Corruption is driving force behind Sudanese atrocities -George Clooney & John Prendergast of The Sentry

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: In an audio conversation conducted by BBC Newsday presenter James Copnall with US peace activists George Clooney and John Prendergast, James was told about those profiting from conflict in South Sudan and that corruption is the driving force behind the atrocities in South Sudan. In my view, it could also apply to Sudan. 

Here is a transcript I made from the audio originally released 20 Sep 2019. An undated copy was published at BBC Sounds online two days ago. Much of it applies to the situation today. Apologies if I mistakingly attributed any parts. The American accents were so similar I had to guess who said what. 

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From: BBC World Service Newsday

Release date 20 September 2019

Re-released two days ago, circa 09 May 2024 - here is a full copy:

George Clooney tells Newsday about those profiting from conflict in South Sudan

The corrupt financial transactions between some government officials and foreign companies should be targeted as the most effective way to curb the violence in South Sudan. 

This is the conclusion of research by The Sentry, an advocacy and investigation organisation based in the United States, which names individuals and businesses - including foreign state-owned oil companies - which it says have plundered the resources of the country for personal gain. 

Newsday's James Copnall spoke to George Clooney - the film star who co-founded The Sentry - and the organisations director John Prendergast.

Photo: George Clooney (R) and John Prendergast. Credit: Getty Images

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Transcript

JOHN PRENDERGAST: These war profiteers, these people who profit from human misery are extremely vulnerable in one way. They use the international financial system to move the proceeds of their financial crimes. When they do that in US dollars, and they do it in pounds, and they do it in euros, they become subject to the regulatory authorities and the banking systems, any money laundering efforts and we can work directly with governments and with banks to close those avenues, illicit financial flows off, and actually freeze and seize those assets so that it creates a real consequence, a real level of accountability for these kinds of crimes.

BBC: George, your activism has been around South Sudan and other issues too for many issues for many years was there something in particular that surprised you here?

GEORGE CLOONEY: Well, what’s an interesting thing, we’ve gone through a series of different versions of how we try to go after and stop these atrocities. We’ve tried putting satellite up in the air, we’ve tried, we’ve tried a lot of different things. Sometimes we’ve been successful, ultimately we’ve failed clearly because there’s an awful lot of violence that still goes on there. What became clear was that once we realised that we put on the front page of newspaper “troop build ups and mass graves” and nothing happened that they thought they could act with impunity [BBC: they could, couldn’t they? GC: they could and they have] but what’s also clear is if you sit down with a bank and you say well tomorrow I am going to hold a press conference that says you are laundering one hundred million dollars and I’m going to announce tomorrow that either you are doing something about it or not or you are complicit, it’s amazing how quickly they say you know what we don’t need to be in the business anymore of South Sudan.

JOHN PRENDERGAST: The whole system has been established in South Sudan to loot and if you can start to create a consequence for looting, you’re going to make a difference, you’re going to start to impact the calculations of folks that are making decisions about how they are going to run South Sudan.

BBC: [unclear] from Kenya, from Uganda, countries in the region, sometimes where the money goes, sometimes who may disagree with the conclusions you’re coming up with?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: So this is a really important point because the politicians left to their own devices in those neighbouring countries with business as usual. But Kenyans want the Kenyan banking sector to be the financial one-stop shopping for the entire region so they have to open themselves up to the international regulatory authorities, there is something called the Financial Action Task Force, we’ll put everybody to sleep if we talk about it, but the Kenyans are terrified if they get a bad grade from the Financial Action Task Force their whole banking sector is going to suffer. So suddenly they are like, okay yeah maybe we are in business with, some of our politicians are in league with these folks who are stealing from South Sudan but our entire future financial sector is at risk if we keep doing business. That’s a very significant counterweight and it gives us a chance to do something real.

BBC: Is it your contention that in the current situation people really shouldn’t be doing business in South Sudan at all because people will be saying this country needs people coming in?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: We want to encourage foreign investment, we want to encourage private sector development in South Sudan but if you talk to South Sudanese businessmen who aren’t on the take, if you talk to investors who want to do it clean they have no chance because the folks who are bringing suitcases full of money and putting it under the table and are hijacking these particular processes there’s no transparency.

BBC: [unclear] you cut out the financial dodgy dealing a big if ... there are still a lot of problems in South Sudan, ethnic tensions, political competition, this is a small part of a very big pond.

