Human Rights Archive

KIGALI, Rwanda — Walking the streets of Rwanda’s tidy capital, it’s easy to forget that just 16 years have passed since this country’s grisly genocide. In this modern city of approximately 1 million, roads are smooth, sidewalks clean, and the crime, pollution and hassle of most African cities absent. Across Kigali, rising office towers reflect GDP growth that has averaged 8 percent over the last five years. In the countryside, though poverty remains rife, small-scale farmers have seen tangible benefits from the creation of cooperatives, increased use of fertilizers, a revival of the export coffee industry, and a unique system […]

Peacekeeping is a tragic business. That may seem obvious, if only because, when reading about United Nations peacekeeping operations, you come across the word “tragedy” a lot. It describes what happened in Bosnia and Rwanda all too neatly. There’s no better word for what took place in Haiti, where more than 100 U.N. personnel were among the 250,000 dead in January’s earthquake. But, as English professors have tried to explain to generations of dozy students, “tragic” is more than just a synonym for “awful.” Great tragedies — Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, Scarface — aren’t just about suffering. They center on protagonists […]

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Were it not for the convoys of blue-helmeted soldiers, one would hardly guess this lakeside town is the nexus of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Though its rutted streets are a stark contrast to the newly surfaced, tree-lined avenues across the nearby Rwandan border, the capital of eastern Congo’s North Kivu Province is abuzz with new construction, a testament to Goma’s status as a bastion of stability in a region defined by conflict. On a recent Friday night, cigarette-smoking ex-pats downed Primus beers at Petite Bruxelles, a kitsch new establishment and ode […]