Janessa Goldbeck, Genocide Intervention Network
-- Omer Ismail, Enough Project
-- Laura Heaton, Enough Project

Help us encourage bloggers to turn out for our panel today! Tweet to #NN10 and tell the more than 2,000 participants here to come to Zero2Sixty today at 4:30 p.m. PT in room Miranda 1/2.

You can tune in from afar at this live stream channel: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nn10-miranda-1-2

• Advocacy
• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Netroots Nation
• Peace
• Prevention
• Protection
• Sudan Election
• Sudan Now

With President Obama’s signature, the highly anticipated bill on financial reform became law today, and with it, the United States also took a significant step to address the mineral trade fueling conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The financial regulation bill includes a provision requiring U.S. companies that import products containing certain minerals to file an annual report declaring whether they source their minerals from Congo or one of the nine surrounding countries, since much of Congo’s mineral wealth is smuggled out of the region through its neighbors. If a company declares that its supply chain passes through the region, it will have to report what steps it is taking to trace the origin of the minerals and ensure that its purchases don’t fund armed groups responsible for atrocities in eastern Congo.

While the provision doesn’t ban companies from importing conflict minerals into the United States, companies will have to publish this information on their websites. Consumers will then be able to choose which products to buy based on a company’s track record in Congo, not to mention give advocacy groups information to organize around.

“The consequence is a market-driven one. Consumers can make their choices,” said Rory Anderson of World Vision, quoted today in a front page story in The Washington Post. “Do they want their electronic products to be funding gang rape in central Africa? I don’t think most Americans would want that,” she said.

One of the key Congressional champions of conflict minerals legislation is Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA). The Conflict Minerals Trade Act, which he co-sponsored last year with Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf (R), was a precursor to today’s law. “Making something like this happen in Washington, D.C. in this climate (…) you don’t understand how difficult it is (to do) what we were trying to do,” said McDermott this morning at an event he hosted for advocacy organizations, to recognize the success made possible by the collective effort of advocates in Congress and in the grassroots movement active across the country. Both the congressman and Enough’s John Prendergast, who spoke at the gathering, praised the indispensable work of activists who kept up the pressure on their elected officials to move the bill through Congress. Here’s a clip:

Congressman McDermott is one of a bipartisan group of representatives and senators who pushed Congress to take action on an important element driving the decade-long war in Congo that is marked by atrocious human rights crimes, including an epidemic of rape. Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Russ Feingold (D-WI), Representatives Howard Berman (D-CA), and Donald Payne (D-NJ), and Chairmen Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Barney Frank (D-MA), who ushered the bill through both houses of Congress deserve special praise for taking a major step to ending the neglected conflict in eastern Congo.

With the news last week that the Senate had passed the financial reform bill, sending it to President Obama’s desk, the Congolese government issued a statement commending the U.S. Congress for its effort to help Congo tackle an issue that has long plagued its eastern region. Translated from its original French version, the statement said that the bill helps address the sensitive topic of blood minerals “while reinforcing our commitment to develop responsible business practices that allow our people to make real dividends from resources in the soil and below the ground of the Republic.”

Now that the bill is signed, the Securities and Exchange Commission has nine months to devise the regulations to implement the law. Industry groups attempted to gut the conflict minerals language from the draft bill, and they will surely fight hard to water down the provision at this stage.

There’s a long road ahead, no doubt littered with ploys by those who currently benefit from the trade in conflict minerals. But consensus is clearly building around the belief that cutting off militias in eastern Congo from a key source of funding is good not just for Congolese civilians and the Congolese government, but also for U.S. consumers and companies that prioritize social responsibility.

• Advocacy
• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo
• Prevention
• Protection

“The time has come for an urgent rethink of how the United States can contribute to peace in Sudan now, building on lessons of the recent past,” writes Enough Co-founder John Prendergast in a short paper released today.

“What’s Wrong with U.S. Policy Toward Sudan and How to Fix It” provides a point-counter point breakdown of areas where the Obama administration’s strategy is failing to live up to the policy that it rolled out last October. John’s paper addresses the Obama administration’s view of efforts to make peace in Darfur, implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and negotiate post-referendum arrangements between North and South, utilize and build U.S. leverage, and hold those most responsible for conflict in Sudan accountable. On each theme, the paper describes Enough’s alternative view of what the United States should be doing, based on both the solid policy that the Obama administration itself devised last year and the influential role America played over the past decade to bring an end to the long war between North and South.

Read the full report here.

Photo: Special Envoy Gration and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice at the Sudan policy launch, October 2009 (State Department)

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

The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., will host a panel tomorrow, July 20 on U.S. policy toward Sudan and Congo. Enough’s John Prendergast will participate. The event will take place in the Falk Auditorium at Brookings from 4-5:30.

