Following a year-long investigation, and just weeks prior to its official release, a 600 page report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) was leaked. The report, which seeks to shed light on war crimes committed between 1993 and 2003 in the the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), suggests that the Rwandan army (RPA) and Congolese AFDL rebels carried out attacks against Hutus in the DRC which “could be classified as crimes of genocide.”
The World Resources Institute recently released updated estimates of the “fast-start” climate mitigation and adaption commitments rich nations made to poor countries after the Copenhagen summit. The headline figures are pretty impressive: Developed nations have set aside an estimated $27.9 billion, a combined total that is only $2 billion shy of the amount they promised between now and 2012.
Between July 30 and August 3rd, two militia groups in eastern DRC went on a rampage and gang-raped at least 179 women in a community of villages. The UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo has a base about 30 kilometers from the site of the attack--but apparently was unaware of the attacks as they were happening.
JUBA, Sudan—Sudan’s national elections in April highlighted the fact that elections are a process, not a one-day event that happens only on polling day (or during polling period, since Sudan had five days of polling). This is significant because a process can be manipulated more easily and more subtly than a one-day or five-day event. Some thoughts on this note...
Somalia: this morning the Security Council held an open debate on legal responses to piracy off of the coast of Somalia, in which the SG reported that in the past seven months there have been 139 piracy-related incidents and 30 hijacked ships, while 17 ships and 450 sailors are currently being held at ransom.
CNN interviews a UN Refugee Agency worker on the ground in Pakistan. On its website, UNHCR says "$40 provides 10 blankets for flood victims in Pakistan displaced by floods; $100 provides a refugee with a survival kit containing a blanket, a mattress, a kitchen set, a cooking stove and soap; $200 provides an all-weather tent to shelter a displaced family."
The emergency phase of the Pakistan flood effort continues at pace. Apparently, there are some 800,000 people reachable only by air. That's 800,000 people who's only lifeline is a handful of US and Pakistani helicopters in the area.
DRC: the SG has issued a statement today in response to the rape and assault of at least 154 Congolese civilians during an attack by armed elements of the Mai-Mai and FDLR in eastern DRC earlier this month, expressing his “outrage”, calling on armed groups in the DRC to lay down their weapons and join the peace process and calling on the government of the DRC to investigate the incident and bring the perpetrators to justice. He has decided to immediately dispatch ASG Atul Kh
In a March 2008 article in the American Prospect, ]the journalist Spencer Ackerman wrote the first serious attempt to understand the organizing principals of then-candidate Obama’s foreign policy vision. Ackerman discovered that should Obama assume the presidency, "the Obama doctrine” as he put it, would be premised on “an agenda of ’dignity promotion’ to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root.”