Tag: slate.com

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Sudan Cracks Up

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.

Continue reading “Sudan Cracks Up”

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Meet the Bernie Madoff of Sudan

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.)

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The Dam Bursts in Egypt

I’m not in Egypt, and I wish I was. Here’s a piece I wrote for Slate.com on the exhilarating and hard-won freedom from fear that has overtaken hundreds of thousands of Egyptians.

Meanwhile, as the deadly battle for control of Tahrir Square continues, with at least five dead at the hands of government-organized mobs, a few notes based on conversations with friends on the ground.

* The protests had been peaceful since the black-helmeted riot police were routed earlier this week – “a textbook Gandhian uprising,” as the Al Jazeera English anchor just described it. The young protesters controlling the square were checking people for weapons before allowing them to enter (“I got patted down in the nicest way,” said one female friend, this in a city well-known for the sexual harassment of women.) The violence started with the arrival of pro-Mubarak thugs carrying blades, clubs, razors, firebombs and guns. “A lot of people are going to die, and it’s because Hosni Mubarak, 82 and suffering from pancreatic cancer, does not know when to leave the cocktail party.” Continue reading “The Dam Bursts in Egypt”

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Gratified in Gotham

I’m very pleased that The Black Nile has been named one of the Village Voice’s Best Books of 2010, joining the likes of Patti Smith, Milan Kundera, Jennifer Egan, and The Anthology of Rap. This comes on the heels of a swell December 5 write-up by Joshua Hammer in The New York Times Sunday Book Review.

Visa officials permitting, I’ll be back in Sudan next month, covering the January 9 referendum for an obscure online journal.

Until then, Happy Holidays. (That’s The Black Nile‘s paperback cover image, by the way.)

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Atrocity in Kampala

There’s a reason so many Westerners – tourists and humanitarians alike  – visit Uganda in such numbers, and it goes beyond the stunning variety of natural wonders and the equally stunning toll of HIV and the Lord’s Resistance Army. It’s a wonderful place, full of wonderful people trying to eke their way out of often difficult circumstances.

Despite a modern history of war and trauma that would seem more appropriate to the capital of a much bigger country, Kampala is light of heart. It breathes. And while a sense of innocence lost may be inevitable after Sunday’s terrorist attacks, I hope the people and the government will resist a slide into fear and anger. (It may be too much to wish that this tragedy will not be used as a political cudgel. It was certainly too much to ask in the United States after September 11.) But I hope Ugandans will keep those urges and at bay.  Here’s a piece I wrote analyzing the bombings for Slate.