'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Back to Africa (mentally, at least)

Finally! Last week I finished a writing project that has been hanging over me for many, many months. Then, I gave myself a quick treat by going to NYC for a surprise bridal shower for my daughter Leila. Then, I had to finish some other bits of writing-- editing a contribution to a book on "Violence" that the Center for Research on Women at Barnard College is publishing soon, other smaller tasks.

And on Wednesday, I finally got back into writing about Africa.

It was such a deep, deep pleasure to pull out, arrange, and then start diving back into all the materials I have gathered on the Rwanda portion of my Africa project so far. Actually, formally speaking, the project is called the "Project on Violence and its Legacies" (the VAIL project), and you can see some background info about it if you click here.

What I'm doing right now, is a small part of it: rushing to meet an end-of-September deadline to write a long article about the trip I made to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, last April.

I have so much great material-- from that trip; from my research trip to rwanda last year; and from the three years of background reading that I've done on the topic so far. As I started to lay out some of my documents, reports etc on my desk yesterday, prior to starting the writing, I had a strong feeling that trying to get this article written is like a fisher-person fashioning the right shape net to throw over a large, unruly school of fish, and then throwing it before gently gently pulling the catch together into some shape on the shore.

ICTR is so interesting, and so little studied. I met some really remarkable people while I was there. One was a younger journalistic colleague called Gabi Gabiro, who gave me some invaluable help there. (Yo, Gabi, what's up with you these days anyway?) Folks can read Gabi's current great reporting from inside his native Rwanda if they check into the Hirondelle New Service...

I met a prosecuting attorney who was pretty fed up with the whole experience, and who said she what she wanted to do was go and work in Rwanda's indigenous gacaca court system instead of the ICTR; and a defense attorney who said her experience of the court had convinced her to temper the strong support she'd once had for the whole idea of a permanent ICC.

I can't think I met anyone working there who had a generally good view of the experience, except perhaps the guy who was then the Deputy President of the court, the Norwegian judge Erik Mose, who soon thereafter became its President. Come to think of it, he was still pretty gung-ho about it. So I'd better make sure to get his views well represented in the piece, as well.

So anyway, writing this piece, and then organizing my text so its ends up saying roughly what I want it to say: it'll all be a huge challenge. The deadline looks very onerous. But hey-- I used to work for Reuters in Beirut during the civil war, churning out three or four dayleads per day. Deadlines can't scare me any more! (She says, doubtfully.)

Anyway, bottom line: it feels good to be back on the VAIL project. The weather is glorious. I ran my usual three miles at around 8 this morning and the air was crisp with the promise of fall, though now (10 p.m.) the crickets are still somewhat besottedly singing their summer tune.