Strategy Paper

As the United Nations General Assembly meets this week in New York, the crisis in Sudan is front and center on the agenda. Following the International Criminal Court, or ICC, chief prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese government launched a diplomatic offensive to pressure the United Nations Security Council to suspend the ICC investigation.

This is the first of two ENOUGH strategy papers on Somalia by Ken Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College and a specialist on the Horn of Africa. Based on recent field research, the first half of this report provides an analysis of the current crisis in Somalia. The second half critically examines why international policies toward Somalia have produced disastrously unintended results, and makes an urgent case for a review of those policies. A follow-up report will explore options and make recommendations for a new, more effective, international approach to Somalia.

China has often been heralded as a country that thinks in broad strategic terms stretching over decades instead of years. However, China’s approach to doing business with despots is remarkably ad hoc, commodity-driven, and short-sighted. While many Western nations have deservedly withdrawn investments from Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Burma and worked to isolate these governments for their appalling human rights records, Chinese support is helping Sudanese President Omar el Bashir, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, and Burmese Senior General Than Shwe maintain power.

Last week’s move by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, or ICC, to seek an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir introduces a new point of leverage with the Sudanese government and provides an opportunity for the U.N. Security Council to demand real changes in Khartoum’s policies and behavior. Unfortunately, the historical record suggests that the Council will likely miss this opportunity as it has missed many others during the past five years.

Executive Summary

Legal options available in holding accountable President Robert Mugabe for possible international crimes 

For almost three decades Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe. Under his regime Zimbabwe has declined into a state of anarchy. Recent political unrest around the elections for President has resulted in death, destruction of property, persecution of political opponents, and theflight of Zimbabweans out of the country.

This week the International Criminal Court, or ICC, took important steps toward promoting peace and accountability in Sudan by urging an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity against the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Sadly, but somewhat unsurprisingly, the step has set off a chorus of hand-wringing among certain diplomats, academics, and pundits who are now arguing that holding perpetrators of crimes against humanity accountable for their actions is unhelpful. In the Financial Times a columnist positively quelled at the notion of bad people being held responsible for their actions, bemoaning that “the threat of international justice may in fact be working against peace.” A veteran academic expressed his worry that almost all African senior officials could be made vulnerable to similar charges by this precedent.

Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony’s failure to sign a peace deal in April drove a nail into the coffin of the Juba peace process—a process that is grinding to an unsuccessful end.^[1] The talks have certainly contributed to northern Uganda’s current state of relative peace and created a mechanism to address tensions between the people in the North and the southern-dominated government in Kampala.

It has been almost 15 years since Somali militias shot down two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters over the capital Mogadishu and killed 18 American servicemen in a battle that also killed more than 1,000 Somalis.

It's bad enough that the international community has failed, five years in, to end the genocide in Darfur, and worse still that it reacted with no urgency when the Darfur crisis bled into neighboring Chad. With the root causes of conflict in each country still untended, this regional crisis is poised to deepen.

In the 10 weeks since ENOUGH issued its report “Abyei: Sudan’s “Kashmir” the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, Sudan’s unique, ground-breaking political deal that formally ended 21 years of war between the Khartoum government and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement, or SPLM, has lurched toward breakdown. There are many reasons for this, despite the fact that both sides show clear signs of wishing to avoid outright military confrontation.