GEORGE CLOONEY: Except that the amount of money that’s coming in from and the kind of corruption, corruption is the driving force for these atrocities, you take away that giant piece of the puzzle and suddenly you know Salva Kiir doesn’t really have the same incentives and probably loses power. 

BBC: Even in the context where soldiers aren’t getting paid, when the economy has been bled dry already?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Why are they not getting paid? Why is the economy being bled dry? Because of mass corruption. This is the cancer that eats away at the effectiveness, the potential effectiveness of the state. If you do not address it, which it has not been addressed, and then try to do things about everything else there is still this massive hole at the centre. And I think this is our argument. It is not a small thing, it’s not just a, it has repercussions for all these other things that makes everything else worse because the state has been captured and when you have a captured state and the objective of that state is to enrich the leaders of that, everything else that you are trying to do, supporting foreign investment, development, infrastructure, even child nutrition, even education, is being obstructed and undermined by the cancer of corruption.

BBC: So this is a conversation being carried out about international businessmen, about banking systems internationally, what about the South Sudanese guys sitting in a village in [unclear] listening to this on the radio, watching this on TV in Juba, what can they do in your view to change the system there?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Well, you’ve seen a great deal of opposition to the system in the form of, sadly, in the form of armed rebellion, in the form of development of militias whether they are defending their own territory or attacking wanting to change the system. Sudan right to the north has created this incredible model where hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people kept demonstrating and kept marching in support of democracy and in support of peace despite tremendous repression and violence, state violence, against them. I feel like that the next wave in South Sudan in terms of people who are trying to make a difference because now if you try to make a difference if you try to challenge the system you’ll be killed or imprisoned. It’s a scary thing, people have to make choices. If you are going to take on the system you and your family will probably face severe repercussions but once the numbers get large and you start to see change as we’ve seen in Sudan and seen in other parts of Africa we may see a difference. I think that’s probably mass protest against war, against corruption, against dictatorship, is probably the thing that will make the biggest difference, it’s the people themselves that have got to take the reins and make the change.

BBC: You know what the South Sudanese government is going to say, don’t you, they’re going say, you going after us it’s regime change, western prominent personalities maybe backed by governments trying to bring us down, what do you say to that?

GEORGE CLOONEY:  If you think about what we’re saying is we think we should stop corruption. If the answer by the South Sudan government is you want regime change then you are saying that you are corrupt. That’s basically what you are saying. We’re not saying that, we are saying that we should stop corruption. 

Listen to the conversation here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p07ntymp

END

Sudan: Ongoing turf war in Sudan - China, Russia reject calls for freeze on UN pullout from Sudan

NOTE from Sudan Watch editor: I have just read the the executive summary of the Sentry’s paper entitled Loan Wolves [https://thesentry.org/reports/loan-wolves/].

The last sentence, regarding Sudan, states that: 

“The country’s current military leaders and the new civilian government must therefore expose corrupt actors and hold them accountable while implementing strict measures to limit their influence”

In my view the whole paper is crazy. I shan’t be reprinting it here at Sudan Watch. Makes me wonder what John Prendergast & Co are smoking over there in the Sentry.

Despite some gaps and errors, essential reading: “The Ongoing Turf War in Sudan: Violent clashes between elements of Sudan’s security forces threaten the country’s progress toward democracy,” by Samuel Ramani, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace https://t.co/45xFBQ9q2F pic.twitter.com/R3i3iQc8X2

— Eric Reeves (@sudanreeves) February 21, 2020

NOTE from Sudan Watch editor: Eric Reeves’ tweet 21 Feb 2020 (above) links to a 20 Feb 2020 article at Carnegie Endowment.org by Samuel Ramani entitled The Ongoing Turf War in Sudan [https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/81119]. The article is a really good read. Upon reading the line, “Russia’s opposition to a UN peacekeeping presence in Darfur indirectly strengthens the RSF’s influence in that region” I followed its link to a 15 June 2019 news report by AFP entitled China, Russia reject calls for freeze on UN pullout from Sudan [https://www.thenational.ae/world/africa/china-russia-reject-calls-for-freeze-on-un-pullout-from-sudan-1.874526]. 

