I met Bakit Musa in Goz Beida, Chad, when I traveled there with Mia in 2008. At that time Bakit was 7 years old. In January that year he had picked up an unexploded RPG when he and his friends had been out playing. It left him with only one eye, no arms from the […]
Quick update
March 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment
– just submitted first ten chapters of the book to my editor. Still a long haul ahead to get it into shape, but it feels like I’m moving the the right direction. Phew.
Karadzic trial: A view from Bosnia-Herzegovina
March 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment
So, Radovan Karadzic is having his day in court here in The Hague. I have been following his Opening Statement in between editing draft chapters all morning; his overall defense seems be to a pretty classic ‘blame the victim’ approach (Karadzic: “Their conduct gave rise to our conduct, and that is 100% true”). But the […]
Karadzic trial
March 1, 2010 by Leave a Comment
You can watch the live webstream of Radovan Karadzic’s Opening Statement at his genocide trial this morning at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Sorry?
February 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment
There was a serious error of judgment, a sort of blindness when we didn’t foresee the genocidal dimensions of the government” [French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Rwandans, February 2010] ” . . . all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate […]
Four years on, nothing learned
February 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment
“Hey, I heard on the radio that there’s a peace agreement for Darfur!” was the excited message a non-Darfur-obsessed friend (I do have a few) greeted me with yesterday. “Hmm” I replied, un-enthused – clearly not the response my friend was expecting. At the time I hadn’t read the actual agreement just signed by the […]
New report on disputed census results
February 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The Geneva-based Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre has just put out a new report on the disputed Sudan census entitled An Incomplete Exercise. I don’t have time to summarize the report, which highlights a number of concerns raised to me when I was in Khartoum last year, but have pasted its recommendations below: Recommendations
Review of Rob Crilly’s “Saving Darfur”
February 16, 2010 by 1 Comment
[This review is cross-posted on Alex de Waal’s blog, Making Sense of Sudan.] Rob Crilly‘s book, Saving Darfur, is unique among the books on Darfur to date for the way he handles the very tough balance between conveying the complexities of the situation, while managing to keep the book accessible to a non-expert audience. By […]
The killing of Mohamed Musa Abdella Bahraldien
February 11, 2010 by Leave a Comment
[Editorial note: There was date error in the email originally pasted into this post. I have since had it confirmed from several sources that Mohamed Musa was abducted on Wednesday Feb. 10 and was found dead yesterday Thursday Feb. 11. I have asked Dr. Gasim to send a corrected notification] I know you don’t know […]
Parallel processes
Enough has posted an interesting play-by-play of the Doha process that is worth the read. It states that “The African Union-United Nations mediators, the Qataris, and the U.S. special envoy all seem to support the parallel negotiation track.” What Enough is referring to when they talk about a “parallel negotiating track” is that the Doha […]