“And did you see Mohammed Ali, above my desk?” Rudatsimburwa says, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair as he enters his cluttered office. The poster is of a young, weaving Mohammed Ali, with the line, “I’m so fast, last night I switched out the lights and was in bed before the room was dark.”

Not a bad slogan for a radio station that started out, in the last days of 2004, to bring something fresh to the Rwandan radio scene.

“When we started, there was only the state radio,” says Rudatsimburwa, who had just returned from Belgium, where he grew up. “That was the model. So we wanted to show what it could be, having entertaining morning shows, nice news. There had been a kind of post-genocide trauma, self-censorship culture. So we were trying to tell people that things could be different.”

Radio has had a dark side in Rwanda. The station Radio Mille Collines helped incite the 1994 genocide that killed more than 800,000 people. Even now, radio remains Rwanda’s most popular media source – not surprising, given that a quarter of the population is illiterate, and many people are too poor to buy a television.

The morning editorial meeting at Contact FM's office in Kigali, Rwanda. (Photo: Mary Kay Magistad)

“Bonjour!” Rudatsimburwa calls out cheerily, as he enters the newsroom for the morning editorial meeting. The dozen or so young reporters swivel their chairs to face him, or get up and sit on the edges of desks. They talk through the stories in play – switching between English, French and Kinyarwanda – the local language.

One story in the works on this morning is about an illegal government detention center, for street kids and vagrants.

“So who decides when you can walk out? Based on what?” asks Rudatsimburwa.

“They decide every two weeks whom to release,” replies reporter Richard Ndayambaje, who has been assigned to the story. “Maybe they let you go for the weekend,” another one jokes.

Rudatsimburwa laughs with everyone else, makes his own joke in Kinyarwandan, and then pulls attention back to the story. “If this center is illegal, someone has to explain how come it’s there. It might be a positive thing, but if it’s illegal, it’s illegal.”

Contact FM reporter Richard Ndayambaje(right). (Photo: Mary Kay Magistad)

“You never know what happens to you,” he says. “But all you have to do as a journalist, I think, is report the truth, and wait to see what happens, whether the story has an impact. But I think the more the media develop in Rwanda, the more those incidents are becoming less.”

Ndayambaje, 25, says things are already better than when he started out in professional journalism four years ago. There are now dozens of Rwandan news media outlets, and the government is getting more used to being questioned. It’s even considering passing freedom of information legislation.

But critics of the government say press freedom in Rwanda remains seriously limited.

“Everyone now knows the very negative role the media played in the run-up to the genocide, and I think any responsible government would take measures to avoid that.” says Carina Tersakian, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch who was kicked out of Rwanda last year, and now lives in London. “But what has been happening is that this vaguely defined offense of genocide ideology has been used to target government critics, not only journalists but also opposition politicians and ordinary Rwandans.”

According to a Rwandan Senate report, about 200 people were convicted on the charge of genocide ideology from 2001 to 2006. Some were sentenced to years in prison. Rights groups have expressed concern about how many journalists have been convicted on this charge.

Shyaka Kamura, editor of the newspaper Rwanda Focus, says such rights groups should take a closer look at what some of the convicted journalists have been writing.

“You’ll find someone writing that Hutus, actually it’s their time to rise up,” he says. “We are talking just 17 years after the genocide. And they’ll be publishing stuff that includes incitement.”

Rwandan President Paul Kagame at a news conference. (Photo: Mary Kay Magistad)

“We live in this world where some people think they are more right, even more righteous, than others,” he said at a recent news conference. “They set the standard; they want others to do what they are doing, and so on and so forth.” And here, he paused and chuckled softly to himself. “But then, down the road, the very people who claim this position really start messing up, and it undermines their credibility.”

Kagame’s supporters say he has helped bring Rwanda back from the dead, that his government has restored social stability, built up the economy, and encouraged reconciliation – mostly. Others say he rules with too heavy a hand. Some ask why Kagame suspended two newspapers critical of him in the run-up to last year’s national elections, why several journalists say they received threats or had been roughed up, and had to flee the country.

Vocal critic Charles Ingabire fled the country – and was living in Uganda when he was shot dead on November 30, coming out of a bar. He had edited the online Inyenyeri News, which was known for being critical of the government. Another journalist, Jean Leonard Rugambage, deputy editor of Umuvugizi newspaper, was killed in Rwanda last year. His colleagues say he had, at the time, been investigating the shooting in South Africa of a Rwandan general, Kayumba Nyamwasa, who’d fallen out with Kagame. The government has denied involvement in both cases. Rights groups have called for independent investigations.

“The climate for independent journalists in Rwanda right now is pretty bleak,” says Carina Tersakian of Human Rights Watch.

By “‘independent,’ she means those who criticize the government. Rwanda Focus editor Shyaka Kanuma argues that there is room for criticism – not for lies.

“I wouldn’t mind if it were legitimate criticism. But here I am, a Rwandan. I know my country very well. I know the problems we have. I know that Paul Kagame is not a perfect president. He is not a perfect person. But when I see the terrible lies people tell. I know the kinds of challenges we face as journalists in this country. I know the kind of challenges we get accessing information. But does that amount to abuse of human rights? Far from the case!”

The Contact FM office in Kigali, Rwanda. (Photo: Mary Kay Magistad)

“I think that is still – that will take some time. You need the material to brew a political satire,” he says. “You need to see what politicians are doing. And most of the time, it’s not public enough, what they do.”

Then again, he says there’s a funny video on Youtube of a Rwandan comedian at a soiree, imitating President Kagame, while Kagame listened at a nearby table.

“Same voice, same everything, you know? And you could see, some guys in the room were wondering, ‘is this correct?’ And even the president was there. But because he had a big laugh, so everyone relaxed. But before that, I could see that some of them were stressed.”

What Rwandans need, even more than satire, Rudatsimburwa says, is to lose their submissive attitude toward power.

“People need to understand that in a society like this, people are citizens,” he says. And in a society where you have citizens, we’re not supposed to be treated as subjects. There’s not a king there.”