The article made me think of PM Hamdok’s filmed interview in Germany with Ms Aya Ibrahim of Deutsche Welle at the Munich Security Conference 17 Feb 2020 entitled Hamdok: 'Anyone who committed atrocities must be tried' [https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/sudans-pm-hamdok-anyone-who-committed-atrocities-must-be-tried/ar-BB105Y0Y] in which he talked about wanting the UN in the whole of Sudan under Chapter VI (note, not Chapter VII). 

Then it dawned on me: Chapter VI would free up PM Hamdok and his and Sudan's worldwide supporters to work in Sudan’s best interests and stop Russia and China vetoing votes on Sudan at UN Security Council. 

And, if needed, the Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) has 5,200 troops ready to be deployed anywhere (Sudan Watch, 27 June 2019 - Eastern Africa Standby Force EASF is watching Sudan closely, playing an advisory role, ready to deploy if situation turns genocidal https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2019/06/eastern-africa-standby-force-easf-is.html)

Samuel Ramani is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Politics and International Relations at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, England, UK. Follow him on Twitter @samramani2 [https://twitter.com/SamRamani2]

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FURTHER READING

Russia’s secretive military operations on the rise in Africa

Article by and from AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY

Dated 14 August 2019

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2019/08/russias-secretive-military-operations.html

Satellite Sentinel Project: George Clooney plans to hire private satellites to track troop movements in Sudan

George Clooney Is "The Antigenocide Paparazzi"
Source: Swampland blog at TIME.com - www.swampland.blogs.time.com
Author: Michael Scherer
Date: Tuesday, 28 December 2010 at 3:40 pm. Full copy:



[Photo: UN Messenger for Peace George Clooney (L) and US President Barack Obama (R)]

Mark Benjamin breaks some news with a TIME.com story about George Clooney's plans (yes, that George Clooney) to hire private satellites to track troop movements in Sudan, in the hopes of stopping another genocide. He writes:

Starting Dec. 30, the Satellite Sentinel Project — a joint experiment by the U.N.'s Operational Satellite Applications Programme, Harvard University, the Enough Project and Clooney's posse of Hollywood funders — will hire private satellites to monitor troop movements starting with the oil-rich region of Abyei. The images will be analyzed and made public at www.satsentinel.org (which goes live on Dec. 29) within 24 hours of an event to remind the leaders of northern and southern Sudan that they are being watched. "We are the antigenocide paparazzi," Clooney tells TIME. "We want them to enjoy the level of celebrity attention that I usually get. If you know your actions are going to be covered, you tend to behave much differently than when you operate in a vacuum."

Read the whole story here:

Clooney's "Anti-Genocide Paparazzi": Watching Sudan
Source: TIME.com - www.time.com
Author: Mark Benjamin
Date: Tuesday, 28 December 2010. Full copy:



George Clooney visits Sudan to draw attention to the dangers that could result should southern Sudan vote to separate from the north. (Tim Freccia / Enough Project)

George Clooney and John Prendergast slumped down at a wooden table in a dusty school compound in southern Sudan. It was Oct. 4, and the two men were in the hometown of Valentino Achak Deng, whose experiences wandering the desert as a refugee during Sudan's last civil war were the basis for the best-selling book What Is the What.

Clooney, the actor, and Prendergast, a human-rights activist with 25 years of experience in Africa, had heard enough on their seven-day visit to know that a new round of atrocities could follow the January referendum on independence. If it did, the likelihood was that no one would be held accountable. Why not, Clooney asked, "work out some sort of a deal to spin a satellite" above southern Sudan and let the world watch to see what happens?
(See photos of Clooney in Sudan.)

Three months later, Clooney's idea is about to go live. Starting Dec. 30, the Satellite Sentinel Project — a joint experiment by the U.N.'s Operational Satellite Applications Programme, Harvard University, the Enough Project and Clooney's posse of Hollywood funders — will hire private satellites to monitor troop movements starting with the oil-rich region of Abyei. The images will be analyzed and made public at www.satsentinel.org (which goes live on Dec. 29) within 24 hours of an event to remind the leaders of northern and southern Sudan that they are being watched. "We are the antigenocide paparazzi," Clooney tells TIME. "We want them to enjoy the level of celebrity attention that I usually get. If you know your actions are going to be covered, you tend to behave much differently than when you operate in a vacuum."

