Last week when a commuter plane crashed in icy weather near Buffalo, New York, a tiny American lady with silver hair was among 50 people killed. Mrs Alison Des Forges, 66, was a rare scholar and human rights activist. She had issued a timely warning of the massacre in Rwanda, that later turned into one of the biggest modern genocides.
As it is there are few outsiders who know about life (or take any interest) in African countries. “Mrs Alison Des Forges was steeped in Rwanda’s turbulent history, having written her doctoral thesis about it in 1972. And she had a better sense than most of the evil that was brewing two decades later,” says The Economist in a moving tribute to her memory.
“She had spent years in Rwanda, investigating political violence for Human Rights Watch. She knew that a 1993 peace accord between the Hutu-dominated government and a Tutsi-led rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), was written in water, and that Hutu military leaders were mulling mass killings to avoid sharing power. She knew something terrible was afoot.
“She made calls, sent faxes and frantically gathered information. By April 17th she was convinced that a full-blown genocide was under way. She was one of the first outsiders to say so. But everyone who mattered ignored her. Africa specialists at the State Department wept with her when she described what was going on, but who listens to Africa specialists?…
“In some ways, she was old-fashioned. Whereas other human-rights activists fuss about an ever-lengthening list of socio-economic ‘rights’ (subsidised housing, fair trade, and so forth), Mrs Des Forges stuck to the basics, such as the right not to be murdered.
“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.” More here…
Des Forges graduated from Radcliffe College in 1964 and received her PhD from Yale in 1972. She began as a volunteer at Human Rights Watch, but was soon working full-time on Rwanda, trying to draw attention to the genocide she feared was looming. Most recently, Des Forges was working on a Human Rights Watch report about killings in eastern Congo.
Des Forges leaves a husband, a daughter, and a son, three grandchildren, a brother and a sister-in-law. The staff of Human Rights Watch expressed their deepest condolences to her family and friends. More here…
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.