Journalist and author of The Prince and the Poisoner
* Cruising on jellied asphalt through the northern badlands of South Sudan when the unthinkable happens. An excerpt from The Black Nile on NationalGeographic.com
* In Cairo, riots, repression, and a room full of dancing men. A diverting excerpt from The Black Nile, courtesy our friends at Swink Magazine in Los Angeles.
The northern wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement has issued a strong statement committing itself to the Garangist vision of a reformed Sudan, with “No Compromise, No Retreat” in Southern Kordofan. Today’s statement comes after a two-day meeting attended by Blue Nile state governor Malik Agar, Southern Kordofan commander Abdelazis El Hilu, and SPLM Secretary General Yasir Arman.
The SPLM says that any peace negotiations must take place outside Sudan, under the auspices of a third-party mediator. President Omar al Bashir’s position is the opposite: Negotiations will take place only in Sudan, he says. The SPLMN’s full statement is below.
I’ve received a copy of the United Nations Mission in Sudan’s June human rights report on fighting in Southern Kordofan. It’s received coverage recently by the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Associated Press, among others. Still, it’s worth reading all 19 pages.
The document, which I am posting below, is detailed and grim. It confirms earlier reports of the existence of mass graves, a racial murder spree by Khartoum’s army, and the targeting of civilians by the Sudanese Armed Forces and its related militias and police.
Continue reading “Sudan: The UN’s report on Southern Kordofan”
Marking the birth of the Republic of South Sudan, some northerners say goodbye, and welcome. Video conceived and compiled by Mo Elzubeir. It’s kind of a tearjerker.
In just eight days a new country, the Republic of South Sudan, will be born. It’s a huge step – but not the last step – in a 55-years-and-counting struggle for dignity and self-determination.
The south’s departure from Sudan has been as troubled as its union, with the recent fighting in Southern Kordofan and Abyei, as well as continuing insurgencies by southern renegades including George Athor and Peter Gadet. The Lord’s Resistance Army, too, remains active in the western part of the new country.
These are only the most obvious and immediate challenges faced by the southern people. Southern Sudan’s leaders, its people, and its nascent institutions will have to struggle mightily to prevent their new state from resembling the old Sudan in its approach to human rights, inclusivity, opportunity, and rule of law.
None of this should take away from the gigantic achievement that southern Independence represents. Millions died and millions more were made homeless, and endured famine, captivity and fear to get to July 9: A delicious and hugely challenging Year One. Democracy entails the right of the people and their representatives to make mistakes, to take responsibility for those errors (to “own” them, in the current parlance) and make corrections. It won’t be at all easy. But it’s a great, historic moment.
On July 5, Penguin Books will publish Revolution on the Nile, my new Afterword to The Black Nile, as an “e-special” available on the Kindle, the Nook, and Apple’s iPad, iPhone, and iTouch, as well as other e-readers. Revolution on the Nile updates The Black Nile with an account of south Sudan’s January freedom referendum, squashed attempts at public protest in northern Sudan, and the electrifying revolt against Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.
It was only a matter of time before I got my hands on a suitcase full of sweaty Egyptian pound notes.
—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew Brudenell <andrew@assetmanagement.hsbc.com>
To: undisclosed-recipients <undisclosed-recipients:;>
Sent: Sat Mar 26 06:40:26 2011
Subject: Hosni Mubarak.
Hello friend,
I am a private banker CFA Portfolio Manager to Hosni Mubarak at HSBC Asset Management, London England, UK. Continue reading “Mubarak’s Nigerian Billions”
Time magazine made an obvious and unimaginative choice for its cover last week, showing an image of Osama bin Laden with a dripping red X across his face.
The Osama cover, by illustrator Tim O’Brien, is an homage to the magazine’ May 7, 1945, Page One commemorating the death of Adolph Hitler, but with a small but notable difference. The Hitler cover was entirely uncaptioned – the image said it all. For today’s audience (current print circulation 3.3 million), Time’s editors felt the need to note that inside readers would find a special report on “The End of Bin Laden.”
It’s certainly appropriate for Time to adapt the Hitler image for bin Laden’s death. Despite his comparatively miniscule dark accomplishments, the Al Qaeda leader loomed as large in the contemporary American imagination as Hitler did in the 1940s, when millions of American men were under arms, hundreds of thousands were dying on the battlefield, and the entire nation lived on a war footing.
But this isn’t the first occasion that Time has used the Hitler-is-Dead format. Time’s June 19, 2006, cover marking the death of Abu Mousab al Zarqawi, the hyper-violent leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, following his liquidation by a pair of 500-pound American bombs. For that week’s edition, editors followed more closely their 1945 model. Zarqawi was depicted without caption under the blood red X.
The problem was that almost no one in the United States or around the world (the cover ran on all of Time’s international editions, with the exception of Asia) knew – or cared — what Abu Mousab al Zarqawi looked like. Zarqawi wasn’t a household name, and, despite his record of cruelty, his shadow didn’t extend beyond Iraq and Jordan. The image was generic: Generic Arab. Continue reading “Who’s a Hitler? A tale of five covers.”
My four-day series on the coming breakup of Sudan in Slate magazine has received good notices from the likes of The Village Voice, The Browser, Bobby Ghosh of Time magazine, Microkhan, and the Wandering Savage.
In case you missed the tasty 7,500-word opus, here’s a recap:
Part 1: Meet the Bernie Madoff of Sudan
Part 2: Fighting for Freedom in the New Sudan
Part 3: South Sudan: A Million Mutinies Now?
Part 4: South Sudan’s Oil Curse
Since the series began running, the insurgent militia leader Lt. General George Athor, who I quote in Part 3 of the series, has continued his private war in Jonglei state at the cost of some 300 lives. I’m posting, after the jump, notes from my January interview with Athor. I’ll reserve comment except to say the statements of this former golden boy of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army are extremely self-serving.
That’s all for now. I’m off to write a new chapter of The Black Nile to be included in the book’s upcoming Penguin paperback edition. So much has changed on the Nile this year, and so much of if for the better, that I felt the book needed an update.
There’s an old saying in Darfur that goes: Kalash au bilash; Kalash begim al kash.
Translation: “You’re trash without a Kalashnikov; get some cash with a Kalashnikov.”
My newest story at Slate.com is about a Darfur police corporal who stole millions without ever flashing a gun.
I hope you enjoy the story of Adam Ismael, his $180 million Ponzi scheme, and Omar al-Bashir’s economic war on Darfur. It’s the first installment in a four-day series on the coming breakup of Sudan. (And here’s a piece I wrote from Sudan in January during the south’s historic independence vote.)
…and the next counter-revolution.
I’ve been freelancing in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa since 2003. When the Mubarak regime shut down Egypt’s Internet last week, I couldn’t help wincing for all the reporters, especially freelancers, who were caught unprepared. During the two years I lived in Cairo I kept a satellite phone for work in Darfur, southern Sudan and other places where mobile networks didn’t exist or were unreliable. It never occurred to me a day would come when a journalist would require the use of a Thuraya in the middle of Egypt’s capital. In periods of intense breaking news, logistics can be as important as brains and courage.
* Don’t count on local networks: Reporting and blogging from Egypt took a giant hit when the government shut down the Internet and mobile phone networks. Freelancers in countries including Sudan, Yemen, and Algeria (not to mention Pakistan and Bangladesh), either individually or as a collective, should keep BGAN terminals on hand. These satellite Internet terminals are small, can cost as little as $1000, and are fed by prepay scratch cards that you can top off via email. At the very least reporters should have a Thuraya or other pre-paid satphone on hand.