The call-in programs at Contact FM try to encourage people to speak up. And never are there more calls, Rudatsimburwa says, than in the week each April when the station opens up the lines to commemorate the genocide. Survivors call in. A couple of perpetrators have called in to tell their side of the story, and to apologize.

“We also had a call – a guy said, ‘you know what we did in ’94, we’ll do it again.’

The caller’s phone number was traced, and he was arrested.

Contact FM founder and owner Albert Rudatsimburwa. (Photo: Mary Kay Magistad)

But a recent survey by the Prosperity Index in London found that most Rwandans adults feel they have adequate personal freedoms, and trust their government; less than a third trust each other.

Behind the scenes at Contact FM



Mary Kay Magistad’s reports from Rwanda

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Today, Aisha will walk into a courtroom on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, and stare into the faces of the people she holds responsible for her misery.

“I’m not at peace with the Khmer Rouge. They killed my family. Even my niece—they killed her. She was only six months old,” Aisha said.

It’s been more than three decades since the Khmer Rouge fell from power. But the nightmares still keep Aisha awake at night. Aisha is a Cham Muslim, a minority group here. The Chams faced particular persecution under the Khmer Rouge for their religious beliefs.

“One day they forced me to eat the meat of the pig,” Aisha said, sobbing. “I can’t do that because it’s not allowed under Islam. I didn’t want to do it. I tried to beg them. But they said, if I don’t eat it, they’ll take me to a new place to live.”

It was a euphemism — for execution. In less than four years, the Khmer Rouge wiped out one-quarter of Cambodia’s population.

Monks stand outside the Khmer Rouge tribunal courtroom in Phnom Penh. (Photo: Irwin Loy)

Aisha once thought she would never see the day when Khmer Rouge leaders would face justice. Still, she’s only half convinced the United Nations-backed tribunal will bring her peace.

“The Khmer Rouge leaders are all old,” she said. “They could die before the court can bring me justice.”

But other Khmer Rouge victims have already given up on the court.

Theary Seng hurls darts at a giant photo of former Khmer Rouge head of state, Khieu Samphan — one of the three people on trial. The words “poetic justice” are pasted on the sides of her makeshift dartboard.

“I am getting my poetic justice on the face of Khieu Samphan, who I hold personally responsible for the deaths of my parents of my aunt and uncle, of two million other Cambodians,” she said, throwing another dart. “And since I’m not getting my justice in a court of law because the court of law has become a complete sham, I and other victims need to release our aggression and look for justice in other means.”

Seng was recognized by the court as an official Khmer Rouge victim—with the right to be represented at tribunal hearings. But she’s not participating in the trial – in protest, she said, of the court’s failings.

The tribunal set a precedent by allowing victims to participate directly in the first Khmer Rouge trial. But there are so many victims in thiscase, that the court appointed a team of lawyers to represent the nearly 4,000 individual civil parties. Seng said the court has reneged on its promise to involve the victims.

“There are a lot of beautiful phrases that are thrown out there, with victims’ reconciliation, national reconciliation, victims’ participation, but zero substance,” Seng said.

The court has also been criticized for its handling of two other cases still under investigation. Critics claim the court’s investigating body botched the investigation because of pressure from a Cambodian government that opposes further tribunals.

Clair Duffy, a legal monitor with the Open Society Justice Initiative, said this has raised questions “about the independence of the court, huge fair trial questions, and huge questions about justice for victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities.”

Students leave the Khmer Rouge tribunal courthouse after the first day of opening statements in the trial of three former senior regime leaders. (Photo: Irwin Loy)

Youk Chhang, who directs the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, whose archives form the foundation of the court’s evidence, said the court does need reform. But he added that the concept of justice is different for every Cambodian — and that shouldn’t negate the importance of putting the Khmer Rouge leaders on trial.

“What can the court bring to me? Can it bring back my sister? Can it bring back to me their life? Can you bring back justice at our own terms? Can it put all of them into a life sentence in prison? No. So what’s in it? It’s a process. We have to take back the history. We have to take charge of our own life history,” Chhang said.

At the end of the first day of the proceedings, Kup Aisha stood outside the courtroom. She said she tried to look into the eyes of the Khmer Rouge leaders on trial.

“When I looked at their faces, I felt so much anger. If I was a man, or a stronger person, maybe I would have tried to hit them. They did so much damage to my family, but they just sit there without anything to worry about,” she said. “It didn’t feel good, to see them.”

This trial is expected to last at least two years.

Gahire explains that his uncle cut down the forest here to grow crops on the steep hills. But without the trees, the soil on the hills began to erode. So his uncle planted grass instead, and turned the hill into pastureland for cattle.

It’s a common story here.

This farm used to be part of the vast Gishwati forest, home to creatures like chimpanzees and golden monkeys. But now it’s just hill after hill of green grass, with only an occasional tree. Almost 95 percent of the forest is gone.

“If you look at the forest you can see how it has been degraded,” said Madeline Nyiratuza, a coordinator with the Gishwati Area Conservation Program of The Great Ape Trust.

Legacy of Genocide

Nyiratuza stands on a hill overlooking a small patch of remaining forest. She says the deforestation in this part of Rwanda is a legacy of the genocide in the 1990s.

“These farms, which are surrounding the forest, have been created after 1994 genocide, when people who came back to Rwanda from DRC cut down the forest to plant crops and raise their animals,” Nyiratuza said.

After the genocide, the government allowed refugees to come back to Rwanda and settle in the country’s natural reserves, like the Gishwati forest.

But Rwanda’s deforestation problem didn’t start then. The country’s natural resources have been ravaged for decades. Starting in the 1970’s, much of the Gishwati was cleared for tea and timber plantations, and commercial cattle ranches.

Then in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the country’s population grew faster than food production. That led to destructive farming practices that exhausted soil and local ecosystems all over Rwanda.

