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A bi-weekly audio series and podcast service, hosted by Committee on Conscience Project Director Bridget Conley-Zilkic, that brings you the voices of human rights defenders, experts, advocates, and government officials. Vital voices addressing one of humanity's most vital issues. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not necessarily represent those of the Museum.
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3/06/08
11/29/07
8/09/07
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 The former UN envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, sharpy criticized Security Council Resolution 1769 on Thursday. Money quote from the story by Reuters correspondent Opheera McDoom: While conceding that the resolution to dispatch troops was not good, Pronk said "anything is better at the moment (than) not doing anything and just talking".
But he criticised diplomats who negotiated the resolution in New York as "amateurs" playing to their own audiences.
"This is a quick fix in order to please the population in the countries of the West," said Pronk, the former head of the U.N.'s Sudan mission.
"There is no reason for euphoria." In contrast, US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad responded to similar criticism in a letter to the Washington Post on Wednesday. Money quote: I take exception to the assertion in your Aug. 4 editorial "Progress on Darfur" that there is "no ready means to exert pressure" on the government of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al Bashir in the most recent U.N. Security Council resolution. I hope the government of Sudan doesn't similarly misread Resolution 1769, as there will be serious consequences should it do so. He doesn't specify what the "serious consequences" would be (nor does the resolution itself), but asserts that "the entire Security Council [is] responsible to respond with the necessary pressure against those seeking to upset the path toward peace in Darfur."
One might be pardoned for thinking that after 3+ years of relatively little pressure from the entire Security Council, Khartoum is not particularly concerned about how the Security Council might carry out this responsibility.
(UN photo of Jan Pronk (left) by Mark Garten; UN Photo of Zalmay Khalilzad (right) by Paulo Filgueiras).
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8/07/07
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Darfur's fractious rebels reportedly have agreed on a common framework for negotiating with the Sudanese government. This would be important because one significant obstacle to a meaningful peace process for Darfur is the disarray among the rebels, who have splintered multiple times since May 2006. It remains to be seen how robust this framework will be and how much unity the various factions can summon if and when there is a serious negotiation process.
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8/03/07
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The UN Security Council took up Darfur again this week, passing Resolution 1769, which authorizes the creation and deployment of a hybrid United Nations-African Union force (to be known as "UNAMID"). About this time last year, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1706, which authorized a UN force for Darfur. That force never came about -- a first in UN history, I understand -- because Sudan refused to agree to its deployment. Now, Khartoum has agreed to UNAMID, at least in theory.
But that doesn't mean it can't impede, resist, hinder and delay every step of the way. And it can do that without much fear of repercussion, because the price of China's support for 1769 was the removal of any threat of sanctions for non-compliance. Add to that a less-than-urgent schedule for UNAMID's deployment and serious issues of where the forces will actually come from -- Khartoum has demanded that the force be "primarily of an African character" but it's not clear whether significant additional African forces are even available -- and one can't be optimistic that greater protection for civilians in Darfur is very much closer.
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8/03/07
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 So I took a little break from regular blogging over the past couple of months as I wrapped up my time in California teaching at Claremont McKenna College and took a long road trip with my family back to the DC area. But now I'm back, ensconced at the Holocaust Museum full time and ready to blog. And there's a lot to blog about. Stay tuned . . .
(Photo © Toesoxlover, made available under a Creative Commons license.)
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7/17/07
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Laws Without Justice: An Assessment of Sudanese Laws Affecting Survivors of Rape, Refugees International Report. An examination of Sudanese law as it relates to rape and a series of recommendations of change in an effort to stop the law from marginalizing rape victims and protecting offenders. (Jackie Scutari).
SUDAN: Climate change - only one cause among many for Darfur conflict An IRIN analysis of global warming as one of many contributing factors to conflict in Darfur. (Jackie Scutari).
South Sudan: Returning Sudanese Need More Help to Restart their Lives, Refugees International Report. An exploration of challenges facing the Southern Sudanese diaspora. With the return of displaced and exiled persons to the South comes a great need for lacking resources. (John Heffernan).
King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild (Azita Mamdouhi).
We Know Their Names by John Prendergast and Colin Thomas-Jensen. Prendergast and Thomas-Jensen bring attention to three genocidal perpetrators in Darfur who have not been held responsible for their actions by the United States government. (Elizabeth Milligan).
On Ban Ki-moon, Darfur, and Global Warming, from The Guardian Eric Reeves criticizes Ban Ki-moon's claim that the global warming is responsible for the genocide in Darfur, suggesting that such statements distract from Khartoum's own responsibility to preventable atrocities. (John Heffernan).
Responsibility to Protect (Elizabeth Milligan).
Times Select Subscribers (students can subscribe for free from any '.edu' domain):
He Rang the Alarm on Darfur , article by NY Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof. Kristof exposes the efforts of Roger Winter, US "hero" for Darfur. Winter, after witnessing the Clinton administration's failure to protect Rwandan civilians in 1994, worked tirelessly to call attention to atrocities in Darfur as they began. (John Heffernan)
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6/01/07
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If you missed Wednesday's mano a mano between John Prendergast and Alex de Waal, the audio is now up here. Transcript to follow presently.
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5/31/07
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 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon this week appointed Sudanese scholar Francis Deng as his special adviser for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities, succeeding Juan Mendez in that position. Ambassador Deng had an effective tenure as Representative of the Secretary General on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), during which time he developed very innovative yet widely accepted guiding principles for the treatment of IDPs. And he was perhaps the first to speak of sovereignty as responsilibity, an idea that has been reflected in the concept of a "responsibility to protect." There are obviously a lot of questions as to whether anyone, starting with the Secretary General, will listen to him. But as was the case with Juan Mendez, Francis Deng is as good as they come.
