Up until recently, the blogs contained no original commentary. They have been used simply as filing cabinets. Blogger has no facility for categories, so instead of posting at Sudan Watch all the news I find on the LRA, I log the extra reports here to search more easily for LRA news and see at a glance how nothing seems to be improving in northern Uganda.
Now that Darfur has the world's attention and help is on its way, it pains me to visit this blog and see - along with what is happening at Congo Watch - that the situations in both countries are still classed as the world's worst/most neglected humanitarian crises. Millions of people are desperately in need of help in northern Uganda and DRC (and the Congo itself - thanks to Louis for pointing out in a comment at a recent Congo Watch post that there are two Congoes).
Thankfully, through Congo Watch, I have met some super nice bloggers who are concerned with what is happening in DRC. Some are Congolese. I am hoping to find some more dedicated bloggers who feel the same way about Uganda. If I recall correctly, over the past several months, I have yet to come into contact with any blogger concerned about northern Uganda. Which is why I am making a concerted effort in this post to find as many as possible.
Please do not be shy in saying hi. If you are interested in what is happening in Uganda, particularly northern Uganda, please make contact in the comments here or at my other blogs or via email. I am always here, happy to hear from anyone. If there is a delay in getting back to you, please do not read anything at all into it, other than I am unable to reply right away due to other pressures. I do my best to reply to all comments as soon as possible.
Last week, I spent some time searching for bloggers in, or specialising in, Uganda. The ones I've found so far, are in the sidebar here but I have not yet had a chance to read them. Once I have gathered a good selection of links, I aim to visit them, read them and publish regular reviews/news round-ups of posts and/or photos/profiles within each blog.
If anyone reading this, comes across news re the crisis or any links that would suit this blog - or puts together a review and/or round-up of one or more blogs out of/specialising in Uganda - please let me know here in the comments or via email and I will publish a copy here unedited with full credit. Thank you.
The aim is for us all to get some regular dialogue going and learn about life and politics in a country where the world's most neglected humanitarian crisis is happening. Who knows, we might even learn ways how we as bloggers can be of help. From what I have gathered re Sudan over past year, there is much to learn about neighbouring countries and the different cultures.
Meantime, here's saying a warm hello to Will who I found via the Uganda tags page at Technorati. Will is currently in Kampala, Uganda. Please do visit. I left a comment at one of his posts to say hi.
Also, a warm hello and welcome to any other new visitors here. More later. Until then, I look forward to adding updates and links to share here as and when I come across them.
- - -
New links - for future posts here
Ojo al Texto: Una letan a de horrores: la guerra civil en el norte de Uganda
Peter, Kampala
Menya, USA
Cenicienta, Las chicas del quinto, Spain
Periodistas 21: Las guerras olvidadas: Uganda
Juan Varela, Periodistas 21, Spain - translated by Google
nehanda dreams
Maps courtesy Will's first post March, 24 2005.
Tags: Uganda Sudan DR Congo Africa
5 comments:
hey am a journalist from uganda. interested in your Uganada Watch but dont know much about blogging call me rosebell. ma email rosiekag@yahoo.com
Keep on with the good work. I am very worried about the crisis in the north of Uganda.
I will try to keep on learning about the conflict and telling about it in my spanish speaking blog.
All the best
Hello Anonymous, please do tell more. You can start up a free blog at Blogger.com - it won't take long to set up, that way you can join in and learn about blogging. You can post pictures there too for free using flickr.
If you have news from Uganda you would like to share here, please leave it in the comments here. Where are you in Uganda? What are they saying about the humanitarian crisis there? Do you know other bloggers in Uganda? Looking forward to hearing more. Thanks for stopping and saying hi. What is a roseball?
Alvaro, good to hear from you, thank you. I have spent some time reading your blogs. Glad you have one in English. Thank you for linking. Wish there was an English version of your Spanish blog. Please keep in touch. Your blog is in my newsfeed, so can follow your posts as and when you publish. Kind regards.
By the way: I am pleased to say I have received an email via flickr from Yendor featured in two posts here. He is back in Kampala now and will be there for a while. He still volunteers and plans to be on the road. He asks if there is anything we would like to request or see.
I've not been to Uganda before. My connection with it is through my Sudan Watch blog. I started Uganda Watch to log reports on the crisis and file information on the Ugandan rebel group LRA who are in southern Sudan.
I am not African. Parents white, father English, mother Austrian. As a child I spent three years living in a house with banana trees in an area I recall as being a jungle just outside Nairobi, Kenya as my father was stationed there with the British army's medical regiment around the time of the Mau-Mau war. Although I was very young, the whole country and kindly nature of Africans [and the violence] made a lasting impact on me, too long to go into here.
The reason I started Sudan Watch blog was to keep a copy of posts that I was publishing at http://passionofthepresent.org where I sometimes post on UK/European news mainly.
Also, I was posting on the Sudan at my personal blog which was becoming too swamped with items on Africa. I started blogging about Darfur in April 2004 when I picked up on the story from Jim Moore who was I believe the first blogger to pick up on the crisis and stay with it daily.
I started Congo Watch because whilst tracking news on the Sudan, I came across a lot on DRC. So I started a blog to file some of those reports. Blogger does not have a facility for categories. So I start blogs for each category. I have others on Nepal, Tibet China, N Korea, Syria.
One of the reasons for picking up on the story from Jim Moore in Boston is because I had been posting on the question of mans inhumanity to man and genocide in Bosnia that took place 10 years ago just a few hours plane ride from England. I guess I was looking for reasons and solutions. So far, I've concluded that man is a predator and will continue this way for at least the next 5-10.000 years - and that it is likely famine and genocide could never occur in a modern day democracy.
I think I shall use this comment as the reply to Yendor's email. Bye for now. Great to hear from you. Thank you.
Dear Ingrid:
I am sorry I have found this comment so late, but I still want to answer it. I am very impressed with your blogging work and your extensive reporting (or logging as you humbly put it) on the different African crisis.
I see that the great reward you get is the satisfaction of doing something that mainstream Media ignores or is not willing to pay attention to.
As you have seen, Juan Varela of Periodistas 21, a prominent journalist and blogger from Spain posted yesterday on the situation on northern Uganda and citing you (I think). I am very glad he does it, because he has a larger audience that many of us bloggers together.
I will post again today translating a concrete citation from your last post. I will try to post in English today, too.
I am of Colombian origin and live in Norway since 1990. I work with audiovisual Media Training and Research.
It is really nice to meet you via our blogging activity.
all the best
Hello Alvaro, Good to see you here. Thank you for making contacting - and for your kind words. My posts and comments here have been delayed while I check out posts by yourself and Juan and set up Google translations - and drafts for forthcoming posts on both of your blogs. Thank you for the great translation. I've never been to Colombia or Norway. Interesting to note you work with audiovisual media training and research (I have mentioned the future of radio/podcasting in a post here - short videocasts in blogs are set to become popular too. I'll post on it when I get the latest news. I am always interested in multi media communications. I read a report yesterday that said people in Africa were looking for jobs using text messaging on their mobiles).
If you are still looking for photos on the Sudan, please let us know by narrowing it down slightly - ie scenic, north, south, people, animals ... I come across photos and sites every day and wish now that I had started a list of links in the sidebar as a resource for readers. There are lots of collections out there, Sudan and its people are rather beautiful - art and fabrics too, not to mention the great history and archaeological finds.
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