All of this deforestation has had a big human cost. In northwest Rwanda alone, heavy rainfall in deforested areas has caused floods that have killed close to 100 people in recent years. Erosion from the floods has also destroyed crops and brought famine to tens of thousands of people.

Economic Threat

But the government is finally starting to reckon with the problem.

“Our country is very vulnerable with regard to land erosion, with regard to land degradation. So the very source that people have to depend on is at risk,” said Stanislas Kamanzi, Rwanda’s Minister of Natural Resources.

Kamanzi says the government recognizes that a weak environment is a serious economic threat. So earlier this year, the government announced a new plan to restore the country’s landscape.

It’s called the Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, and the ambitious goal is to reverse the degradation of Rwanda’s soil, and restore watersheds and forests from one border of the country to another by the year 2035.

Kamanzi says the plan is aimed at making sure Rwandans can continue to support themselves by farming.

“For those farming activities to be sustainable, you need productive land. And our land can be productive if only it’s protected, it’s conserved,” Kamanzi said.

The Rwandan government is working with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the UN Forum on Forests to figure out the details and implement the massive restoration plan.

But it’s based on the understanding that trees and forests not only provide habitat for animals, they also help build and retain soil, and hold and filter water.

Kamanzi says the ultimate vision is to restore working ecosystems across Rwanda.

“The Rwanda we are contemplating in the years to come will look more or less like an afforested area, while under the canopy you’re having all the types of crops people need for their wellbeing,” he said.

Changes Already Underway

You can see an example of the vision behind the restoration plan less than an hour south of the country’s capital.

The Bugesera district is a dry and drought- prone place. In the last decade, some droughts have been so severe that international organizations have had to step in with food aid. But the environment is becoming a priority here, and it’s easy to find newly planted trees.

Along the main road, tall trees shade rows of coffee and cassava plants.

Paul Kalimba, who owns some of the trees, tears a branch off a bush, crouches down and pokes it into the ground, demonstrating how he planted the trees as saplings just three years ago.

Local authorities gave him the saplings, and paid him to plant them.

Kalimba says people around here are happy with the trees, because there weren’t enough before. He says it’s very important, because he believes the trees have brought more rainfall.

It’s a small success, so far. But the Rwandan government hopes its Landscape Forest Restoration Initiative will replicate this scene across the entire country, from the dry plains of Bugesera, to the wet hills of the northwest.

Supporters acknowledge there will be big challenges. But, if it works, Rwanda will look very different, and perhaps be a healthier and more prosperous country, a quarter century from now.

Habyarimana was the president of Rwanda until 1994 when his plane was shot down.

His death is what set off the Rwandan genocide. Tuesday for the first time, President Kagame addressed a direct question about the accusation during a press conference.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to The World’s Mary Kay Magistad who attended the conference.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Now on to Rwanda where President Paul Kagame is dealing with an explosive allegation made against him. A former ally has accused the President of being responsible for the event that set off Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Theogene Rudasingwa said Kagame was behind the shooting down of the plane of former President Juvenal Habyarimana. The genocide that followed left an estimated 800,000 people dead. Today President Kagame held a press conference in Kigali. The World’s Mary Kay Magistad was there. She says Kagame only commented briefly on the accusations against him.

Mary Kay Magistad: He has been tweeting about this issue since the accusation was made. So it’s not the first comment he’s made on it. But what he said today was, “I am amazed by the idleness of some people in the media who spend a lot of time talking about nothing and nothing becomes something but still with no meanings. So I am not going to discuss this nonsense. The person who said it has something to do with his brain or in his skull and, if he wants to say something I can’t stop him. I have a country to run and I am going to get on with it.”

Werman: I am curious, Mr. Rudasingwa made these accusations early last week and Kagame has been tweeting about the accusation, and this is the first time…in fact, the first question that came up about this, and it was 35 minutes in to this press conference, I understand. What do you think this says about the willingness of Rwandans to talk about this part of their history?

Magistad: Well, Rwandan are willing to talk about this part of their history. It not like anyone thinks that there is a deep secret here. I think that they accept President Kagame’s earlier explanation which was, “Look, we were at war with the government at that point. If I wanted to shoot down a plane I could have, but I didn’t. If you look at the facts on the ground, what happened was the plane went down, 25 minutes later road barriers went up and minutes after that the genocide started. Hutu gangs started going house to house with lists already made of people to assassinate, most of them, at the beginning, Tutsi intellectuals and Hutu moderates. So why on earth woud I as the head of mainly Tutsi malitia want to trigger a genocide of Tutsi people? In Rwanda it just doesn’t make sense. Again, this is nonsense. Let’s move on and talk about the future of Rwanda.”

Werman: Once you are back out on the streets of Kigali, what do Rwandans have to say about Kagame? Do they say his leadership is worth the stronghand that many say he has brought to politics in Rwanda?

Magistad: It depends who you talk to. I think certainly in talking to journalists here, and I have talked to quite a few, and also people on the film side of the media community here, they don’t feel like they are being terribly oppressed. They feel that while there are limits to what they can say, certainly there are limits to hate speech in Rwanda as there are in Germany, that there is a pretty wide range of things that they can cover. For me, coming from China and talking to journalists here and talking to people on the streets, it feels freer. I am looking at it in somewhat relative terms but it’s certainly not a full-fledged open democracy where anyone can say anything. At the same time Rwanda is still a society that is getting over a genocide where people using the media to promote hate speech led to extraordinary devastation here. So you can see both sides of it. Ideally free speech is a good thing, on the other hand at what point do you say free speech stops at the point where you are shooting fire in a crowded theatre.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Theogene Rudasingwa said he heard Kagame boast in 1994 that he ordered the shooting down of the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana.

“By committing that kind of crime Kagame has the responsibility in the crime of genocide,” he told the BBC.

President Kagame has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attack.

