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Abstract: The president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, delivered a public address at an event organized by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University College of Law. He shared his vision for bringing stability to Somalia, and discuss efforts to leverage the international community to rebuild civil society and curb violent extremism. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed was elected president of Somalia on January 31, 2009. He currently oversees the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, which is the international recognized government coalition, formed with the backing of the United States and the United Nations.
Abstract: In the southeast Australian city of Melbourne, hundreds of police swept through 19 houses, arresting four young men in what they say was a plot to blow up a large army base outside Sydney. Officials said the men were Australian citizens of Somali and Lebanese descent with ties to a group linked to al-Qaeda.
In Somalia, pirates have released a German container ship and its crew. The ship was captured 400 miles off the coast of Somalia and the crew was held for ransom. On Monday, the owners of the ship paid the pirates almost $3 million.
Sarjoh Bah, a senior fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the chaos in Somalia, Somali militants abroad and Hillary Clinton’s expected visit with the president of Somalia.
Abstract: Filmed and directed by Refugees International Board Member Matt Dillon, this short documentary was developed following a Refugees International assessment to south Sudan in February 2009. It documents the struggles of approximately 2 million south Sudanese refugees who have returned home following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south Sudan that ended a 21-year civil war.
South Sudanese are finding their home areas have minimal basic services available to help them reintegrate into their communities. They face extreme poverty and lack of access to water, sanitation, education, health care and jobs. Further conflicts between north and south Sudan, and internal fighting within south Sudan, are displacing many people again.
The U.S. and the international community must support the implementation of the peace process and increase funding for basic social services and income opportunities. A broader regional strategy must be developed that resolves the root causes of conflict throughout all of Sudan.
Abstract: The Central African Republic (CAR) has been in the throes of a humanitarian crisis for more than a decade. Army mutinies, coups and attempted coups, rebellions, gangs that kidnap for ransom and, more recently, elements of Uganda’s notorious Lord’s Resistance Army have made life for civilians, especially in the north, extremely challenging, unpredictable, and very dangerous.
As IRIN’s new documentary film, Under the Gun, demonstrates, many Central Africans have little say over where they live even. Countless villages in the north lie abandoned, crumbling with disuse, their residents ensconced nearby in makeshift bush camps, too scared to return.
Details of perpetrators vary from village to village and depend on the year of what are euphemistically referred to as “events”. But for the most part, the story is the same: one day in 2003, or 2006, or 2007, or 2009, men with guns – government soldiers, Chadian soldiers, mutinous soldiers, rebels – fighting other men with guns, turned up at dawn, shooting, sometimes executing, often setting fire to every thatched roof.
Abstract: In 2008, political violence erupted throughout Zimbabwe as a result of the contested national elections. Zimbabwean women of all ages, targeted for their political affiliations, were abducted from their workplaces and homes, raped, tortured, and beaten in secret torture centers. It is estimated that from May to July, state-sanctioned groups raped over 2,000 women and girls. The local police have ignored these women's pleas for protection and justice, and national leaders have been equally unresponsive to local and international demands for an end to the violence.
Hear Us features four of these women, who have come forward to demand justice from the Zimbabwean government and the Southern African Development Community. Women like Memory and Abigail, who struggle daily with the physical and psychological scars of their abuse, tell their stories to uncover the enduring effects of this violence on the women of Zimbabwe and their families.
Abstract: In areas ravaged by conflict, the health needs of women are often neglected and ignored. As the bombs fall, the damage to infrastructure and communications affects the whole community but women are particularly at risk.
Abstract: Years of fighting in Darfur have destroyed hundreds of villages, displaced 2.2 million and led to more than 400,000 deaths. President Bush has accused the government of Sudan of genocide, but the U.S. has taken few concrete actions to stop the fighting. Narrated by Sam Waterston, this documentary tells the story of those who have lost their loved ones to this war, those who are fighting to survive and those who are working to bring peace to the region.
Abstract: Somalia is being ripped apart by conflict. The country's weak transitional government is at war with powerful insurgents. When the Ethiopian military intervened there two years ago, the country had already endured sixteen years without a government. The US backs the Ethiopian troops, who fight alongside Somali government forces. Their main opponent is Al-Shabaab, a Muslim fundamentalist group. All sides in the conflict are committing war crimes. Rape, assassination, looting, and indiscriminate bombings are common. The victims are civilians. There are the stories of the people who fled Mogadishu.
