Up now at Foreign Affairs, my piece “Letter From Khartoum” on the distinctly unfree and unfair conditions in which Sudanese people are being asked to go to the polls next year.
Archives for 2009
Sudan’s “new” national security law
December 23, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Below is an unofficial translation of the most controversial aspects of the “new” National Security Act that the ruling NCP rammed through the Sudanese Parliament earlier this week. At first glance Section 50 (E) (“Detention or arrest of any suspected person for a period not exceeding thirty days provided that his or her family is […]
Law Reform (minus the reform part)
December 21, 2009 by 3 Comments
News reports indicate that a last-minute ditch effort by the NCP to check the box on the reform of the National Security Act (which gives Sudan’s security services the veneer of legal cover as they arbitrarily detain Sudanese citizens, incommunicado – more often than not torturing the detainees in their custody) took place yesterday. I […]
Reactions to Darfuristan (I)
December 21, 2009 by 1 Comment
This response in from journalist Rob Crilly – who has just finished writing his own book on Darfur – regarding the Darfuristan piece in Rolling Stone. Guest post by Rob Crilly This has been a difficult year for the Darfur advocacy movement – an odd mishmash of evangelical Christians, Jews, black liberals and human rights […]
Bankers beware
December 16, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Zurich-based financial giant, Credit Suisse, has just agreed to pay $536M to settle a suit brought against it by the U.S. government for violations of U.S. financial sanctions, with the bank having made $1.6 billion in illegal transactions to sanctioned countries including Sudan. The prosecution of cases such as this are an essential component in […]
Darfuristan
December 15, 2009 by 3 Comments
I’m keen to see the reactions from the advocacy community to “Darfuristan” – a 12-page article by Ben Wallace-Wells in Rolling Stone magazine this month (if you’re interested in sending me a post on it, please email!). The title sums up Wallace-Well’s take on the situation beautifully – Darfur as quagmire. He begins the article […]
Recurring themes
December 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment
I am currently immersing myself in the spectacularly useful (albeit 2217 pages long) compilation of the Travaux Preparatoires to the Genocide Convention, that the research endeavors of Hirad Abtahi and Philippa Webb have gifted the world. There are several gems in among it, and it is particularly interesting to see how close we got to […]
We don’t know what is on the list of benchmarks, but we can tell what is not
December 10, 2009 by 1 Comment
It has been several weeks since U.S. activists made a concerted effort to get the collapse of SGBV services in Darfur onto the radar of Secretary Clinton, General Gration and Ambassador Rice. Letters were sent, meetings were held, follow-up was provided. I wouldn’t have expected anything to actually shift on the ground within this timeframe, […]
Bits & pieces
December 7, 2009 by Leave a Comment
I’m trying to stay offline as much as possible at the moment as I’m in self-imposed lock-down-drafting mode for the book. But a couple of things I can’t overlook. 1. Doha First, a useful post from Julie Flint over on the Making Sense of Darfur blog about Doha, serving to remind me that I never […]
Reactions to Darfuristan (II)
Today, a reaction to Darfuristan from Sean Brooks, who works at Save Darfur and also blogs in his personal capacity. Guest post by Sean Brooks Ben Wallace-Wells’ essay on Darfur ends with the message “Khartoum is still Khartoum,” implying that despite all of the international activism surrounding the conflict in Darfur over the past six […]