Rudasingwa, who lives in the US, has fallen out with Kagame in recent years and was sentenced in absentia in March to a 24-year jail term for threatening state security and propagating ethnic divisions.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to the BBC’s Mark Doyle about this explosive allegation.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda left an estimated 800,000 people dead, but it was the death of one man that triggered it. That man was Juvenal Habyarimana. He was the president of Rwanda until April 6, 1994, that’s when a plane carrying Habyariman was shot down as it came in for landing in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. The killing unleashed the genocide. Now, a former ally of current Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, has made an explosive accusation about that catalytic event. Theogene Rudasingwa posted a statement on Facebook alleging that Kagame was personally responsible for shooting down the plane. The BBC’s Mark Doyle was in Rwanda throughout most of the genocide in 1994. Mark, we know the broad strokes of the saga of the shooting down of the plane, both sides blaming each other and the genocide that followed. What did Mr. Rudasingwa actually say though?

Mark Doyle: Well, what Theogene Rudasingwa said is that Paul Kagame boasted to him really a couple of months after the genocide started in April 1994, boasted to him that he had been responsible for shooting down this plane. Now, these allegations have been made before. It’s been kind of generally accepted certainly as the narrative of the Rwandan government, but it was extremists in the Hutu regime who committed the genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus who shot down the plane, but there have been allegations from France and others in the past that Paul Kagame has questions to answer on this, and some direct allegations against him. But what’s so explosive about this allegation is that Theogene Rudasingwa was a very close ally of Paul Kagame during the war. I met Rudasingwa just a few days after the plane had gone down. He was on the line, he was directing troops, he was the ideologue if you will, for the party and the army that Paul Kagame was running. He was in that close circle. So for somebody who was so close to Kagame to have made this allegation, somebody who was in a position to know the truth at least, we don’t know whether he’s telling the truth of course, but he’s in a position to perhaps know the truth to make this allegation is politically explosive.

Werman: I was gonna ask you, is he credible?

Doyle: Well, he’s a very careful, thoughtful, articulate politician and he has admitted in his statement that he’s been lying all of these years by presenting the thesis that it was in fact the other guys, the Hutus, who did the shooting down of the plane. And he says he regrets those lies, so he’s admitted that he’s lied in the past. And he is of course now a member of the exiled opposition and so, of course, he could be trying to make political capital out of this. But I think we can be fairly certain that Paul Kagame will be furious that someone who was so close to him has now made this allegation. We don’t know, I don’t know the truth of who shot down that plane. Both explanations are plausible in their own way and have their own political explanations, but the really explosive nature of this, it comes in part of the text which Rudasingwa put out in his statement. He said that by doing this, the allegation of course that Kagame did it, he is by implication of course complicit in the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Tutsis, who died in the genocide. And of course, that’s political dynamite for Paul Kagame who is himself a Tutsi.

Werman: And why is Mr. Rudasingwa saying this now? Where is he saying it from?

Doyle: Well, he’s saying it from the United States where he’s been based for a while. He’s been working as an academic and other things as well as being politically active in the exiled opposition. But he says he’s saying it to come to peace with God and to tell the truth, behoove the truth is what’s necessary to build the country up properly. But of course, everyone will suspect that he’s also saying it for political reasons of his own.

Werman: Mark, you were there when the genocide happened in 1994, you covered much of it. For you what is the significance of this allegation by Rudasingwa?

Doyle: Well, it’s really that there are unanswered questions still in Rwanda. I don’t know whether Rudasingwa is telling the truth. You know, they’re all politicians and they all lie sometimes, but it’s really that this is an unanswered question and until it’s really answered politicians will continue to use it for their own purposes and until it is resolved Rwanda won’t really be at peace.

Werman: The BBC’s Mark Doyle there.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Darfur refugees in a camp along the Chad-Sudan border in 2007 (Photo: Jeb Sharp)

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by Jeb Sharp

The pace of the Libya intervention has stunned the people of Darfur and the activists who worked so hard to protect them. Back in 2004, the assumption was that if you raised a loud enough outcry, governments would act to stop mass atrocities. In Libya the outcry had barely begun when governments intervened. The difference has not gone unnoticed by Rebecca Hamilton the author of ‘Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide’.

“What Libya has that Darfur never had, still does not have to the present day, and desperately needs, is a unified international commitment to do civilian protection,” said Hamilton.

Hamilton says Libya underscores for her how the battle to protect civilians takes place in the realm of global geo-politics. In this case it was the Arab League’s request to the UN Security Council to enforce a no fly zone and protect civilians that made the difference.

“Without that then you would have had China in particular doing what it did in Darfur–and which is its typical position–which is to threaten to veto anything that looks interventionist,” said Hamilton.

“But with the Arab League specifically requesting to the UN Security Council that they do this, I think that led to China agreeing to abstain and let such a strong civilian protection resolution go through.”

The Arab League was willing to forsake Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a way it was never ready to forsake Sudanese President Omar al Bashir. Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy says a key motivating factor in the Libya intervention was the widespread desire to see Gaddafi fall.

“The Arab League generally has no love for Gaddafi,” said Knights. “Many of the key players have a strong desire to see Gaddafi fall because of prior disagreements and bitter conflicts that they’ve had with him. Likewise the West has long-lasting grudges against Gaddafi whether they be the U.S., the British, the French.”

Even so, it wasn’t a given that the Arab League would sideline Gaddafi, notes Rebecca Hamilton. At the height of the outcry over Darfur, the Arab League stood by Sudanese President Omar al Bashir.

“I think what made the difference is the high-level defections of some of Gaddafi’s closest inner circle,” said Hamilton.

“And that again is something that you have not had in Sudan. Bashir’s inner circle have stayed tight and in support of him. But I think that when Gaddafi’s inner circle started to split it was easier for regional bodies like the Arab League to say, well we can stand beside Libya, whilst isolating Gaddafi.”

But Hamilton says there’s another striking reason things have played out differently in Libya and Darfur.

“If I had to put it in one word, I’d say Iraq,” said Hamilton.

“The problem during the early days in Darfur was that it was really only the U.S. government that was leading the charge for civilian protection, and it was in many ways the worst-placed actor to do so in the context of the recent invasion in Iraq. It just looked like hypocrisy and double standards for the Bush Administration to be talking about human rights in Darfur whilst you had Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and all of the other consequences of Iraq.”

