|
Tribute to ‘one who cared’
By
Jeff Chu
The Human Rights Watch activist, who died in the Buffalo plane crash,
was controversial, but she cared: About Rwanda, about rights, about
life.
Last fall, I called
Alison Des Forges of
Human Rights Watch--who
died Thursday night in the crash of a Continental Airlines plane near
Buffalo--to
ask for her help with my forthcoming story on Rwanda. She didn't respond
as most potential sources do. She didn't say, “Sure!” She didn't say,
"How can I help?" She didn't pencil me in. She gave me a reading list,
and she said, "Then we would have something to really talk about."
In subsequent weeks, we traded emails, a correspondence that revealed to
me a woman with passion--for human rights, for doing what she saw as
good wherever she could, for her family. She felt all this deeply. Her
ardent belief that civil rights are not being respected in today's
Rwanda made her a pest to that country's government. Her commitment to
not waste any time meant that I'd get emails telling me that she might
be able to squeeze in a brief chat in between research for a UN Security
Council briefing, a meeting with ex-Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo,
and the Security Council briefing itself. Her commitment to her
grandchildren meant that I couldn't interview her the week I wanted
to--all those days, she told me, would be totally blocked off for her
family.
Five years after the genocide, Des Forges published an 800-page,
painstakingly researched account of the tragedy called
Leave None to Tell the Story.
Some have said her recounting was "authoritative;" it certainly was
exhaustive and in many ways exhausting. Many people dispute some of her
interpretations of events, past and current—I certainly didn’t agree
with everything she told me. But those who know Rwanda would acknowledge
that her contributions were enormous. Another friend and source who's as
passionate about Rwanda as she was—but also passionate in his
disagreement with much of what she has said in recent years in very
strong criticism of Paul Kagame's government—told me: "She did more to
document and teach the true nature of that genocide than anyone else."
Certainly she helped me to ask good questions. In our brief
interactions, she acted less like a source than a professor: She
questioned my questions and forced me to consider underlying assumptions
and conclusions that I hadn't even realized I'd made. She, of course,
had made a lot of assumptions and conclusions, too--and she defended
them fiercely.
Des Forges was forthright about her opinions, never hesitated to share
them, and felt free to take on those who differed with her. But I
can't--nobody can--question that she sought justice and the truth,
which, in the murkiness of geopolitics and the tragedy of events like
1994's genocide, are often awfully hard to find. I think the title of
her book is especially telling. Why did Alison Des Forges do what she
did with her days? So many people don’t have the freedom to watch and to
record, to speak out and to call out. But she did—and she used it. She
told that story, as honestly and powerfully as she knew how.
|
