Social Science Research Council

Developments in international justice have filled the papers in recent weeks, with the capture of Serbia’s Radovan Karadžić and the charges leveled against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. Far from this spotlight, former DR Congolese rebel leader and vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo has moved from arrest to Belgian jail to the custody of the International Criminal [...]

Apropos of Ibrahim Adam’s call to increase foreign direct investment in Sudan, it’s worth considering whether a strategy, pushed by American divestment activists, that bringing firms to the negotiating table offers a more productive soft power strategy than sanctions. In my view, there is a small chance that it does.
What began as a push by [...]

On August 14th in this space, Ibrahim Adam argued for the removal of United States sanctions and an end to the international targeted divestment campaign meant to turn the screws on Khartoum. The argument is convincing only if you accept Mr. Adam’s implied premises: that the war in Darfur is merely a result of economic [...]

The implementation of the CPA in Southern Kordofan has been subject to numerous delays in many different areas. The most significant delays have been around the formation of the state government and the passing of the state constitution. The lack of genuine integration between the NCP and the SPLM in the state government is the [...]

The US government and the American people sincerely want to do the right thing by Sudan. Help turn it into a democratic, stable, equitable, prosperous and, preferably, united country. Trouble is they don’t seem to know how. At least that’s what it looks like judging by America’s neurosis with placing new, and keeping old, economic [...]

I came across SPLA-2 while in the Nuba Mountains in April. Al Bulola had just been visiting senior SPLA commanders, in South Sudan and in South Kodofan, claiming that he had 40,000 men ready to join the movement and looking for logistical support. The SPLA’s high military command in Juba had never heard [...]

Professor Abdel Rahman Musa, leader of the SLM-Free Will group and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs, passed away on Sunday. He was a fine Darfurian scholar and intellectual committed to peace for his people.
Abdel Rahman grew up in Kutum, a member of a well-known Tunjur family. He studied at the University of Khartoum and [...]

Jeffrey Gettleman’s article in today’s New York Times, “Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells a Food Bonanza,” is an excellent overview of the issues surrounding food production and food relief. Excepting solely the current context of high international food prices, it could have been written at any time in the last thirty years.
In the 1970s, [...]

The intense war in the Nuba in the late 1980s and early 1990s is an important piece of Sudanese modern history. The memory of this all-too-recent trauma, which culminated in an government attempt to destroy Nuba identity, is alive in South Kordofan. Confidence has not been rebuilt and the leadership in Khartoum ignores the deeply-felt [...]

Yesterday it was reported in al Rayaam newspaper that there is a new rebellion in the Nuba mountains. In fact the rebellion has been going on for some time. Two months ago one of Sudan Liberation Movement’s commanders on a visit to London told me that they have been approached by a commander from the [...]