Here are the invitation and the details:

Over the last two decades, no wars anywhere in the world have been more deadly than those in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan. As the DRC celebrates the 50th anniversary of its independence, its seemingly endless war continues, fueled in part by corrupt governance. Sudan also faces the ongoing conflict in Darfur and, potentially, a bigger war across the south in the run-up to southern Sudan’s independence referendum six months from now. It is a critical time for U.S. policy.

On July 20, the Brookings Institution will host John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project and co-author of the forthcoming book The Enough Moment (Random House, 2010) for a discussion of the ongoing conflicts in the DRC and Sudan. Anthony Gambino, former USAID mission director for the DRC, and Senior Fellow Mwangi Kimenyi of the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings, will also join the discussion. Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon, who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the DRC, will moderate the panel.

After the program, panelists will take audience questions.

• Advocacy
• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• Eastern Congo
• Peace
• Prevention
• Protection
• Sudan Now

This is Obama Unplugged on Sudan. His comments in an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation highlight the divide, which we pointed out yesterday and of which he seems unaware, between his views and those of his special envoy, Scott Gration. The president is clearly supportive, as the U.S. should be, of the ICC's cases in Sudan as a fundamental component of peace with justice.

Well, my view is that the ICC has put forward an arrest warrant. We think that it is important for the government of Sudan to cooperate with the ICC. We think that it is also important that people are held accountable for the actions that took place in Darfur that resulted in, at minimum, hundreds of thousands of lives being lost.

And so there has to be accountability, there has to be transparency. Obviously we are active in trying to make sure that Sudan is stabilized; that humanitarian aid continues to go in there; that efforts with respect to a referendum and the possibility of Southern Sudan gaining independence under the agreement that was brokered, that that moves forward.

So it is a balance that has to be struck. We want to move forward in a constructive fashion in Sudan, but we also think that there has to be accountability, and so we are fully supportive of the ICC.

In contrast, General Gration feels accountability issues make his job harder and seemed to find the timing of new ICC arrest warrant inconvenient, given that, as he put it, "100 percent" of issues that need to be addressed in Sudan are in Bashir's hands.

Who is in charge of U.S. policy to Sudan? The Deputies haven't met in months, and the policy announced in October seems to be in Deep Freeze. Who will suffer for this? The people of Sudan.

Photo: President Obama and Special Envoy Gration (AP)

• Advocacy
• Darfur and Southern Sudan
• International Criminal Court
• International Criminal Court
• Omar al-Bashir
• Prevention
• Protection
• Sudan Now

Amid the news that the requisite 60 votes had been secured to pass the financial reform bill yesterday, we also got word that some industries that benefit from the unregulated trade in minerals from eastern Congo had undertaken a last-ditch lobbying effort to have the conflict minerals provision removed from the legislation. Put simply, a claim made publicly by Jewelers of America that conflict minerals are “too hard to trace” is misleading and contradicts the actions and statements of jewelers and electronics companies. Jewelers of America, or JA, is the leading U.S. jewelry retail association.

An alert sent around by JA warned jewelry retailers that the conflict minerals provision in the financial reform bill would be a “nightmare” to the industry because it would require companies to hire third party firms to audit their supply chain. The Jewelers of America pressed members of the industry to contact their senators and urge them to strike the minerals trade provision.

The real nightmare is in eastern Congo, where the conflict has led to the deaths of six million people – making it the deadliest war in the world since the Holocaust. The war is being fueled by a trade in four minerals: tin, tantalum, gold, and tungsten. Armed groups in Congo continue to massacre villages and rape women in large numbers, sustaining themselves by controlling minerals mines and trading routes. Seeing the urgency of this situation, thousands of Americans wrote to their senators through Facebook last month urging support for a strong conflict minerals amendment.

The bill provision would help stop this deadly trade by enacting supply chain disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies and ensure that consumers in the U.S. would be protected from purchasing products that contain conflict minerals. Section 1502  of the financial reform bill would require companies for which columbite-tantalite, cassiterite, gold, or wolframite is necessary to the functionality or production of their products to disclose in their annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission whether: (1) the minerals originated or may have originated in the Congo or an adjoining country; and (2) provide a description of measures taken by the company, which shall include an independent audit, to exercise due diligence on the source and chain of custody of activities involving such minerals to ensure they did not directly or indirectly finance or benefit armed groups in the Congo. 

This legislation has been in discussion for the past two years, and Congress is taking a landmark step to protect American consumers from unwittingly perpetuating the violence in eastern Congo. They have a right to know whether their purchases are funding groups responsible for killing and rape. This provision in the bill will enable consumers to make decisions about which products to buy based on the companies’ track record in Africa’s Great Lakes region.

