Finally!!! Between weak internet connections and a computer with settings entirely in French (my French is quite horrible) I have been able to make my first entry.
I am currently in Kigali, Rwanda. I have been here since Saturday, 19th May 2007 and I began my internship Monday, 21st May. I am working with the National Service of Gacaca Courts. I share an office with the legal officers. However, most of the lawyers are out in the field, so as of right now I have the office to myself.
I have been working on a response to Amnesty International. AI wrote quite a negative piece on Gacaca recently and has asked all of their members to write letters to the appropriate authorities to force the Gacaca Courts to provie accurate charges against one of the accused. (This of course is not how it works as Gacaca is different from the Western notions of justice and courts.) The story is quite interesting. The man who has been summoned to Gacaca, Byuma, is a human rights activist. His organization focuses on children’s rights. His organization, Turengere Abana, has accused the Presiding Judge of the local Gacaca Court of raping a 17 year old girl. Byuma is claiming that the charges against him brought by Gacaca did not come about until after his organization made the accusation against the Judge. Or that is at least how he is trying to make it appear to the international community. This of course is impossible, since all accusations were made during the initial stage of Gacaca which was the collection phase.
It’s fascinating, and sometimes I don’t fully understand things. The man I have been working with is from Uganda, so his English is perfect. I think most of the miscommunication has been based on cultural differences.
Currently a group is here from the American Justice Department. They are looking into allegations against Rwandans now living in the US. They are determining if the cases are strong enough to warrant the Rwandans to be extradited. Hopefully I will get to work a bit with them.
It’s great to be back in Rwanda. This is my 6th time here. But it has taken me a bit of time to readjust. Saturday and Sunday I hung out with the International Community. Saturday dinner was spent mainly with members from the US State Department at a Mexican restaurant. Sunday was spent at the Belgian Ambassador’s residence. There was an international food tasting day. The food was amazing. There were Swedish meatballs, raclette from Switzerland, Chinese dumplings, etc. It was amazing. Of course the American table had BBQ sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, and brownies. It was quite amusing. Anyone who is anyone in the International Community of Rwanda was there.
I have spent time with International Communities in Tanzania, Thailand, and Mexico. Yet, all of my previous trips to Rwanda were spent with Rwandans, so this was really my first introduction to the Rwandan International Community.
Somehow they always seem to be the same people just in slightly different locations. There are the aid workers, the members of various Foreign Service offices, volunteers, journalists, sometimes students conducting research, and very few locals who have somehow managed to be accepted by the International Community. They always seem to have similar personalities and fit perfectly into their given roles. That’s not to say that there are not some amazing and unique individuals around. It’s merely an observation on how bizarre the international community or x-pat community abroad can be.
I will write about what I did today tomorrow…it’s late and time to go home for the day. And I’m a bit hungry.
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1 comment:
Wow - that's really interesting. Thanks for posting your experiences here. And sorry to hear that they didn't German beer at the International-Food-Table. Or did they?
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