The Economist (21 February 2009) paid tribute to Alison Des Forges, who courageously sought and reported the full truth as an investigator for Human Rights Watch in Rwanda and surrounding nations in Africa. Dr. Des Forges was one of 50 people killed in the crash of a commuter plane near Buffalo, New York on February 12.
Having written a doctoral thesis on Rwandan history in 1972, she spent several years investigating the nation's political violence for Human Rights Watch, and was one of the first outside observers to warn that a full-blown genocide was taking place. "But everyone who mattered ignored her."
After the genocide ended in 1994
Mrs Des Forges led a team of researchers to dig up the facts. She then wrote the definitive account: nearly 800 pages of scrupulously footnoted horror. Future historians will depend on it. Her testimony helped put several of the perpetrators behind bars. And she made it impossible to argue, as many did at the time, that the genocide was a spontaneous explosion of ancient tribal hatred. She read the plans. She saw the receipts for half a million machetes.
...She took extraordinary risks, rushing to the scenes of massacres and questioning killers when their blades were barely dry. She left out none of the ghastly details: the wives forced to bury their husbands before being raped; the baby thrown alive into a latrine.
She never went further than the facts allowed. Others might speculate that the genocide claimed 800,000 victims, or a million. She stuck with half a million, because she could substantiate it. Others assumed that if the genocidal Hutu regime were the bad guys, then the Tutsi rebels who overthrew them must be the good guys. Not so fast, said Mrs Des Forges: only one side was guilty of genocide, but both committed war crimes. The RPF killed perhaps 25,000 people in 1994, she reckoned....
What drove her? One story is revealing. In Burundi, Rwanda’s neighbour, tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered in 1993. The Western media barely noticed. Hutu officers in Rwanda concluded that they could do the same thing, and no one would give a damn. Mrs Des Forges wanted to document such atrocities so meticulously, and publicise them so persistently, that people would have to give a damn. Her book was called, after a killer’s cry, “Leave None to Tell the Story”. She knew that story-telling matters.
This is an awesome tribute to a great woman. She is one of MANY who should have their praises noted strongly in the present and future recordings of history as well as recognizing them NOW while they're alive. Many would just say to not focus on them but on the ones they are trying to help.
I found your blog via AlphaInventions but will return here. My blog is centered on the horrors in Palestine. I often quote HRW in articles I post or post from them.
Our faiths are different but our goal is the same, peace for all.
God bless you
Dee
http://iadiedee.wordpress.com
Posted by: Dee | March 01, 2009 at 05:58 PM