Responsibility to Protect

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Caught up with Jo for Indian at The Manor the other night. My first time there and we were greeted by women in full evening gowns, like something out of Disney. Very strange place. Thought they were holding an event and we were under-dressed, but then realised, no, this is staff uniform.

Their drinks list is truly something to behold. They seem to have plucked traditional cocktail names out of the air, then substituted traditional ingredients for Fanta and (in pretty much everything) Malabu. The place offers Indian, Italian and Chinese food, but their drinks menu is apparently Irish. I almost spat my drink across it...

!!!

I've been such a hermit lately, so overwhelmed by e-mails, Jo confessed she was going to come round and check I hadn't been eaten by cats. Gee, thanks Jo, know I can always rely on you.

In between e-mails there have been meetings. I take my job extremely seriously...

Hanging out with Pride Ark Association in Nyamirambo who are coming to do a presentation and a short drama sketch on the rights of LGBT people in Rwanda and East Africa. Very grateful to them. I'd originally approached LL, but she's just moved to Uganda. 

In between e-mails and meetings has been Mac, one of my NGO's board members, who was passing through Kigali. Had a lovely catch up at Shokola above the library, watching the birds of prey swooping past at eye level. Really lovely to meet her and get to chat about previous programs and life in EA.

In between all of that, I've been running group Skype discussions on Human Rights issues with the two delegations coming out this summer. One of the key focuses has been on Responsibility to Protect (R2P - Wiki/ICRtoP) which is 'a proposed norm that sovereignty is not an absolute right, and that states forfeit aspects of their sovereignty when they fail to protect their populations from mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations.' It came about as a result of 1994 and other early 90s era major fails by the UN (Emergency Sex is an entertaining introduction) and after Christine Shelley's abysmal 'acts of genocide' speech. 

An interesting question is whether, had R2P existed in 1994, it would have helped to stop the genocide and forced outside countries to intervene.

At first glance, you think 'yes', but then you look a little closer. This wasn't the first legislation to exist. There was already a UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide established in 1948 after the Second World War (which, by the way, did little to address Armenia's suffering, a genocide still not acknowledged by many Western countries).

More disturbingly though, the final level of action prescribed under R2P after all other measures have failed - military intervention - is still solely authorised by the UN Security Council. Just rolling that back to 1994, it was the UN that not only failed to act, but ignored the fax from Roméo Dallaire proclaiming evidence of an impending genocide, and then withdrew all military support once the genocide started and its peace keepers were attacked. So, on the basis of that, there is little to no evidence at all that, given the exact same circumstances, the UN Security Council, as sole executor of military intervention, wouldn't do exactly the same thing under R2P.

A somewhat disheartening thought.

It's been really interesting for me, though. Having a strong background in disability equality, I know a bit about cross-cutting human rights issues such as the right to a family life, to employment, to access to buildings and information, but full-on human rights is a new field for me. I've very much been enjoying the debates. It's been a while since my brain had to work that hard.

In other news - dry season. My lovely hot shower only works if there's water. Thankfully things seem to be okay, there was just one day when I woke up to nothing at all. Been filling up the reserve buckets, which is something I haven't had to do since Kanombe.  There's rumours Rwanda is going to upgrade the water system for the first time in eight years, starting with the villages. Had a couple of seriously impressive thunder storms too, which has helped.

So, yes, this is really my last catch up probably for a while. Last night I went to the airport with my mate Senga. One of our participants made a mistake and has arrived early (Friday, the rest come Monday), so I went to pick him up and take him to the hotel. Really lovely guy, still had a smile on his face after that lengthy trip from the US. As I posted on Facebook last night:

Just picked up our first international from the airport, with the best taxi driver in the whole of Rwanda, my mate Senga. Had a great drive to St. Paul's. Even got overtaken by the President - nice welcome, though he didn't stop to chat. Was so lovely just hearing our participant saying 'wow!' and 'It's so pretty.' He came in at night and all the lights over the hills are quite a sight. Reminded me how proud I am to live here. During the day-to-day you sometimes forget how lovely it is, and it's nice to see Kigali through fresh eyes.

It really is interesting to see Kigali afresh, and to try to remember what it looked like when I first got here, my first trip through town with Amanda. It was a little different back then, fewer palm trees, more women with fruit baskets on their heads, but I still recognise the place as the same.

My Program Assistant from Bosnia also flew in last night and was picked up by our in-country Program Assistant. Everyone's due at mine this afternoon for a team meeting. Prep and printing still to go. As of Monday, life gets very busy indeed. 

Lights of Kigali