Jewelers and electronics companies can trace and audit their minerals back to smelters and mines. We have been to the mines, and traders showed us exactly whom they were selling to. With the new requirements in the Wall Street reform bill, companies will finally be forced to disclose where they are getting these minerals from, and if they are paying off armed militias in the process. 

Contrary to some jewelers’ stated inability to trace their gold supply chains, traceability is, in fact, possible and reasonable, as evidenced by actions taken by some leaders in the industry. Tiffany & Co. is already able to trace its jewelry supply back to its mines of origin, and Walmart has a “Love Earth” jewelry line that is fully traceable back to mines in Utah and Nevada. Electronics companies are also already starting to trace and audit their tantalum suppliers. Interestingly, Jewelers of America’s own CEO Matt Runci had this exchange on CBS’ “60 Minutes” last year: 

"What effect would it have if Walmart simply declared that it would demand traceability all the way to the mine for all the gold that it sells?" asked Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes.”

"There's no question in my mind that commercial pressure can and should and must be brought to bear," Runci said. 

The provision is relevant and germane to financial reform. Investors have been concerned about the conflict minerals trade, and a cumulative group of investment firms worth $200 billion issued a public statement in April 2010 about the need for supply chain reform. Read their statement here. 

We’re reaching out to the large, bipartisan group of senators who have long stood on the side of American consumers and civilians in eastern Congo, and we are encouraging them to see through the claims of those who would like to see the conflict minerals provision killed. The latest word is that final vote on the financial reform bill will take place Thursday, and we hope to soon bring you news that this crucial legislation is headed to President Obama’s desk. Please stay tuned.

Photo: Child mining gold in eastern Congo (Sasha Lezhnev)

• Advocacy
• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo
• Prevention
• Protection

Enough was pleased to organize a top-notch panel this week to discuss the issue of Congo’s conflict minerals. The Congolese Ambassador to the United States Faida Mitifu joined the top State Department official engaged on the issue, Under Secretary for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs Robert Hormats, and Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) for a conversation with Enough’s John Prendergast and David Sullivan about efforts on the part of the two governments to end the trade in conflict minerals, one of a number of issues driving Congo’s long war in the east.

Here are some photos from the event:

Congressman McDermott has championed the conflict minerals issue on Capitol Hill, authoring the Congo Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128) that helped form the basis of the conflict minerals language -- soon up for a vote in the financial reform bill. It’s “not too much to ask” that companies track whether the minerals in their products come from conflict mines, the congressman said.

Under Secretary Hormats called conflict minerals “one of the great moral issues of our times” in his comprehensive remarks. He spoke of his recent effort to convince the G-8 to urge the Congolese government to improve governance and accountability in the region, highlighted the personal dedication of Secretary Hillary Clinton, and noted the direct responsibility of the private sector.

Without naming names, Hormats commended some companies for taking the initiative to clean up their supply chains. But, he noted, “[N]ot all actors in this trade have clean hands.”

“[W]e are looking at companies and individuals suspect of supporting or contributing to illegal armed groups through the illicit trade of natural resources,” Hormats said. “Under U.N. Resolution 1857, all Member States, the United States included, must impose sanctions on those who fall in this category. We will not shrink from this responsibility.” He said that one U.S. company has already been “warned.”

This discussion of sanctions is a key component in the effort to stem the trade in conflict minerals and one that, because of its sensitive nature, is sometimes passed over in official remarks. Seeing it frankly addressed by Under Secretary Hormats was an encouraging sign.

Ambassador Faida Mitifu rightly raised the point that the issue of conflict minerals is not new and was first addressed by a local organization in eastern Congo, whose report spurred attention from the United Nation in 1999. Even apart from the dramatic human toll of the conflict, the Congolese government must work to make the minerals trade transparent because it is currently losing significant revenue, she said.

The full event was captured on video, and Under Secretary Hormats blogged about it as well.

The event, featuring two ambassadors and a congressman, provided a rare glimpse into all of the diplomatic and policy work taking place behind the scenes. Separately, the confluence of an op-ed in the Sunday New York Times, a celebrity-made video, and a piece by actress Brooke Smith and John Prendergast on the front page of the Huffington Post prompted consumer awareness – and as a result, industry awareness at the highest levels – to take off this week. It’s a pretty dynamite combination that is making headway to ensure that the social justice issue of conflict minerals won’t go away – until the problem is tackled.

• Advocacy
• Conflict Minerals
• Eastern Congo
• Prevention
• Protection
• Sexual Violence
• Violence Against Women