It also made it easy for President Bashir of Sudan to paint any discussion of an international peacekeeping force for Darfur as an American-led attempt to invade yet another Muslim country. But things are different today. Time has passed. There’s a different administration in the White House, and the rest of the world is less cynical about US motives. There is surprising support for the Libya intervention in the Arab World.

But even if there had been similar agreement on Darfur there’s another glaring difference between the two cases, according to Robert Pape of the University of Chicago.

“The main difference between Darfur and Libya is actually the geography,” said Pape.

Pape points out that Libya is close to Europe and right on the coast. That means Gaddafi’s forces are vulnerable to NATO’s sea-based air power. Darfur, by contrast, is in western Sudan, hundreds of miles from the sea, with mountainous terrain and lots of small arms fire. Protecting civilians there is a different proposition.

“As a result, nearly every plan that was serious included significant numbers of ground troops,” said Pape. “The African Union put together the smallest plan for 2000 ground forces, the UN began to look at this and very quickly the number got up to 30,000 ground troops. And once you’re talking about tens of thousands of ground troops going into a very hostile environment, now we begin to balance out the humanitarian goal with the serious risk of life to ourselves.”

The UN Security Council did eventually deploy a peacekeeping force to Darfur, but not before hundreds of thousands of people had died and millions had been displaced. Even now, says Rebecca Hamilton, there’s an urgent need for international pressure for a peace settlement and the enforcement of a ceasefire in Darfur.

Slideshow from 2007 – all photos: Jeb Sharp

Read more:
• ‘Fighting for Darfur’ by Rebecca Hamilton
• ‘Beyond a No-Fly Zone: How to Protect Civilians in Libya’ by Michael Knights
• ‘The New Standard for Humanitarian Intervention’ by Robert Pape

• FAQ: Sudan’s Darfur conflict
• War in Darfur ‘over’ (2009)
• Jeb Sharp’s history podcast: How We Got Here
• Jeb Sharp’s 2007 Darfur coverage
• Follow Jeb Sharp on Twitter

I was astounded by what they were able to do, the courage that they showed, and with writing the book I wanted to bring some of their stories forward too,  so people could really hear them.  The purpose of the trial–one of the main purposes for me–is you’re really needing to re-weave the web of humanity that’s been broken, our community, our human community. It’s been broken so egregiously by horrible crimes. We want to stand with the victims, we don’t want to stand with the perpetrators. And they need to know that. They need to know that the people of the world recognize how seriously they’ve been harmed, and care about it.

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Jeb Sharp’s November 11, 2003 radio report on the Milosevic Trial

ICTY – International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

DAVID BARON: Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is running for a second term in next week’s election. He’s almost certain to win. Rwanda was almost a failed state after the genocide in 1994. And many at home and abroad credit Kagame for turning the East African nation into an economic success story. But critics say there’s another side to Kagame and his government. They point to some troubling signs. There’s been a crackdown on the press and a few of Kagame’s political opponents have turned up dead. Nick Wadhams reports from the capital Kigali.

NICK WADHAMS:  The symbolism seems almost too good to be true. Under a billboard featuring Paul Kagame and the slogan “actions speak louder than words,” workers lay down asphalt to widen a main road leading into Kigali. Its projects like this that have made Kagame’s government so popular. Unlike in most other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the roads here are good and the streets are clean. The government has stamped out most corruption and doubled economic output over the last six years. Now, Kagame’s Rwanda is touted as an African success story. I meet Sam Dusengiyumva at a downtown coffee shop. He lost his parents and all four of his siblings in the genocide. A survivor’s fund paid for his education. Now Dusengiyumva is the country director for the US-based One Laptop Per Child program.

SAM DUSENGIYUMVA:  You know what I feel proud of is that we went through hell and the inbox way of thinking was that Rwanda is not going to make it. Rwanda? No way, this is a failed country. But now at least, now Rwanda has proven the contrary. People think you know, these people can never live together. After killing one million? Actually we are living together.

WADHAMS: At a rally, a crowd cheered wildly when Kagame takes the podium. Kagame is undoubtedly popular, but his critics ask just how much of that is genuine. They suggest people think that if they don’t show support for the ruling party, they might be punished. Critics point to a worrying pattern. Several newspapers and radio stations banned in recent months. No true opposition party allowed to register ahead of the vote. And a string of killings and attempted killings of independent journalists, former Kagame allies, and exiled politicians.

FRANK HABINEZA: The ruling party is so powerful it will still win the elections. So I really don’t understand why they are so threatened.

WADHAMS: Frank Habineza is the leader of Rwanda’s Green Party, which wasn’t allowed to register. The party’s vice president, Andre Rwisikera was brutally murdered last month.

HABINEZA: We have a parliament here that cannot question the executive. So we have institutions that are not working very well. We have one institution which is a function of [INDISCERNABLE] institution of the presidency.

WADHAMS: Kagame and his party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, vehemently deny any role in the recent killings. Kagame says outside forces are trying to stir chaos. And RPF spokesman Senator Wellars Gasamagera says there was good reason to ban some parties and newspapers. They didn’t obey the law.

WELLARS GASAMAGERA: If we become lenient with the people who want to do just whatever they want, most of the time even going beyond or transgressing existing laws, laws must be respected.

WADHAMS: Two hours south of Kigali, students at the National University of Rwanda play basketball in the afternoon heat. The students tell me their country’s progress masks a fear of speaking out. One student, who asks not to be identified, says the ruling party has established a network of spies.

MALE SPEAKER:  There are students who are members of RPF and who can hear some bad things and report it to their representative.

WADHAMS: To help me understand that fear, the student takes me down the road, to the New Sombrero bar. He refuses to go inside. When I go in, the place is mostly empty. So why the fear? The student tells me the bar was owned by the assassinated Green Party official. He tells me people are afraid to be seen there because it might look like they support the opposition.

