Ibn Ibn Battuta

Shaking Hands with the General

Today I met Roméo Dallaire, former commander of UNAMIR, the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda during the country's 1994 genocide. Boxed in by a constricting UN mandate while the killing raged, Dallaire grappled with many lose-lose decisions in trying to mitigate the slaughter that surrounded his forces. Dallaire's book, Shake Hands with the Devil, earned him further acclaim and criticism for his decisions.

He was at Georgetown for a ceremony, but spoke to a few members of the campus STAND chapter (of which I'm an occasional member) about his experiences and his thoughts on the current crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. Most interesting, in my eyes, was his criticism of the Bush administration and others who have labelled recent events in Darfur as "genocide." Levelling the

To Goma, the City at Horizon's End

Eastern DR Congo map

When genocide struck Rwanda ten years ago, Edouard Mwangachuchu was a young cattle rancher just across the border in Bibatama, a small community in the hills northeast of Goma, DRC. He and his wife Odile, both Tutsis, raised their six children in peace, but grew increasingly worried as the génocidaires pushed closer and closer to the Congolese border. When the madness spilled over into Congo, Edouard recognized that to save his family, he had to flee. He wanted to reach the United States, where he knew he and his family could gain asylum.

Tragically, the only major airport within hundreds of miles was in Kigali. To

My Day at the Pool in Kigali

Rwanda map

On my first day in Kigali, I walked along the city's lazy, dusty streets and snapped a few pictures, trying to master my first digital camera (and failing at it, if the resulting photographs are any indication).

Most striking about Kigali is its normalcy; it is shocking that a country so thoroughly devastated by genocide was rebuilt so quickly. Today, almost ten years to the date after the carnage peaked, office buildings, bustling grocers, bars, telecom shops, and tidy churches line the neat, well-paved roads. Guards leaned idly against the faces of banks and internet cafes, rifles slung over their shoulders. Women in

In the Land of a Thousand Hills, Congo Bound

Rwanda map

It was night when we landed in Kigali. Unlike the crisp white twinkles of European skylines, yellow splashes like flame winked across the city's hillsides. They wavered, small yellow points among flapping foliage, smudged by the dark and muggy air.

Dr. Sussman, his daughter Lisa, and I fetched our bags and trundled out to Edouard's Land Cruiser. I made out the dimly lit "Bienvenue à Kigali" sign as the driver rolled the vehicle slowly out of the airport parking lot, then charged off along the darkened road.