Featured The Sudan Split On July 9, 2011, tens of thousands of South Sudanese gathered in the capital city of Juba at the mausoleum of rebel leader John Garang to celebrate the creation of their new state. Six months earlier, these jubilant crowds had voted in a referendum for independence from northern Sudan; more than 98 Mimi Kirk • 18 min read
MER Article A Journey of a Thousand Steps On July 9, 2011, South Sudan will officially become independent. When southern Sudanese voted in the January 9 referendum on independence, they sought to affirm their African identity and shed the Arab identity that they felt had been imposed upon them by successive regimes in Khartoum. They also si Marie-Joëlle Zahar • 13 min read
MER Article Sudan's Referendum Amidst Revolution On February 7, 2011, the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission presented President Omar al-Bashir and First Vice President Salva Kiir with the results of the January 2011 vote on southern self-determination. It was a formality: During the three-week voting tabulation process, both presidents had publ Edward Thomas • 13 min read
MER Article Scenarios of Southern Sudanese Secession In January 2011, if they are allowed to, the people of the southern provinces of Sudan will almost certainly vote to declare the independence of South Sudan from the north. The referendum is to be the culmination of an armistice in the longest-running civil conflict in Africa, between the Sudanese g Amanda Ufheil-Somers, Chris Toensing • 12 min read
Current Analysis The Hazy Path Forward in Sudan On the day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the wanted man addressed a pre-planned rally of thousands in front of the presidential palace in Khartoum. Bashir was defiant, denouncing the warrant as “neo-colonialism,” and prai Sarah Washburne • 13 min read
Current Analysis Elections Are Key to Darfur Crisis It has been quite a week. For the first time, the international community indicted a sitting president of a sovereign state. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan stands accused by the International Criminal Court in The Hague of “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed in the course of the Khartoum reg Khalid Mustafa Medani • 3 min read
Current Analysis Wanted: Omar al-Bashir -- and Peace in Sudan For the first time, the international community has indicted a sitting president of a sovereign state. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan stands accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague of “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed in the course of the Khartoum regime’s brutal sup Khalid Mustafa Medani • 12 min read
MER Article The Politics of Persecution The video opens with a young Sudanese boy being interviewed outside a hut. “They wanted me to become a Muslim,” he says through a translator. “But I told them I wouldn’t. I am a Christian.” “It was then,” a deep male voiceover intones, “that he was thrown on a burning fire.” The boy looks away from Melani McAlister • 26 min read
Current Analysis Black Monday The sudden death of John Garang de Mabior, the long-time leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) recently named first vice president of Sudan, unleashed a torrent of anger and protest in Khartoum. Suspecting that the July 30 helicopter crash that killed Garang and 13 others was not Khalid Mustafa Medani • 9 min read
Current Analysis Darfur and the International Criminal Court On March 31, 2005, the United Nations issued another response to the vast crisis in the Darfur region of far western Sudan, referring various conspicuous violations of international law to the International Criminal Court. Though there have been five previous UN Security Council resolutions bearing on Darfur, the response contained Eric Reeves • 12 min read
MER Article Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage In October 1999, PBS aired The Wonders of the African World, a six-part documentary produced by the renowned African-American intellectual, Henry Louis Gates, wherein the Harvard educator travels from Egypt to Sudan and down the Swahili coast of East Africa and up though parts of West Africa examining the encounter Hisham Aïdi • 48 min read
Current Analysis The Politics of Slaughter in Sudan One day in the summer of 2004, more than 400 armed members of the janjaweed militia attacked the western Sudanese village of Donki Dereisa. They killed 150 civilians, including six young children, aged 3 to 14, who were captured during the assault and burned alive later that day, according to Dan Connell • 11 min read