MALE SPEAKER: They can say that the other party has got followers. So it’s up to you to compare why this bar, which is near the road, which is very busy, is somehow quiet. You can visit other bars and you compare to yourself.

WADHAMS: That seems to exemplify the situation in Rwanda. While the government points to massive rallies and economic success, opponents and rights advocates say the pervasive fear shows that Kagame is a more ambiguous figure than the forward-thinking modernizer he is seen as in the West. For The World, this is Nick Wadhams, Butare, Rwanda.

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston.  Peter Erlinder is sitting in a Rwandan prison today far from his home in Minnesota.  Erlinder is a lawyer.  He traveled t Rwanda last week to defend a Presidential candidate there.  The candidate had been accused of denying Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.  Rwandan authorities proceeded to arrest the U.S. lawyer and accused him of denying the genocide too.  Today police official allege that Erlinder tried to commit suicide in his cell by swallowing a cocktail of medication.  But Erlinder’s lawyers call the allegation suspicious.  Eric Janus is Dean of the William Mitchell College of Law where Peter Erlinder teaches.  First of all, the allegation that your colleague might be attempting to take his own life in his prison cell in Rwanda, how does that report strike you Eric Janus?

ERIC JANUS:  It strikes me as low in credibility.  From what I know about Professor Erlinder, he is a tenacious advocate and that would be very surprising to me if he attempted to take his own life.

WERMAN: Now, Rwanda is prosecuting him for denying the genocide in what he writes and what he says.  What do you think?  I mean, 800,000 Rwandans, that’s the number that’s usually cited.  They lost their lives in the 1994 killing spree in the course of three months.  Denying or even minimizing it would be a weighty matter, wouldn’t it?

JANUS: It certainly is a weighty matter.  It’s obviously an important and contentious history.  I’m not a defender or a detractor of Professor Erlinder’s views.  This is not a person who, in some sort of gratuitous way has called the Rwandan massacres a hoax or made a historical claim in a general set of forums.  This is a person who has developed a set of legal positions in the context of defending a person who is accused of very serious crimes.  I think that’s what we and international law expect a defense lawyer to do.  No one put Adolph Eichmann’s lawyer in prison when he vigorously defended Eichmann in an Israeli court.  It’s a key part of the process of identifying who the guilty parties are for these heinous crimes and punishing them.

WERMAN: Why do you then think Peter Erlinder was arrested?

JANUS: I think he was arrested because he went to Rwanda to represent an individual in court who contests the official version of events in 1994 and who is a political threat probably to the government in Rwanda.

WERMAN: Given just how crispy relations were between the United States and Rwanda after the genocide, a lot of people in Rwanda saw President Clinton at the time as looking the other way.  The question is should an American lawyer be playing such a prominent role in Rwandan political affairs?

JANUS: I don’t have a judgment about that.  What I know is that Professor Erlinder went to Rwanda with a legitimate purpose in mind that is responding to a request for representation by an individual who has been charged with a crime in Rwanda.  It would certainly be within the rights of the government in Rwanda to deny him the right to enter the country.  They didn’t do that, they allowed him to enter.  It would certainly be within their rights to deny him on legitimate grounds, the right to appear in their courts.  But to put him in prison for attempting to do what lawyers do and what must be done, if a criminal process is to be legitimate, strikes me as well on the other side of permissible.

WERMAN:  Eric Janus, the Dean of the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul Minnesota.  His colleague Peter Erlinder is in prison in Rwanda.  Thank you very much for joining us Eric.

JANUS: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

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• ‘What is the What’ book info
• The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation
• Sudan: a nation divided

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This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

JEB SHARP:  Two men, one from the U-S and one from Sudan, crossed paths six years ago.

Their lives remain intertwined to this day.  The American is Dave Eggers.  He was already a successful writer, whose books included one called “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.”  The Sudanese man is Valentino Achak Deng.  He had led a heartbreaking life of staggering sorrow.  Valentino had escaped his home village of Marial Bai in war-torn southern Sudan.  Eggers turned Valentino’s life-story into an only slightly fictionalized biography, called “What Is the What.”  Now, three years later, proceeds from the novel have gone back to Marial Bai to build a school.  It’s gratifying for both the author, Dave Eggers, and his subject, Valentino Achak Deng.  For all they’ve been through though, both men say they’ll never forget that first time they met.

VALENTINO ACHAK DENG:  Dave, you know, is this just cool guy, doesn’t talk too much, but we are just about a writer meeting a student and then they write a book, it would not have been possible.  We would have had to go through a lot of trust issues and we had trouble.  We took risks, actually.  Dave took risks, and went to Marial Bai with me when I reunited with my family.  And I was at Dave’s wedding, my first American wedding to attend.  You could imagine that.  Dave brought me to his life, and he also came to my life.

SHARP:  Dave Eggers?

DAVE EGGERS:  A lot of it has to do with Valentino, you know, and his bravery in sharing his story.  It wasn’t easy to get at some of the more difficult parts of the story and a lot of parts of it that weren’t easy to remember or to recount or to get published.  But his courage in revealing all of that was important, you know.

SHARP:  And now an awful lot has happened in Sudan in recent years.   I mean, there’s everything that happened in the years encompassed by the book, but even since then, the war that destroyed your village and caused your flight with the Lost Boys ended in 2005 with a peace agreement between north and south Sudan.  So southern Sudan where you’re from, Valentino, is supposed to be emerging from a crisis. You’ve used the proceeds from the book to start a foundation that’s built a school back in your home village.  Is this indeed a time of renewal and hope in southern Sudan?

DENG:  This is the time for me where people need to go back and help.  We went back to Marial Bai and realized that many multilateral organization and even the new autonomous government of southern Sudan was paying so much attention to primary education.  For example, in the area where we’ve built a second school now, this is going to be the only functioning secondary school the region has ever had.

SHARP: Dave Eggers, you’ve visited the new school in Marial Bai.  It opened this year.  What strikes you about it?

