Social Science Research Council

The World Tonight last night on BBC Radio 4 was a 45 minute special devoted to an examination of the UK’s foreign policy. It was structured around Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s four priorities, viz terrorism, conflict and the responsibility to protect, carbon and the international system, with interviews and clips preceding a section by section [...]

Posted on behalf of Julie Flint.
Six days after the aerial attack on Shigeg Karo, UNAMID has finally spoken out, in a press release that raises more questions than it answers. A verification team visited Shigeg Karo on Thursday—a full four days after the bombing, taking nothing to assist the wounded still remaining there—and confirmed the [...]

Overview
1. The NCP-SPLM partnership for the CPA stands at a critical juncture. The NCP sees the 2009 elections as its route to internal and international legitimacy and is hoping that problems with the census and elections can be pinned on others (the SPLM, the Darfurians). Both parties have failed to find a compromise to the Abyei [...]

This is the third part of a paper based on a memorandum submitted to an informal consultation on the Darfur mediation. This section is solely the responsibility of Alex de Waal.
Part 3: Critical Choices for UNAMID and the Mediation
Into this middle of this protracted and intractable conflict, UNAMID is being deployed. Despite its Chapter VII [...]

Posted on behalf of Johan Brosché
The point of departure for the report, Darfur: Dimensions and Dilemmas of a Complex Situation, published by the Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research, is a field study conducted by the
author in Sudan during the fall of 2007. The purpose of this analysis is
to deepen knowledge about the [...]

Posted on behalf of Cara Parks of the New Republic
Yesterday on the New Republic website we ran an editorial on Darfur that I think your readers would really enjoy. The piece uses the declaration of Kosovo’s independence last week to look back at NATO’s involvement in the region — and then compares this experience with [...]

The war for Chad is not over. It is likely to become more bloody and involve a wider humanitarian disaster before any solutions can be grasped. The next week will be critical for the future of the country–and for the wider region, including Darfur, as well.
Last weekend’s battle in the Chadian capital N’djamena came as [...]

A Tribute to AMIS
By Abdul Mohammed

At the end of this month, the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) hands over to the "hybrid" United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). This marks the end of the African Union’s biggest, most challenging and some say controversial and indeed most ambitious peace observation [...]

Six months ago, John Prendergast and I debated the response to Darfur at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This week we continued the debate online, courtesy of Newsweek. It’s a lively exchange and after just two rounds, Newsweek’s deadline was upon us so the editor called time. I would have liked to say more—so I am posting my response to him here.

Posted on behalf of Julie Flint.

Two questions about the original posting about the attack on the AMIS base in Haskanita:

1. The attackers have been "clearly identified" as rebels. Clearly identified by whom? And what makes the identification "clear"? I very much doubt that AMIS personnel in Haskanita had much interaction with the mass of rebels in Haskanita, and the evidence I have seen suggests that no rebel leaders participated in the attack. As one investigator says, those who did were "some way down the food chain".

2. The attack was "clearly planned and premeditated". I think evidence is needed to support this statement. I personally do not have it. One of those inside the base during the attack has said that the men who attacked the base were "very drunk". They "ransacked and looted EVERYTHING"¦ They took all the food, fuel, vehicles, ransacked the clinic." This does not suggest a "clearly planned" attack. It suggests a drunken rampage.