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5/31/07
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 President Bush announced on Tuesday implementation of the so-called "Plan B" to pressure the Sudanese government on Darfur. Details were laid out last month in a speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Reaction was fairly predictable. Most advocates felt it was too little, too late. China and Russia felt it was too much, too soon. Former White House official Michael Gerson argued that it was a "big enough stick" in his WaPo op-ed column. Ditto the New York Times. UN officials want more time (no, really) for diplomacy.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock.
And the Sudanese government? Check out Dana Milbank's harsh sketch of the Sudanese Ambassador's Wednesday press conference -- better stock up on your Coca-Cola.
(Photo © Mrs. Reed | Sarah.)
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5/10/07
5/03/07
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Past VoGP guest Alex de Waal recently had a must read article in the Nation. Among his key points: [M]any among Darfur's Arab tribes--most of which have until now remained neutral in the conflict--are shifting toward the rebels. (The depiction of the Darfur war as "Arabs" versus "Africans," always simplistic, is becoming more and more of a misrepresentation as the conflict drags on.) But although they are winning the battles, the holdout rebels are politically fragmented and have no plan for what to do with their military momentum. Most of them want to go back to the negotiating table, but they won't do so unless they get the chance to revise the text of the Darfur Peace Agreement. . . .
Recent diplomatic arguments have been over the makeup of [a UN-AU peacekeeping] force, but there's no strategic plan for how to achieve stability in Darfur. Security cannot be imposed with 20,000 troops, or even 100,000 troops, in the absence of a peace agreement. An effective peacekeeping operation will be nine parts community liaison and political intelligence to one part force. This requires a long-term vision of how peacekeepers will work with tribal chiefs and the men who run village self-defense groups to bring security, peace and reconciliation to the region. But what's needed first is a political deal. . . .
Resolution of Sudan's crises must be guided by two realities. The first is that a popular vote for separation of the South is far more likely than a vote for unity. Most Southern Sudanese say they are waiting patiently for the 2011 referendum. If that vote is free and fair, most will vote for independence. . . . The second reality is that Khartoum's security cabal and [ruling party] operators are sufficiently powerful that they can thwart any plan if their core interests are not taken into account. The choice will be between a soft landing for Bashir and a new conflict that puts at risk the peace of Naivasha and deepens the crisis in Darfur. (Hat tip: BKC-Z)
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5/03/07
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 Acting on a request by the Chief Prosecutor, a judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has issued arrest warrants for two Sudanese -- a high-ranking government official who handled the "Darfur Security Desk" in the Interior Ministry in 2003-2004 and a top Janjaweed leader. They are charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.
Theoretically, the Sudanese government is required to arrest and hand over the two by virtue of UN Security Council Resolution 1593. Uh, right. Not surprisingly, Khartoum wasted no time in shooting the bird at the ICC, or whatever the Sudanese equivalent of that gesture is. The Justice Minister told the Associated Press:Our position is very, very clear: The ICC cannot assume any jurisdiction to judge any Sudanese outside the country. . . . Whatever the ICC does is totally unrealistic, illegal and repugnant to any form of international law. So the Security Council could take some coercive action -- sanctions or the like -- to pressure Khartoum to cooperate. Sound unlikely? If so, it will be up to the 104 members of the ICC itself, which includes 38 European nations and 29 African ones, to make Khartoum feel some heat. If Khartoum succeeds in defying the ICC, on the other hand, it will affirm impunity and seriously undermine the ICC's legitimacy.
(Photo © abardwell.)
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4/27/07
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Advocate for the Doomed: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1932-1935, edited by Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart, and Severin Hochberg. McDonald traveled to Germany in 1932 and in 1933 became League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He sought aid from the international community to resettle outside the Reich Jews and others persecuted there. This diary shows McDonald shuttling back and forth among key political and financial authorities in the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Latin America, and the Vatican; all the time meticulously recording his insights into their thoughts and motives. Frustrated by the lack of support for his work, McDonald resigned in protest in December 1935 (David Klevan).
Burundi: Children Behind Bars Suffer Abuse, Human Rights Watch Report. Children in Burundi who find themselves in conflict with the law face serious abuses in a criminal justice system that treats them as adults (Jackie Scutari).
"The Wars of Sudan", by Alex de Waal in The Nation, March 19, 2007 (Bridget Conley-Zilkic).
Darfur: Assault on Survival--A Call for Security, Justice, and Restitution, by John Heffernan (Kadian Pow).
Several books I have been reading over the past couple of weeks:
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track, by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. Named one of the "Best Books of 2006" by Washington Post Book World.
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It, by Peter G. Peterson.
The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- And Only Liberals -- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, by Peter Beinart.
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright. Recent Pulitzer Prize winner in the general-nonfiction category. An interesting and informative account of the events leading up to the formation of Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, looking into the personal lives of both counter-terrorism authorities in the US and founders of Jihadist ideology and Al-Qaeda.
(Max Wilson)
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4/20/07
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"The Pope and Islam" by Jane Kramer, author of The New Yorker's "Letter from Europe" series for more than twenty years (John Heffernan).
War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, by Doris Bergen. In examining one of the defining events of the 20th century, Doris Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts (Kadian Pow).
The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World, by Carlos Fuentes. The Los Angeles Times says: "Drawing expertly on five centuries of the cultural history of Europe and the Americas, Fuentes seeks to capture the spirit of the new, vibrant, and enduring civilization [in the New World] that began in Spain." (Bridget Conley-Zilkic)
A Darfurian Plan for Peace: Local Perspectives on a Global Responsibility, by Adeeb Yousif, human rights activist for Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO). (Jackie Scutari)
Be sure to listen to Adeeb's interview with Bridget Conley-Zilkic from December 28, 2006.
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