EGGERS:  The first thing that strikes me is that Valentino, with the help of one staff member here in the US, pretty much built this school on his own, with the help of the community there in Marial Bai. And it’s flabbergasting to a lot of organizations that have been trying to build similar facilities in southern Sudan, and Valentino did it in about a year, and it’s a 14 building complex with cafeteria and a library and ten classrooms and pretty soon, ideally, there’ll be a dormitory for girls and there’s about 100 students there right now, and a waiting list of almost 1,000 to go to this school.

SHARP:  What’s the secret? What’s different?

EGGERS:  It took a man that had lived in Ethiopia and Kenya and the US, but had grown up and knew the Marial Bai community and knew how to get things done there.  Besides just being an incredible scholar, he’s a guy that knows how to negotiate the price of bricks and mortar and things like that.

DENG:  The other idea is, I wanted to invest in the community, so we bought bricks from the local brick makers and hoping that that money will go to the local economy.  Now I could see shops in Marial Bai that came as a result of the bricks business.  Another thing is that we just inspire the youth. For example, when we started, it was just the rainy season and people had to carry bag of cements on their back.  People had to carry everything we needed to the construction site.

SHARP:  This all sounds so good and positive and the economy’s being rebuilt, even as the school project’s getting off the ground. Can you convey the feeling there after so many years of war, especially when there’s often a feeling that the peace isn’t that stable?

DENG:  There is still a concern that if the regions return to war, or if this pocket of insecurity in many parts of south Sudan spread all over, then it will be tough for us, because we have students who come from different part of the country.  But I have lived in Sudan for almost a year now, and I haven’t seen people advocating to go back to war.

SHARP:  Dave Eggers?

EGGERS:  It’s essential that we have to be optimistic and you have to give the young people the hope.  You know, there’s a generation or two that grew up without schools.

SHARP:  You’re both translators in a way.  You’re trying to bring continually the story of Sudan to people here in the United States.  And I’m curious how you’ve come to think about that, how you break through the sense of something being far away and out of sight and out of mind.  How do you get people to care about suffering far away?

DENG:  First I believe that all people have so much in common than they are able to realize. We are all the same.  It’s just about how do we get to hear about things?

SHARP:  Dave Eggers?

EGGERS:  Well, I think it was important, and it’s important for a lot of stories like this and in parts of the world that the US and Western world doesn’t know that much about.  I think most of the time, it’s best to tell that story through one person’s eyes and to be able to connect with their elemental humanity and our commonalities and say, “Well, that boy could have been me.”

SHARP:  Valentino, I can’t resist asking you one more question. I heard you got on an airplane recently and sat next to a woman who was reading the book, “What is the What.”

DENG:  We sat at the airport together and she was reading the book.  I could not resist the temptation after 30 minutes of seeing her reading and sometimes laughing.  And then I said, “Hey, that’s my story you’re reading.”  She said, “What?”  I said, “I am Valentino” and she could not accept that.  At that point, I had to show her my passport, and wow, it was a drama.

SHARP:  Valentino Achak Deng runs a foundation that builds schools in southern Sudan.  Dave Eggers is the author of several books, including “Zeitoun” and most recently “The Wild Things.”  Thank you both so much.

EGGERS:  Thank you.

DENG:  You’re welcome.

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• BBC coverage
• Armenian genocide dispute

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World.   Turkey and Armenia are about to sign an historic document.  It’s aimed at ending nearly a century of hostility.  The agreement would normalize relations and open the border between the neighbors, but it doesn’t tackle some of the toughest issues dividing them.  Right now, Armenia’s president is on the road to drum up support among Armenia’s powerful Diaspora.  It hasn’t been going that well.  In Lebanon, thousands of angry Armenians turned out last night to protest, and that’s only the latest show of disapproval for the plan.  The World’s Aaron Schachter reports from Beirut.

AARON SCHACHTER: It hasn’t been an especially pleasant few days for Armenian President Serge Sargysan.  That was his reception from Armenians in Paris on October 2nd.  The reaction in New York and Los Angeles was only marginally less hostile.   Armenians in Lebanon are also none too pleased with Sargysan.  Many of them hail from what they call Western Armenia, now Eastern Turkey, and they believe the agreement being signed this Saturday absolves Turkey of any responsibility for, as they say, “Stealing that land and for slaughtering more than a million Armenians in 1915.”   The Agreement calls for setting up a joint committee to look into events between 1915 and 1923, and it doesn’t address the land issue.  Hrayr Barsoumian is a student who organized a rally last night against the Turkey-Armenia detente.

HRAYR BARSOUMIAN: Right now, to give them all that they wanted to achieve by the genocide by a simple signature is as the second genocide to the Armenians. We can’t discuss the genocide.  It’s a fact.  There are governments that have recognized it.  There are countries that have recognized it.

SCHACHTER: Signs hanging in the predominantly Armenian neighborhood of Bourj Hammoud near Beirut declare, “We remember.  We demand.  We refuse.”  And 2000 turned out to protest the Armenian President at a Beirut area hotel where he was meeting local Armenian leaders.  Sylvia Vartanian says it’s crazy that Armenians are being asked to forgive and forget for Turkey’s sake.

SYLVIA VARTANIAN: Is it acceptable we should not demand anything; we should not talk about the genocide?  Do you find it logical?  I mean, look at the German people.  They said, “Okay, what our ancestors did was wrong” and they compensated.

SCHACHTER: But some in the Armenian community here say the Diaspora’s all or nothing mentality doesn’t serve the interests of Armenians inside their country.

AGOP KASSARDJIAN: From their point of view they are right to do it, and it is very kind of the President to take this initiative.   He didn’t have the obligation.  His obligation was only moral.

SCHACHTER: Agop Kassardjian is a former Lebanese politician and a leader in Lebanon’s Armenian community. He says the Diaspora should get a chance to express its dissatisfaction, but the Armenian President has to engage in a much more delicate balancing act.