You don't have to be a spook to have an eye in the sky anymore. Private firms with names like GeoEye, DigitalGlobe and ImageSat International have a half-dozen "birds" circling the globe every 90 minutes in low-Earth orbit, about 297 miles (478 km) up. The best images from these satellites display about 8 sq. in. (50 sq. cm) of the ground in each pixel on a computer screen. That is not enough granularity to read a car's license plate or ID a person, but analysts can tell the difference between cars and trucks and track the movements of troops or horses. "It is Google Earth on lots of steroids," says Lars Bromley, a top U.N. imagery analyst.
(See pictures of Southern Sudan preparing for nationhood.)

But you need money for it. A hurry-up order of what Bromley calls a "single shot" from a satellite covers an area of about 105 sq. mi. (272 sq. km) and costs $10,000. A rush job on a "full strip" image of land roughly 70 miles (115 km) long and 9 miles (14 km) wide could run nearly $70,000. Sentinel is launching with $750,000 in seed money from Not On Our Watch, the human rights organization Clooney founded along with Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, David Pressman and Jerry Weintraub. Clooney predicted he won't have much trouble raising more money once the project goes live.
(See the top 10 world news stories of 2010.)

Prendergast's group, the Enough Project, is the human-rights arm of the liberal Center for American Progress; it recruited Bromley's team at the U.N. and brought in analysts from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to pore over the images as they arrive. "Generally, what we have done in the past is an after-the-fact documentation exercise," Bromley explains. "This is proactive, wide-area monitoring," he says.

Clooney, who has made four trips to Sudan since 2006, believes Sentinel might have applications in other global hot spots. "This is as if this were 1943 and we had a camera inside Auschwitz and we said, 'O.K., if you guys don't want to do anything about it, that's one thing,'" Clooney says. "But you can't say you did not know.
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Related Reports

Harvard group joins effort to monitor Sudan
Boston Globe by Michael J Bailey - www.boston.com
Tuesday, 28 December 28, 06:25 PM. Excerpts:

WASHINGTON - A team of human right experts at Harvard University will begin analyzing satellite images of Sudan later this week in the hopes of staving off a civil war after the southern section of the troubled nation votes in a January referendum on whether to secede.

The Satellite Sentinel Project, which is being funded by actor and activist George Clooney's humanitarian group, Not on Our Watch, will rely on the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative to assess the situation on the ground, where hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Darfur region have been slaughtered over the past decade in ethnic violence.

"We want to see if we actually make a difference in keeping people safe," said Nathaniel Raymond, the program director at Harvard.

The project, which will officially get underway on Dec. 30, is intended to influence the behavior of the Sudanese government, which is blamed for perpetrating the genocide. It will be funded over the next six months by $750,000 that will also cover the cost of buying time on privately owned imaging satellites.

The launch was announced earlier today by Clooney in an interview with Time. [...]

At Harvard's Kennedy School, three full-time analysts will pore over satellite images provided by the United Nations' Operational Satellite Applications Programme and gather other research from public and private sources to determine what Raymond called the "human rights context."

They will be supported by a variety of other specialists at Harvard, including experts in international law, the military, and humanitarian operations.

"What do the abuses shown in the images mean?" Raymond explained. "We want to determine the difference between an attack on a hospital, an attack on a village, or an attack on water supplies, and how that relates to international law and human rights standards."

The project, which will publish all of its findings at www.satsentinel.org, is also designed to shame the international community into taking action if the upcoming referendum prompts the Sudanese regime to perpetrate more abuses. [...]

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Clooney, Google, UN team up to watch Sudan border - Coalition will use satellite surveillance to watch border — and prevent civil war
The Associated Press - www.google.com
Tuesday, 28 December 2010. Full copy:

WASHINGTON (AP) - A group founded by actor George Clooney is teaming up with Google, a U.N. agency and anti-genocide organizations to launch satellite surveillance of the border between north and south Sudan to try to prevent a new civil war after the south votes in a secession referendum next month.

Organizers said Wednesday that Clooney's Not On Our Watch is funding the start-up phase Satellite Sentinel Project that will collect real-time satellite imagery and combine it with field analysis from the Enough Project and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

It will point out movements of troops, civilians and other signs of impending conflict. The U.N. Operational Satellite Applications Programme and Google will then publish the findings online.

The groups hope that early warnings will reduce the risk of violence.

