Issue

Conflict and Peace Building

Nearly 30 years after the Rwandan genocide, thousands of maimed amputees remind us of the war that took 500,000 lives in 100 days. War leaves marks that cannot be erased—not only in Rwanda, but on every continent.

Reporting from Conflict and Peacebuilding examines the roots of conflict, whether it be religious hatred, sectarian rivalry, a security vacuum, the struggle for natural resources, or the desperation that results from poverty.

Pulitzer Center journalists also cover war’s aftermath: the transitional governments that result in chaos, diplomacy that goes awry, peace talks that never end, and the people who suffer the consequences, young and old. We see the children who go hungry, lose their homes, leave school, become combatants, or join the jihad.

Often the end to conflict leaves turmoil in its wake while the road to peace seems circuitous: In South Sudan, rebel-commanders-turned politicians plunge the country into civil war. In the U.S., troops return home from one war only to be re-deployed to another. But everywhere, in every conflict, there are also voices crying out for peace, determined to heal the divide.

 

Conflict and Peace Building

You can/can't go home again

There are approximately 5 million refugees inside and outside Iraq. Yesterday Rick and I went back to Chikook, a refugee neighborhood on the north side of town that is home to, by local estimates, some 4,000 families. Even though the sectarian violence around Baghdad has largely ended for the moment, the neighborhood is still growing as families who had been renting houses in other neighborhoods run out of money and are forced to move there.

Iraq: Ghosts

Baghdad is certainly safer now, but the scars of war are still raw. This afternoon I ran into a man I had not seen for more than three years, a clerk at a hotel I used to stay in. As we reminisced about crazy days in 2005, he suddenly mentioned that he had lost his son in crossfire in 2006.

He put his eyes down and began to fidget nervously.

"I have two daughters, but he was only son," he said. "What should I do? I am too old to get married again."

Falluja, revisited

Rick and I spent Saturday and Sunday in Falluja as the guests of one of the local sheiks and a leader of the Sahwa Movement. Things are much better than they have been at any time since 2004, though a conflict between the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Sahwa threatens to turn violent as provincial elections approach.

Perestroika

We knew from the moment we arrived that something had changed. Our flight didn't get in until midnight because of a sandstorm, and Rick and I were resigned to spending the night on the floor of the airport. Curfew in Baghdad has been lifted, but we still didn't think it would be possible to get a taxi so late, and the Iraqi journalist working with us wasn't willing to come pick us up until daylight.

Afghanistan: "Failure of Expectation" on Foreign Exchange

Spring marks the beginning of the fighting season in Afghanistan, and as Afghan and western forces prepare for the Taliban offensive, others will be preparing to battle the country's second greatest threat: poppy.

But eradicating Afghanistan's most prolific and illicit crop will be hampered by past missteps and what Afghan farmers perceive as a lack of understanding when it comes to the problems they face.

A video by Shaun McCanna and Lee Ann Nelson
Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting / Flamingo Productions