Abstract: Jean-Marie Fardeau, directeur de Human Rights Watch Paris, répond à nos questions :
- HRW dénonce la situation humanitaire alarmante des populations civiles dans le Nord Kivu. Qu’en est-il exactement?
- Vous appelez le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU à accroître le nombre de Casques bleus dans le Nord du pays. Pensez-vous qu’ils seront, même en plus grand nombre, en mesure de protéger les populations civiles?
- Au delà de la MONUC, quel rôle la communauté internationale doit-elle jouer pour améliorer la situation humanitaire en RDC? Pensez-vous que l’Union européenne devrait intervenir?
Abstract: With its bounty of natural resources, it could have been one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Instead, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been plundered and wracked with fighting. And if one rebel leader has his way, the government will be overthrown in this latest outbreak of violence.
Abstract: Interviewee: Anthony W. Gambino, former USAID mission director for the Democratic Republic of Congo
Interviewer: Stephanie Hanson
Conflict in eastern Congo has escalated, with hundreds of thousand displaced in recent weeks. Anthony Gambino, former USAID mission director for the Democratic Republic of Congo and author of a new Council Special Report on the country, discusses the rampant lawlessness in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu. The Congolese military is not fighting rebel groups, but rather looting and fleeing from conflict. Gambino says that the "only plausible force" to secure eastern Congo is the UN peacekeeping force, MONUC. He suggests that the problem in eastern Congo is analogous to the problem Sierra Leone faced in 2000, when a British intervention stabilized the country.
Gambino is critical of U.S. policy toward the Democratic Republic of Congo. "We have regularly been satisfied with small steps that may appear to paper over the crisis of the moment but in no way deal with the fundamental problems." As he notes, the problems in eastern Congo are not new, but have persisted for the past fifteen years. The United States should support an expansion of MONUC by two thousand troops, he says.
The Congolese army needs extensive training to become a professional force, Gambino recommends. He outlines the way in which this training should work, and notes that it will take at least two years before even one or two brigades would be ready for operations.
Abstract: BBC World Affairs Correspondent Mark Doyle explores why over five million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past decade.
Statistics from aid agency The International Rescue Committee show mortality rates in Congo to be significantly higher than other sub-Saharan African countries. Mark finds out why DRC is arguably suffering the world's deadliest crisis since World War II.
Violent conflict is one cause. The armies of half a dozen African states have become involved in the region and the UN has its largest peacekeeping force there - but the vast majority of deaths are caused by treatable conditions such as malaria and malnutrition.
Mark travels by boat up the River Congo to visit villages in the west of the country, and drives through the war-ravaged agricultural communities of the east, near the volatile border with Rwanda. He comes across a number of mothers in the towns and villages, every one of whom has experienced the death of a child. Many have lost more than one.
The two part documentary features Congolese health personnel, fishermen and farmers.
Abstract: 38 000 victimes de violences sexuelles prises en charge en 2007 par l’Unicef et ses partenaires en République Démocratique du Congo (RDC)… Mais combien d’autres, restées sur le bord de la route, anonymes? Il est des situations où les chiffres sont si dramatiques qu’ils ne parlent plus. Dans l’est de la RDC, la violence et les tortures sexuelles envers les femmes et les enfants ont pris, ces dernières années, une ampleur exceptionnelle. L’Unicef, quelques hôpitaux, plusieurs ONG et les communautés luttent pour enrayer un fléau que l’impunité ne fait que nourrir.
Abstract: Monitoring the return of internally displaced people (IDPs) in northern Uganda (2008) was produced by the Social Communications Department of Gulu Archdiocese with support from Conciliation Resources.
Peace talks between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have brought relative calm to Acholiland, although a final agreement remains unsigned. After over a decade of living in often squalid conditions in large IDP camps, many people are cautiously returning to their original homes or resettlement sites close by. This video looks at the challenges they face.
Abstract: Interview avec Philippe Hugon, Directeur de recherche à l'IRIS, sur les questions:
(1) Comment interprétez-vous le retrait de Morgan Tsvangirai de la course présidentielle? Etait-il inéluctable? (2) La pression de la communauté internationale n'a-t-elle pas failli, devant ce que Bernard Kouchner a qualifié "de plus grand déni démocratique que l'Afrique ait connu"? (3) Qu'en est-il du rôle de la Chine, soutien inconditionnel du régime jusqu'à présent? (4) Quid de la population? Les violences contre les opposants au régime vont-elles continuer?
