Yes, We Have Leverage: A Playbook for Immediate and Long-Term Financial Pressures to Address Violent Kleptocracies in East and Central Africa

Note: This policy brief was first published on the Enough Project website.

“We have no leverage.” “All of this leader’s money is parked elsewhere in Africa, in Dubai, or Europe.” “Sanctions do not work.”

These are just a few of the views one often hears from observers of crises in Africa and, more worryingly, senior U.S. and foreign diplomats assigned to try to resolve them. Through the Enough Project’s engagement with these officials, my colleagues and I regularly encounter such opinions. It is increasingly clear to us that there is a broad lack of familiarity with the array of tools that policymakers have at their disposal to address seemingly intractable conflicts or murderous warlords. These tools have not been a consistent part of the policy discussion concerning how to resolve crises, or when they have, the institutional barriers to action have been too high. So it is no wonder those tools are often used improperly, ineffectively, or not at all.

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George Clooney and John Prendergast: An American Lobbying Firm Is Helping Sudan's Vile Regime

Note: This op-ed originally appeared in TIME and was written by The Sentry's co-founders George Clooney and John Prendergast.

Earlier this summer, K Street law and lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs inked a contract with the Sudanese government aimed at removing U.S. sanctions on that regime. The firm will be paid $40,000 a month by a government that’s on the U.S. state sponsors of terror list, with a head of state, Omar al-Bashir, wanted for genocide by the International Criminal Court.

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