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Clooney, Google, UN team up to monitor Sudan border
The Associated Press by Matthew Lee - www.msnbc.msn.com
Tuesday, 28 December 2010. Excerpt:

Clooney's Not On Our Watch is funding the start-up phase Satellite Sentinel Project that will collect real-time satellite imagery and combine it with field analysis from the Enough Project and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, organizers said.

The data will point out movements of troops, civilians and other signs of impending conflict. The U.N. Operational Satellite Applications Program and Google will then publish the findings online.

"We want to let potential perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes know that we're watching, the world is watching," Clooney said in a statement. "War criminals thrive in the dark. It's a lot harder to commit mass atrocities in the glare of the media spotlight."

The groups hope that early warnings will reduce the risk of violence. [...]

Organizers said the Satellite Sentinel Project will be available online Wednesday at www.satsentinel.org.

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Sudan: George Clooney and Friends Fund Eye-in-the-Sky to Avert War
AllAfrica by Cindy Shiner - www.allafrica.com
Tuesday, 28 December 2010. Full copy:

A human rights project using satellite imagery that the general public can access is being launched tomorrow to help deter a resumption of war between north and south Sudan linked to a crucial referendum in January.

The Satellite Sentinel Project, which is backed by American actor George Clooney, combines satellite imagery analysis and field reports with Google's Map Maker technology to monitor the area marking the boundary between and the nation of Sudan and Southern Sudan, which is expected to become Africa's 55th country, following the voting that begins on 9 January.

"There used to be a bumper sticker that said, 'What if they threw a war and nobody came?' said Jonathan Hutson, director of communications for the Enough Project, an anti-genocide group. "That's been rewritten: 'What if they threw a war and everybody came to stop it?' That's the power of crowd-sourcing information, using public technology platforms and leading edge advocacy for waging peace."

Commercial satellites passing over the border areas between north and south Sudan will be able to capture images of possible troop movements and build ups, potential attacks on villages, the movement of displaced people, or other possible threats to civilians, Hutson said. The project aims to provide an early warning system to focus world attention and generate rapid responses on human rights and human security concerns.

"The launch of this project puts all parties on notice that they can be held accountable for their obligations under international human rights law as well as [Sudan's] Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005," Hutson told allAfrica. "The imagery will be out there for all the world to see and respond. This is public information from commercial satellites that will be published on open-source platforms and analyzed in a neutral way to hold all parties accountable."

Southern Sudanese armies fought a decades-long war against northern domination that claimed more than two million lives. The 2005 peace accord provided for a power-sharing arrangement leading to a referendum on self-determination for the oil-rich South. The voting will take place over five days in early January. The north, which has historically benefited from oil located largely in the south, has been hostile to southern independence, and there are fears that one of the world's longest and bloodiest conflicts could re-ignite over the poll.

The Sentinel Project is a collaboration between Not On Our Watch, the Enough Project, UNOSAT (the United Nations UNITAR Operational Satellite Applications Programme), the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Google, and Internet strategy and development firm Trellon, LLC. The Enough Project, co-founded in 2007 by Africa experts Gayle Smith and John Prendergast, contributes field reports, provides policy analysis, and, together with Not On Our Watch, puts pressure on policymakers by urging the public to act. Not On Our Watch is a human rights organization co-founded by Clooney.

Hutson said there were a few proofs of concept using satellite imagery that helped inspire the Satellite Sentinel Project. Those included Amnesty International's Eyes on Darfur project, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Crisis in Darfur project, and use of satellite images by Physicians for Human Rights and the American Association for the Advancement of Science to gather evidence of mass grave tampering in Afghanistan.

But Hutson said the Sentinel Project is the first to use sustained, public effort to systematically monitor and report on potential conflicts and threats to security along a border, within 24-36 hours of their occurrence.

"Up until now, projects have documented mass atrocities after the fact. This visionary project aims to deter war crimes by observing troop buildups and troop movements in advance," he said. "The project offers an open source, anti-war platform to observe in near real time troop buildups and movements, and potential war crimes, and gather evidence if necessary that can be presented at the International Criminal Court."

A deterrent to using satellite images in the past has been the expense of commercial satellite images, which can cost about U.S.$2,500 per image. Not On Our Watch has funded a U.S.$750,000 six-month start-up phase of the Sentinel Project.

