<span class="vcard">John Prendergast</span>

John Prendergast

Guest Author

John Prendergast is a human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as a New York Times bestselling author who has focused on peace in Africa for over 35 years. He is the co-founder with George Clooney of The Sentry, an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy.

John has worked for the Clinton White House, the State Department, two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was part of the mediation team that negotiated the end to the Ethiopia-Eritrea war, supported President Nelson Mandela’s mediation in the Burundi peace process, and contributed to other peace processes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Sudan, and Somalia.

John is the author or co-author of eleven books. His latest book, Congo Stories, is co-authored with Congolese activist Fidel Bafilemba and features photographs by Ryan Gosling.

Articles by this author:

(L-R) US Vice President JD Vance, US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio listen as Democratic Republic of the Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner during a meeting with her and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe (not pictured) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 27, 2025. Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed an agreement in Washington on Friday to put an end to a conflict in the eastern DRC that has killed thousands, although broad questions loom on what it will mean. Trump has trumpeted the diplomacy that led to the deal and publicly complained that he has not received a Nobel Peace Prize. But the agreement has also come under scrutiny for its vagueness including on the economic component, with the Trump administration eager to compete with China and profit from abundant mineral wealth in the long-turbulent east of the vast DRC. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
A M23 soldier stands at the Coltan mining pits in Rubaya on March 5, 2025. He holds a gun. Many people seen in the background.
President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, in the door of an airplane, wearing a Black hat and Brown suit.
The three women wear head coverings and behind them hangs a banner that reads in part "Peace and Justice...Sudan." One of the women holds a sign showing a tank with the words "NO WAR" and a slash across a red circle.
Smoke rises up from behind buildings in Khartoum, Sudan.
Displaced villagers and their belongings are seen along a road after being evacuated from flooded water in Juba, South Sudan on September 28, 2021. Thousands of residents were displaced as rivers overflowed with heavy rain across parts of the country. (Photo by PETER LOUIS GUME/AFP via Getty Images)
$100 US Bill

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