Abstract: Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 over two and a half million Iraqis have become refugees, fleeing war to seek asylum in neighboring countries. Exiled forgotten and rightless, the millions of Iraqi refugees wait for help.
Abstract: Au Tchad, les affrontements sporadiques entre groupes d’opposition armés et forces gouvernementales se poursuivent, après que l’offensive menée début février contre la capitale, N'djamena, a échoué. Plus grave encore, les affrontements intercommunautaires dans l’est du pays ont des conséquences dramatiques pour les civils, en particulier dans la région de Dar Sila et dans certaines parties de la région d’Assoungha (nord du pays). Aucune force de sécurité n’étant présente pour arrêter les combats, le banditisme et l’état de non-droit limitent régulièrement les efforts humanitaires.
Abstract: Rebecca Feeley, a field researcher for the ENOUGH Project discusses the current situation in Congo, particularly the massive problem of gender based violence.
Abstract: Despite continuing reports of Sudanese involvement in the killing, rape, and displacement of many thousands in Darfur, the Khartoum regime was celebrated for its "cooperation" at the recently concluded session of the UN Human Rights Council. Sudan’s allies from the African, Islamic groups and Non-Aligned blocs lined up to praise Khartoum, a position that was formalized in a consensus resolution welcoming the “collaboration of the government of Sudan.” Gibreil Hamid, a survivor from Darfur, took the floor on behalf of UN Watch to confront the impunity granted to Sudan.
Abstract: This edition focuses on the situation in Sudan’s conflict-ridden Darfur region. Studies conducted by the UN, US government, and other agencies estimate that between 100,000 and 400,000 people have died since the war first erupted in 2003. The UN says 2.4 million people are still living in massive displaced-persons camps after having fled violent attacks on their villages. And the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that another 230,000 remain in refugee camps in neighboring Chad.
Abstract: During the tenure of President Bush, the United States has expended significant diplomatic effort on the crisis in Darfur. Yet a peacekeeping force has been dogged by delays, and there is no political resolution in sight. John Prendergast, codirector of the ENOUGH Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity, discusses what a new U.S. president could do to change strategy on Darfur. He says there are “significant flaws” in the current U.S. strategy, including its approach to facilitating peace talks. The State Department currently has one special envoy to Sudan, but Prendergast says an effective peace process needs “sustained, field-based, round the clock engagement with a team of U.S. diplomats working closely with the Chinese and Europeans.” He also says it is important to create what he calls a "multilateral consequence" for the Sudanese government in the event it continues to "undermine peace and stability in Darfur.”
Abstract: In July 2007, the UN Security Council authorized a 26,000-strong joint UN/African Union (AU) peacekeeping force for Sudan’s Darfur region. Many observers hoped the force would help quell the violence in Darfur, but delays and difficulties have plagued its deployment. Only nine thousand peacekeeping troops have been deployed thus far, the bulk of which were already on the ground in Darfur as part of the AU peacekeeping force that has been present since 2004. Roberta Cohen, an expert on humanitarian issues at the Brookings Institution, says the Sudanese government has obstructed the deployment of the joint force in several ways. It has not assigned sufficient land for all the troop barracks needed; has delayed the signature of a status of forces agreement with the United Nations; and has refused non-African units that are necessary to enhance the force’s capabilities. “It reminds me of the 1990s and the UN’s failure in the former Yugoslavia,†says Cohen, “where you had troops that were not fully equipped put in the middle of a war with an ambiguous mandate and at the mercy of a defiant government.â€
Abstract: A new mortality report from the International Rescue Committee says that as many as 5.4 million people have died from war-related causes in the Congo since 1998. A staggering 45,000 people continue to die each month, both from the conflict and the related humanitarian crisis. Amidst the deadliest conflict since World War II, hundreds of international corporations have reaped enormous profits from extracting and processing Congolese minerals. We speak to Maurice Carney of Friends of the Congo and Nita Evele of Congo Global Action. [includes rush transcript]
Abstract: Long-simmering conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo has flared in recent months. A peace conference between rebel groups and the Congolese government aims to end the fighting. Mauro De Lorenzo, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, discusses the numerous armed groups in eastern Congo, including rebels led by Gen. Laurent Nkunda, Mai Mai militias, Congolese government forces, and the remnants of the forces who carried out the Rwandan genocide. The number of groups and their shifting alliances makes it “very difficult for outsiders to penetrate,†he says.