For the project, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative will provide system-wide research and lead the collection, human rights analysis, and corroboration of on-the-ground reports that contextualizes the satellite imagery. UNOSAT leads the collection and analysis of the images and collaborates with Google and Trellon to design the web platform for the public to easily access the images and reports.

"The imagery tends to be worthless if no one looks at it - if no one can make use of it," Lars Bromley, an analyst at UNOSAT told allAfrica. "Once you get it out there and built into a site like this, that's really where it's getting exciting. Finally all these elements are starting to come together, where we are able to proactively address some of these issues instead of just documenting it after the fact."

The Satellite Sentinel Project will be available on December 29 at www.satsentinel.org. The aim of the project's funder, Not On Our Watch - co-founded by Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub - is to focus global attention and resources toward putting an end to mass atrocities around the world.

Hutson said one goal of the project is to teach the world best practices in using commercially available satellite imagery along with crowd-sourced mapping tools to provide better, faster responses. These could be responses to potential human rights abuses, conflicts, humanitarian crises, or natural disasters, he said.

"More simply put, we're leveraging technology 3.0 with stronger, better satellite imagery to create better, faster responses," he said. "Now the crisis at hand is in Sudan. But this project, we hope, will inspire other efforts around the world."

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Clooney, Google, U.N. watch Sudan using satellites
Reuters CANADA - Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Lou Charbonneau in New York; Editing by Chris Wilson
Tuesday, 28 December 2010. Excerpts:

Google and Trellon Llc, an Internet development firm, designed a Web platform for public access to information with the goal of pressuring Sudanese officials and other groups. [...]

On December 24, Vice President Joe Biden phoned Sudanese Second Vice President Ali Osman Mohmed Taha to express Washington's concern about violence leading up to the vote.

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Postscript from Sudan Watch editor
Thought for the Day:
How easy is satellite jamming?
And how many Sudan activists work within Google?
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UPDATE:

Televised Debate over Sudan’s Referendum Set Wednesday
VOA by Peter Clottey - Tuesday, 28 December 2010. Excerpts:

An official of the Sudan’s referendum commission said his organization Wednesday will begin the first in a series of debates between high-ranking representatives of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) ahead of the 9th January referendum.

The live debate is expected to be broadcast nationwide.

Sudan Uganda Congo activists: The Enough Moment - New book by John Prendergast with Don Cheadle, to be released on September 07, 2010

From Amazon.com - About the book "The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes"

Description: Two "New York Times"-bestselling authors issue a hopeful and empowering call to action for those interested in how people's movements and inspired policies can stop genocide, child soldier recruitment, and rape as a weapon in Sudan, Uganda, and Congo.
Authors: John Prendergast, Don Cheadle
This title will be released on September 7, 2010.

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From John Prendergast's Enough Project.org

The Enough Moment



Human rights activist John Prendergast and Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle bring us an empowering and hopeful new book, as they reveal the steps being taken by engaged citizens—"Upstanders"—famous and unknown, here and abroad, to combat genocide, rape, and child soldierdom in Africa, and show how you can be a part of the movement.

Release Date: September 7, 2010
Pre-order the Book
Amazon.com
BARNES & NOBLE
BORDERS
INDIEBOUND

Had Enough?

Join activists, organizations, and celebrities to fight human rights crimes in Africa.
Learn how a high school student in Chicago rallied fellow students all over his city to raise awareness of genocide... a former child soldier in Uganda formed a group of others like him to aid in reconciliation... and a mother and teacher gang-raped by soldiers in Congo found strength to help other survivors. John and Don present ways for you to form alliances, contact Congress, alert the media, enlist corporations, and use social media to become part of the solution.

Featuring testimonies and interviews with:
Ben Affleck • Madeleine Albright • Emmanuelle Chriqui • Sheryl Crow • Ann Curry • Annie Duke • Dave Eggers • Mia Farrow • Ryan Gosling • Mariska Hargitay • Emile Hirsch • Iman • Angelina Jolie • Nicholas Kristof • Joel Madden • Nicole Richie • Martin Sheen • Robin Wright
As well as a number of members of Congress and many others making a difference.

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From Amazon's John Prendergast page

I'm the co-founder of the Enough Project at Center for American Progress. We're building a movement to end genocide and crimes against humanity. The Enough Project focuses on crises in Sudan, eastern Congo, and areas of Africa affected by the Lord's Resistance Army.

