Sudan Now Applauds Appointment of Senior Diplomat for Darfur
The Sudan Now campaign’s vocal appeals to the Obama administration for
high-level engagement on Darfur paid off on Monday with the appointment of
Ambassador Dane Smith as the senior U.S. diplomat for Darfur. With so much
attention on the quicky approaching referenda, it’s crucial that the advocacy
community has the ability to sound the alarm on human rights violations and
other issues in Darfur. Read the Sudan Now statement on the appointment, calling
on President Obama and Secretary Clinton to staff a team for the Ambassador to
help revitalize the Darfur peace process, secure humanitarian access, and
introduce accountability for human rights violations.
While the appointment of Ambassador Smith marks an important step forward in
Darfur, violence continues to plague the region. Read Enough’s latest edition
of Sudan Peace Watch for updates on the Darfur peace process and other recent
developments in the lead up to the referenda in South Sudan and Abyei.
Assessing Corporate Progress on Conflict Minerals
In response to growing consumer demand for electronic goods free of the conflict
minerals that fuel violence in eastern Congo, the Enough Project has issued a
new report, “Getting to Conflict Free: Assessing Corporate Action on Conflict
Minerals.” The report ranks the leading 21 electronics companies on their
progress toward responsible and conflict-free supply chains. The report also
provides an in-depth look at the actions taken as part of industry-wide efforts,
and calls for other key end-users of conflict minerals to get involved in
efforts to trace, audit, and certify minerals as conflict-free.
To accompany the report, the Raise Hope for Congo campaign created an
interactive consumer guide to allow electronics users to tell companies that
there is consumer demand for conflict-free products. Use the guide, which ranks
companies in three tiers to represent how much progress they have made toward
cleaning up their supply chains, to help you make electronics purchases during
the holiday season and throughout 2011.
Check out coverage of the report and rankings from the Washington Post, along
with a photo slideshow from an Enough research trip to eastern Congo.
Photo credit: Sasha Lezhnev/Enough Project
i-ACT Team Visits Refugee Camps
i-ACT, a partner of the Darfur Dream Team, has been in Djabal refugee camp in
eastern Chad since early December, setting up technology to connect the Darfuri
refugees with American students. Thanks to their efforts, all U.S. sister
schools will be able to communicate with their counterparts in Djabal and Goz
Amer as early as next spring. On Sunday the team held a live town hall meeting
online, at which Darfuris responded to questions from viewers in the United
States. Watch a replay of the town hall event here. To follow the i-ACT team’s
trip, check out daily videos from the field, “Like” the Darfur Dream Team on
Facebook, and follow us on Twitter to get answers to your questions about life
in the refugee camps.
Visit the newly redesigned Darfur Dream Team website to learn more and join our
mailing list to receive updates about the program.
Photo credit: i-ACT
Activities, Actions, Advocacy
RAISE Hope for Congo
* Send messages to the electronics companies you purchase from to remind them
how important conflict-free products are to you.
Lord’s Resistance Army
* Join our partners at Resolve from December 14 to 24 in commemorating and
pausing to remember the Christmas massacres by the LRA. Join the vigil here.
Sudan
* This week President Obama responded to your calls for action and appointed a
Senior Diplomat for Darfur. Sign the Sudan Now petition to ensure the Obama
administration continues to do all it can to prevent violence in Sudan and
support a peaceful referendum vote in January.
Watch a video from photojournalist Tim Freccia on the rising tensions in Abyei,
and check out an accompanying photo slideshow from his recent trip to the
region.
Check out a video by Enough and Not On Our Watch featuring George Clooney’s
recent trip to south Sudan.
Watch the Dateline episode featuring George Clooney and John Prendergast, “Winds
of War.”
Quote of the Week
George Clooney and John Prendergast, in a CNN.com op-ed:
This is a war that can be prevented. A final diplomatic push over the next 30
days, led by the African Union and the United States, can quiet the winds of war
between the North and South, as well as in Darfur. If the parties know that
there will be consequences for choosing swords over ploughshares, the odds for
peace can be improved dramatically.
From Our Blog,
Enough Said
Mayank Bubna discusses efforts to register women to vote in southern Sudan:
The push for women to register has been working slowly but steadily. Across
southern Sudan, voter education teams and civil society groups anticipated that
a concerted effort would need to be made to encourage women to turn out to
register. Volunteers like Sorro are going door-to-door in towns and villages to
explain the referendum process to women specifically and encourage them to
participate. But some people, including South Sudan’s Minister of
Information—highly conscious of the fact that 60 percent of registrants must
turn out to vote in order for the referendum to be considered legitimate—are
worried about another scenario. Come voting day, will registered women be able
to make it to the polls?
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