PHILLIPE R. GIRARD

[Fall 2006, Volume VIII, Issue I]

Hopes that the end of the Cold War would usher in a “New World Order” (George H. W. Bush) marking the “end of history” (Francis Fukuyama) had been dashed by the early 1990s. The threat of nuclear Armageddon receded; but political, ethnic, and religious conflicts multiplied from the Caribbean to the Balkans to Central and East Africa. The violent breakup of Yugoslavia led to a Bosnian War that killed 100,000 people and displaced two million between 1992 and 1995. Civil strife and famine killed 200,000 Somalis as their country imploded …

AMBASSADOR J.D. BINDENAGEL
[Spring 2008, Volume IX]
For those of us who have confronted the issue of genocide, whether as students, scholars, public officials or concerned citizens, the film “Blood Diamond” speaks vividly to the horrors of the war in Sierra Leone financed by trade in illicit diamonds and the human cost.
We know that peace is no easy task; peace did not break out with the end of the cold war as we had hoped. Instead, we descended quickly into a world of terror, genocide and war. Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, …

ADAM LICHTENHELD
[Spring 2008, Volume IX]
While ongoing atrocities in Darfur, Sudan receive due labels of “genocide” from the international community, controversy and confusion continue to surround attempts to classify violence occurring 150 miles south of the Darfur border. In northern Uganda, nomadic rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have terrorized citizens in an ongoing 21-year insurgency, the longest standing conflict in Africa. The situation’s unique character—and why it proves so difficult to label—stem from the fact that it encompasses two conflicts in one. Victims face a dual threat; caught between …

DR. PHILIPPE R. GIRARD
[Winter 2007, Volume XX, Issue VII]
Haiti is a small country of nine million people occupying the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola. It is politically unstable, overpopulated, and poor. Its farming sector, which employs a majority of the workforce, suffers from deforestation, soil erosion, fragmented land ownership, and minimal productivity. It has few natural assets save its people. Abroad, it is known mostly as a place hellish enough for millions of boat people to risk their lives in the dangerous crossing to Florida in a desperate …

MARSHALL MILLER
[Fall 2006, Volume XIII]
The United States is currently engaged in an escalating diplomatic
quarrel with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Since Chavez was
voted into office with his nationalist platform, he has been an outspoken
detractor of the United States, and the United States has reciprocated the
rhetoric. The hostile language quickly escalated to diplomatic reprisals,
such as the mutual expulsion of diplomats from Venezuela and the United
States. It is clear that the United States would like to see the rabble rousing
Chavez out of office. But despite the many offensive characteristics of his
government, Hugo …

KYOUNG YANG KIM

[Fall 2006, Volume VIII]
Not only does HIV slowly strip away the life of a patient, but it also deforms the social structure around her. Like a stone thrown upon a pond, HIV/AIDS creates ripples that perturb the family. Its effect spreads to every part of society.
Peter McDermott, chief of the Global HIV/AIDS Program under UNICEF, has addressed in an AIDS orphan conference in Asia what he considers the three stages of HIVinfection. The first stage is the time of infection. The second stage is what he calls the …

HARRIS GLECKMAN, Ph.D.

[Spring 2008, Volume IX, Issue 1]
Over the past forty years, natural resource exports have increasingly helped finance and sustain bloody conflicts in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia. This has cost millions of lives and is wreaking havoc on development. Natural resource wealth, which should improve the lives of the world’s poorest people, has become a resource curse and a source of civil unrest. The export of natural resources from conflict zones can provide significant illicit resources to purchase weapons, to …

ROBERTA COHEN
[Fall 2006, Volume VIII]

On May 5th one of Darfur’s main rebel groups signed an agreement with the government of Sudan following African Union mediation efforts backed by the United States and European governments. But it is questionable whether the Abuja accord will protect the people of western Sudan from genocidal acts by their own government and the Arab militias (the Janjaweed) it supports. When asked whether the agreement would lead to a significant decline in violence, then-US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, a key negotiator in the talks, …