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Brief: Sudanese Government Accused of Ethnically Cleansing the Nuba

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by Sonia Morland

At the same time that South Sudan celebrated its independence on 9th July, clashes between Nuba rebels and government forces in Sudan’s South Kordofan were verging on alleged ethnic cleansing.

A recent UN report has revealed that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) may be guilty of war crimes in South Kordofan, one of Sudan’s poorest regions. According to witness reports, SAF have bombed villages, executed rebel soldiers and killed civilians, in an attempt to defeat Nuba rebels, who come from a range of Muslim, Christian and traditional tribes, all speaking different languages. Satellite pictures moroever seem to indicate that there are three mass graves in South Kordofan, leading to fears that ethnic cleansing is taking place. 73,000 people have fled South Kordofan since 5th June.

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Brief: Last Balkans War Criminal Caught

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by Sonia Morland

On 20th July 2011 Goran Hadzic, the last fugitive sought by the United Nations war crimes tribunal, was arrested by the Serbian authorities. Only two days later he was handed over to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), the court of law in The Hague established to deal with war crimes that took place during the violent conflicts in the Balkans during the 1990s.

Hadzic is the last of 161 war crime suspects to be charged. These wanted men have included heads of state, prime ministers, members of the army and numerous other political, military and police leaders; they are all men who committed acts of ethnic violence across the former Yugoslavia. So far, over 60 have been convicted.

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On Race and Food Security in Detroit and Cape Town

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by Tasha A. Byers

Food insecurity – the unavailability and structural inaccessibility to adequate levels of food to the majority of any population — affects women, children, rural poor, and ethnic minorities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. It is a problem that concerns local food systems, but it is global in scope.

Food insecurity is also an impediment to the well-being of the predominantly black populations in cities like Detroit, Michigan, in the United States and Cape Town, South Africa. Historically, the black populations in these countries suffered from racially discriminatory and segregationist policies. Although later abolished, the residue of those policies created the present economic and spatial barriers that now prevent urban blacks from easily accessing healthy and nutritious food.

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Brief: The 21st Annual ASEN Conference, Forging the Nation

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The Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) held its 21st annual conference on 5-7 April, 2011, at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The theme of this year’s conference was on the role of ritual and performance in the (re)production of the nation. ASEN was delighted to host six keynote speakers: Anthony Smith (LSE), Jon Fox (University of Bristol), Carol Duncan (Ramapo College of New Jersey), Tim Edensor (Manchester Metropolitan University), Jeffrey Alexander (Yale University) and Paul Connerton (University of Cambridge); the two workshop hosts, John Breen (School of Oriental and African Studies) and Andrew Higson (University of York); as well as more than 100 panel speakers from around the globe.

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Exploring the Role of Africa in the International Criminal Court

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Editor’s note: As part of its special issue on Africa, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 11(1) dedicates its features section to exploring the socio-political and historical role of Africa in the International Criminal Court (ICC). The following is an introduction to that section and also appears in Issue 11(1).

By Evropi Chatzipanagiotidou

Since its establishment, the ICC has concentrated its investigations and operations on the region, applying international law to prosecute large-scale crimes  often committed in the context of ethnic conflicts and processes of nation-building. However, recent critiques from a variety of sources, including the African Union, have charged the ICC with jeopardising peace, prolonging ethnic conflict and threatening the national sovereignty of African states. These issues have sparked a number of public and academic debates centring around the role of the Court and the effects of its operation in Africa.

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