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“As Enough’s blogger, I recently traveled to southern Sudan on a reporting trip to document powerful stories that could help put a human face on the broader political and humanitarian challenges that we focus on at Enough. Traveling with our Sudan-based researcher Maggie Fick, I spent time in the chaotic border area where Sudan, Congo, and the Central African Republic meet. Eerily, it’s easy to see why this would be the new hideout for the Lord’s Resistance Army. The brush is thick; the people are expert farmers, so there is food for the LRA to loot; the borders provide easy escape routes; and the region has been relatively calm, so until recently people didn’t feel vulnerable. The LRA’s best tactic – surprise – has been horrifically effective.

We spent one morning with a group of five children, four girls and a boy, who had recently escaped or been rescued from the LRA. The Red Cross was trying to locate their families or at least a distant relative so that each child could return to some semblance of home, but for now, the kids were just waiting. For a group of five teenagers, they were remarkably quiet, answering our gentle questions in barely audible voices and offering few details. ‘And these children are the so-called lucky ones in this senseless brutality,’ I thought.

But alarmingly, the LRA battering the western border of Sudan is just one of the country’s challenges.

In 2010, the political stakes are higher than ever in recent memory: Sudan’s first “real” national elections in 24 years are slated for this spring; next January, the people of southern Sudan will have the chance to vote to remain united with the North or create a separate country. Both of these historic events have the potential to set off widespread violence across the country, perhaps most distressingly in Darfur, where three million people are still unable to go home, and in the fragile South, where people are still recovering from years of civil war.

But for the past months, President Obama has been distressingly absent from US policy toward Sudan at a time when peace seems increasingly elusive and his leadership is needed most. We’ve heard from the Sudan special envoy, Scott Gration, Secretary Hillary Clinton, and UN Ambassador Susan Rice, but we’re waiting to hear from President Obama.

Now is our chance. CitizenTube is taking questions from the public, and YouTube will host a live event with President Obama as a follow-up to his State of the Union address this week.

We know that mobilizing for worthy causes is what Invisible Children does best, so we’re asking for your help. Please VOTE NOW for our Sudan question, and ask your friends on Facebook and Twitter to do the same. You proved last week your impressive strength as a movement by winning the Facebook competition, and we thank you in advance for the energy you dedicate to helping us get President Obama’s attention.”

- Laura Heaton, Enoughproject.org

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