Too often, the United States and the larger international community have taken a wait-and-see approach to crimes against humanity. This is unconscionable.

Genocide and war crimes are not inevitable, and we at Enough are making noise and taking action to stop ongoing mass atrocities and to prevent future ones.

Our mission is to help people from every walk of life understand the practical actions they can take to make a difference. Our strategy is to energize diverse communities - including students, religious groups, activists, business leaders, celebrities, and diaspora networks - to ensure that their voices are heard on some of the most pressing foreign policy and moral challenges facing the world today.

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.

We at the Enough Project are interested in hearing your video, photo, or text versions of personal Enough Moments. We are launching a website, www.enoughmoment.org, where your video, photo, or text can appear alongside other Enough Moments from celebrities, policy makers, activists, and survivors. I look forward to hearing your Enough Moment.

YouTube of US Senator Sam Brownback browbeating Sudan envoy Scott Gration

Excerpt from UN Dispatch blog post December 4, 2009:

Activist groups none-too-pleased with Darfur envoy Scott Gration

For more evidence of policy incoherence, watch this painful exchange between Gration and Senator Sam Brownback. (h/t Enough)

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Sudan Watch Ed:  YouTube (above) uploaded by John Prendergast's ENOUGH Project on December 03, 2009 (350 views, so far) with the following info:

"In a subcommittee of the House Foreign Relations hearing on Sudan, Special Envoy Scott Gration reverses his previous stance and admits that genocide is still occurring in Darfur."

Also, note this excerpt from Wikipedia on Sam Brownback:

"...Brownback visited refugee camps in Sudan in 2004 and returned to write a resolution labeling the Darfur conflict as genocide, and has been active on attempting to increase U.S. efforts to resolve the situation short of military intervention.[36] He is an endorser of the Genocide Intervention Network, which called him a "champion of Darfur" in its Darfur scorecard, primarily for his early advocacy of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act.[37] ..."

Sudan: Reuters' Darfur debate online May 24 2007

Back on track, thanks to The Blogger Team. Lots to catch up on. More later. Meanwhile, in New York starting 9.30am EST Thursday May 24 2007, Reuters' Darfur Newsmaker will be holding an online debate/Q&A session entitled "Dealing with Darfur - what’s at stake?"

List of Panelists:
- Paul Holmes, Reuters (moderator)
- Ann Curry, NBC News
- Hedi Annabi, Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping U.N*
-Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, Sudanese Ambassador to the U.N
- John Prendergast, International Crisis Group
- Mia Farrow, Actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador
- Lauren Landis, Senior Representative, Sudan, U.S. Department of State

Note, the above mentioned Sudanese Ambassador to the UN is featured in today's Sudan Tribune article by Wasil Ali entitled Sudan's envoy: Darfur "an issue for those who have no issue".

[* Reuters/Ed’s note May 24 2007: This post was updated to reflect Hedi Annabi has replaced Jean-Marie Guehenno, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, on the panel]

Further details at Global Voices Online.

UPDATE: Also today, The Sudanese Thinker blog (hi Drima!) urges fellow bloggers to "Join the Debate on Darfur on May 24".
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FAMOUS QUOTES

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm Forbes

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Love Quote of the Day
The more you judge, the less you love.
Honore de Balzac

Famous Peace Quotes

Here below, I've starred two favourites and question marked four I don't understand:

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

One cannot subdue a man by holding back his hands. Lasting peace comes not from force.
David Borenstein

The pacifist's task today is to find a method of helping and healing which provides a revolutionary constructive substitute for war.
Vera Brittain

?I don't know whether war is an interlude during peace, or peace an interlude during war.
Georges Clemenceau

*I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

You don't have to have fought in a war to love peace.
Geraldine Ferraro

?Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
Benjamin Franklin

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.
Benjamin Franklin

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Mohandas Gandhi

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
Andre Gide

The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.
Dag Hammarskjold

Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war.
John Andrew Holmes

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Thomas Jefferson

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy

?War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adrenal glands.
H. L. Mencken

Fair peace becomes men; ferocious anger belongs to beasts.
Ovid

It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
Eleanor Roosevelt

A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.
William Shakespeare

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
Baruch Spinoza

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa

?Peace begins with a smile.
Mother Teresa

Peace hath higher tests of manhood, than battle ever knew.
John Greenleaf Whittier

Source: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_peace.html via without reason