Daily Darfur: Failed states, murder convictions & child soldiers

by Martha Heinemann Bixby · 2009-06-25 08:01:00 UTC
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The Fund for Peace recently released their "Failed States Index" - a revealing look at some of the most vulnerable countries in the world.

In Foreign Policy's coverage of the index, they offer an interesting "definition" of failed states:

After all, as Tolstoy might have put it, every failing state is failing in its own way ... Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are failing because their governments are chronically weak to nonexistent; Zimbabwe and Burma are failing because their governments are strong enough to choke the life out of their societies.

Sudan and its neighbor Chad weigh in at number 3 and 4 on the list (Sudan is down from #1 for the past two years).

The conflicts that have placed Sudan among the top five states in the Failed States Index for the last four years continued into 2008. The largest country in Africa has rarely seen peace since its independence in 1956, and many think the window of opportunity for conflict resolution is rapidly closing. The crisis in Darfur (in western Sudan) continued unabated.

In South Sudan, an autonomous region with which the government made peace in 2005 after decades of civil war, three factors raised the stakes for future turmoil. ... Accusations by Sudan and South Sudan that the other is violating the 2005 North-South peace process are mounting.

Over at Humanitarian Relief Michael has a Failed States Index Game, and some insight into why Somalia weighed in at number one this year.

Murder Convictions

The New York Times is reporting this morning that the men accused of killing USAID official John Granville and his driver, Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama, in Khartoum in 2008 have been sentenced to death by a Sudanese court. According to AFP, the State Department welcomed the verdict, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying:

"They were dedicated to bringing peace and stability to Sudan and we honor their memory,"

Child Soldiers

Over at Refugee International's World Bridge blog Camilla Olson has an interesting post on efforts to stop the JEM rebel movement's recruitment of child soldiers in Chad:

More funding for education and skills training activities in the refugee camps will go a long way towards improving the protection of children like Fatimah’s son.

Martha Heinemann Bixby
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