Letter from Kapoeta: Fewer guns, more waterpoints
Philip Winter is an RVI Fellow and Central and Eastern Africa specialist. His account of the Congolese peace process A Sacred Cause was published in English in 2012 and in French in 2015 (Une Cause Sacrée, available from L’Harmattan in Paris). Last month I drove some 1,200km around the country of the Toposa and the Nyangatom, […]
As gold fuels Darfur conflict, activists push for more Sudan sanctions
… One new group of people has flocked to Darfur in recent years: gold miners. From all over Africa, they have left their families, homes and countries, heading to a largely forgotten war zone to dig for gold. Activists with interest in Sudan are now suggesting the U.N. and the U.S. level new, acutely targeted […]
Bashir, the ICC and jirtig
RVI Fellow Magdi el-Gizouli on the return of President Omer el-Bashir from South Africa President Bashir’s return to Khartoum after the drama of his ‘missed’ arrest in Johannesburg was to say the least anticlimactic. The microphone set up for him to address the ‘spontaneous’ crowd which gathered at the airport to greet him home did […]
Letter from Isoke No 12: Church, government, school fees, rebels, full moon and stars
Liz Hodgkin, RVI Fellow and former Amnesty International Sudan researcher, taught from 2012 to 2014 at St Augustine’s School in Isoke village, Eastern Equatoria, South Sudan. For her earlier letters from Isoke see the following: No 1 July 2012, No 2 October 2012, No 3 November 2012, No 4 December 2012, No 5 March 2013, No 6 April 2013, No 7 May […]
The South Sudan peace forum
The Rift Valley Institute organised a forum bringing together leading chiefs from five states of South Sudan in Nairobi last Saturday. The forum brought together the chiefs to discuss the current crisis in the country and the role they and other traditional leaders played where peace was concerned. The chiefs included Nyuong Danhier Gatluak the […]
Himeidti and his President: War as a livelihood
RVI Fellow Magdi el-Gizouli on the ascendancy of the commander of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces The media simply can’t get enough of him. The commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, famous as Himeidti, a motherly diminutive version of his first name, is as ubiquitous as Zain advertisements. Two major newspaper published […]
Juba Lecture Series 2013
The 2013 RVI Juba Lecture series, held in collaboration with the Centre for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Juba, were held on 6-8 March 2013 at the university’s New Hall, addressing the theme ‘Building the Constitution in South Sudan’. The three keynote speakers were Professor Akolda Tier, Chair of the South Sudan […]
Sudan: The Sudan Revolutionary Front – Comrades in Squabble
The rebel alliance fighting against President Omar al Bashir is looking less united by the day. For better or worse, the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), the alliance of insurgents against the government of President Bashir, is now reduced to its individual constituents: the four main armed movements, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement-North (SPLA/M-N), the Justice […]
Learning from the 2011 Famine in Somalia
In 2011, people in Somalia suffered a catastrophic famine. Since 2012, a group from the Feinstein Center at Tufts University and the Rift Valley Institute has been conducting retrospective research on the famine in Somalia, and in the Horn of Africa region more broadly, with the aim of providing empirical evidence to help prevent or […]
New State: Clean slate? Change And Continuity In South Sudanese State Formation
RVI Fellow Dr Cherry Leonardi delivered this year's BIEA British Academy Annual Lecture on the creation of the Republic of South Sudan. She discussed how the internal conflicts in South Sudan have challenged the 'new slate for a new country' rhetoric that was present around its independence.