KASSARDJIAN: The development of Armenian economy necessitates that the borders be open between Armenia and Turkey.  But this must go in parallel taking into consideration our feelings and our thinking living in the Diaspora for the Armenian question for the Armenian genocide.

SCHACHTER: Kassardjian says he doesn’t believe that Armenia is giving away the store by signing the agreement.  He expects the pressure on Turkey to remain, and that’s exactly what Armenia’s President has been  trying to tell people on his trip.

PRESIDENT SARGSYAN: [In Armenian]

SCHACHTER: President Sargsyan said our main wish after nearly 100 years of hostility is to establish relations with Turkey without any precondition.  It’s also important for preventing further genocides, but he said the recognition of the genocide itself shouldn’t get in the way of establishing normal relations with Turkey.  Though many Armenians are offended by the idea of a committee of historians that would look into what they consider the cold, hard historical fact of genocide, Turks consider it a compromise.  That’s because Turkey  outright rejects the genocide label.  It  maintains that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife  in 1915 when Armenians took up arms against their Ottoman rulers, and sided with invading Russian troops.  For The World, I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The six-year war between forces loyal to Sudan’s government and rebels in Darfur has effectively ended, the UN’s military commander in the region says. The UN says 300,000 people have died in Darfur, but the Sudanese government puts the figure at 10,000. Almost three million people are said to have been displaced by the fighting.
Anchor Jeb Sharp got a reality check from human rights lawyer Rebecca Hamilton who just spent the last month in Sudan. (Photo: Stuart Price/Albany Associates) >>>Rebecca Hamilton’s blog
>>> BBC coverage

>>>Andrew Meldrum of the Global Post on the situation in Darfur

Photojournalist Stuart Price spent 13 months in Dafur >>> click here to see his pictures

Anchor Jeb Sharp speaks with human rights lawyer Rebecca Hamilton about news out of Sudan that Darfur is no longer in a state of war. Nigerian General Martin Agwai made the announcement as he ended his tour as head of the joint United Nations-African Union force in the troubled region.

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JEB SHARP: Sudan’s Darfur region is no longer in a state of war. That’s according to the outgoing commander of the international peacekeeping force in the region. Nigerian General Martin Agwai is ending his tour as head of the joint United Nations-African Union force in Darfur. He says there’s only on rebel group in the region still capable of mounting limited military campaigns. General Agwai says that right now the conflict has descended into banditry and very low intensity engagements. His statement is being dismissed by Darfur insurgents though. They say they’re preparing to launch new attacks on Sudanese government troops. Rebecca Hamilton is a human rights lawyer. She’s writing a book about Darfur. She joins us from Nairobi. Rebecca Hamilton you’ve just spent the last month in Sudan. From your perspective is this war over?

REBECCA HAMILTON: I think it’s premature to say that the war is over. I mean it could be that the war is over or it could be that actually what we’re seeing is a lull in fighting simply because it’s the rainy season and as the general himself says, you know at the moment the rebel groups are so fractured that it’s true they’re unlikely to be much of a threat to the government. But imagine after Hurricane Katrina if US officials had come out and said the hurricane has past. We would have been like okay the hurricane has passed but in its wake people have died, people are injured, people are displaced. To me saying the war is over is sort of like saying the hurricane is passed. It may be true but it misses the fact that you have 2.7 million Darfurees who are displaced in these God awful camps still.

SHARP: Did the internally displaced people talk about wanting to go home? Is there a movement for people to go home?

HAMILTON: People want more then anything to go home and they would if they could. But the reality is that the conditions are just not there yet for them to go home. Now it’s interesting because I spent some time speaking with Sudanese government officials in Khartoum and they were very keen to tell me how actually Darfur was very safe and all the IDPs felt safe to go home and there were all these voluntary returns happening. When you actually check it out on the ground in Darfur what they’re talking about is the seasonal returns that happen every year around this time. Which is you send a couple of members of your family to go and try and do some planting that will give you a bit of extra food security in the coming year. But people aren’t taking their whole families home because they simply don’t feel safe.

SHARP: Rebecca Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, was indicted last year for crimes against humanity and he retaliated by expelling aid workers. Have those expulsions had a measurable effect?

HAMILTON: They absolutely have. There were a few very courageous women at one of the camps that I went to. And they sat me down and they were completely determined that I understood what the situation was. And in essence most of the agencies that were expelled were also the ones that were doing protection work. In the women’s lives what it meant was that there would be women’s centers at the camps and it meant that if a woman was raped she would feel comfortable going to tell one of these international agencies what had happened and so she could be administered a rape kit there at the camp. What has happened is that those agencies have been expelled and so the women that I spoke to were telling me now when one of our women is raped we have to report it to UN police. The UN police then accompany her to the Sudanese police. At the Sudanese police station what the women said has been happening is that in their incident report their writing down severe harm rather then rape. The thing that I thought about when these women were telling me this was well this feeds perfectly into President Bashir’s claim that rape simply doesn’t happen in Darfur.

SHARP: Rebecca what’s your overwhelming impression that lingers from the trip?

HAMILTON: I think the one image that sort of summed up the whole international community’s approach to Darfur was at the UNAMID compound in El Fasher ….

SHARP: UNAMID being the UN-African peacekeeping force.

HAMILTON: It’s this you know big compound of shipping containers that now serve as offices in the desert basically. And there’s razor wire around the outside and there are UNAMID soldiers who are standing guard. But despite all that what you have in front of it is a Sudanese police station. That captured it for me. For all of having UNAMID there UNAMID has asked for the Sudanese police to protect them.

SHARP: Rebecca Hamilton is a human rights lawyer. She’s writing a book examining the impact of the Darfur advocacy movement. You can find a link to her blog at our website The World dot org. Thanks so much Rebecca.

HAMILTON: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Today on The World: The CIA abuse scandal sparks a revamping of interrogation tactics, early election results in Afghanistan show a close race between the top two contenders, and Tracy Kidder’s new book Strength in What Remains tells a gripping story of what happened to a man after he survived genocide in Burundi and Rwanda.