This satellite picture from UNOSAT is one of a series showing the destruction by arson and shelling of over 2,170 buildings and tent structures in three camps for displaced people in the Rutshuru area of North Kivu (as originally reported by the UN refugee agency). Information from human rights observers is that the camps were [...]
In the video below, Francis Deng, the respected Sudanese scholar and diplomat who is UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, explains how he interprets his challenging job description. (”Of course I felt honoured, but I soon began to ask myself, what have I got myself into?”)
He emphasises the importance [...]
“Hundreds of thousands of people are on the run, fleeing a war that rages in eastern Congo, in the provinces of North and South Kivu. They are frightened. Many are sick or wounded. Others have been harassed or raped, or have had everything they own stolen. The people of the Kivus are in a critical [...]
UN appeals for 3,000 extra peacekeepers for eastern Congo have yet to be answered. A proposal to send European troops was blocked by Britain and Germany, prompting the London Director of Human Rights Watch to denounce what he calls “Britain’s cowardice“:
“In speech after speech, the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, talks up human rights and his [...]
Eastern Congo and the ‘Responsibility to Protect’
On this tremendous occasion, and I feel as much relief as excitement and hope that a more United States offers good prospects for a more United Nations.
On that note, I trust you and your team will consider what needs to be done to implement the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine [...]
Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights has released its report into January’s post-election violence. Entitled On the Brink of the Precipice, the report (promised to appear on the KNCHR website shortly) concludes that some of the violence was premeditated, financed by local politicians and business people, and included crimes against humanity. Naming planners and perpetrators, and making recommendations on changing [...]
As the International Criminal Court reviews its Chief Prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant against Sudanese President al-Bashir, another genocide suspect was finally arrested this week - in Serbia.
Radovan Karadžic - a former poet, psychiatrist, politician, ally of Slobodan Miloševic and (from December 1992) Supreme Commander of the Serbian armed forces - is charged with [...]
The following was in yesterday’s New York Times. Interested to hear views on this debate.
July 17, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist [link]
Prosecuting Genocide
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Many aid workers and diplomats suffered a panic attack when the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought an arrest warrant this week for the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for [...]
In this video, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) say the fighting in Somalia is more intense than it has been in 15 years. Hundreds of thousands have fled Mogadishu. A single clinic has treated over a thousand civilians for war wounds since September. Malnutrition indicators are above the emergency threshold; a third of the population are in urgent [...]
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