Alison Des Forges

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Alison Des Forges, 2005

Alison Des Forges (born Liebhafsky ; born August 20, 1942 in Schenectady , New York , † February 12, 2009 in Clarence , New York) was an American historian and human rights activist .

academic career

Des Forges, daughter of chemist Herman A. Liebhafsky, one of the discoverers of the Bray-Liebhafsky reaction , studied history and received a bachelor's degree in this subject from Radcliffe College in Cambridge , Massachusetts in 1964 . In the same year she married Roger Des Forges, a historian specializing in Chinese history at the University at Buffalo . In 1966 , she obtained her master's degree in history from Yale University , where she also obtained her doctorate ( Ph. D. ) in 1972 with a thesis on the history of Rwanda .

Human rights work

Des Forges specialized in the African Great Lakes region . Her main work is a study of the genocide in Rwanda , which was published in 1999 on behalf of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch and has been in German since 2002 under the title No witness is allowed to survive. The genocide in Rwanda has occurred. This work develops the thesis that the events in Rwanda between April and July 1994 were not a spontaneous outbreak of violence by different tribes, but a systematically planned and carried out genocide for which the transitional government was responsible, which took place on April 8, 1994 in Rwanda Power took over.

The study by Des Forges is considered a standard work on this genocide . It arose from several years of field work on site in Rwanda, for which Des Forges gave up her academic position in order to work instead for Human Rights Watch as a so-called “senior advisor” for the regional focus on Africa .

She strongly advocated the prosecution of alleged perpetrators. Among other things, she personally presented the official indictment to Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza , a leader of the Hutu militia Impuzamugambi and responsible for Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines . Des Forges testified a total of 11 times before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda . In commissions of inquiry of the French National Assembly , the Belgian Senate , the Congress of the United States and the United Nations , she was also heard on the genocide in Rwanda and the current human rights situation in the African Great Lakes region.

In 2008, the Rwandan government under Paul Kagame, dominated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), banned her from entering Rwanda several times. Allison des Forges and Human Rights Watch had previously criticized the current human rights situation in Rwanda, the involvement of Rwandan troops in the Congo and serious human rights violations by the RPF immediately after the end of the genocide in summer 1994.

The American was also an expert on human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi .

Honors

In 1999, the historian was awarded a MacArthur grant worth 375,000 US dollars for her study of the genocide in Rwanda . She used the money for humanitarian purposes in Africa. In 2003 she was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book for the book .

The American human rights organization Human Rights Watch presents the Alison Des Forges Award named after it .

death

Des Forges died in an accident on Continental Airlines Flight 3407 in Clarence, a suburb of Buffalo . The plane, a De Havilland DHC-8-400 , was en route from Newark Airport to Buffalo Niagara International Airport . 49 other people were killed with her.

Works

  • Defeat is the Only Bad News: Rwanda under Musiinga, 1896–1931 , doctoral thesis at Yale University, 1972.
  • "Leave none to tell the story". Genocide in Rwanda . Ed .: Human Rights Watch . New York / Washington / London / Brussels 1999, ISBN 1-56432-171-1 (American English, [ hrw.org ] [PDF; 4.0 MB ; accessed on May 4, 2014]).
  • No witness is allowed to survive. The genocide in Rwanda . 1st edition. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-930908-80-8 (American English: Leave none to tell the story . Translated by Jürgen Bauer).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b 9/11 widow, MacArthur Fellow, jazz musicians among victims (February 13, 2009). USA Today , accessed February 14, 2009.
  2. ↑ a b Biographical information about Des Forges on the Human Rights Watch website ( Memento of May 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), accessed February 14, 2009.
  3. ↑ Information about Alison des Forges ( memento February 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website , accessed February 14, 2009.
  4. ^ Adrian Kreye: In vain warning ( Memento from February 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), website of the Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 16, 2009, accessed on February 16, 2009.
  5. ↑ Human Rights Watch Statement on Entry Ban, December 23, 2008 , accessed February 15, 2009.
  6. ^ Matthew Bigg: Key human rights advocate dies in US plane crash , Reuters.com (February 13, 2009), accessed February 14, 2009.
  7. ↑ Matt Schudel: Scholar Presaged Rwanda's Tragedy, Alison Des Forges, 66 , in: The Washington Post , February 14, 2009, accessed February 15, 2009.
  8. ^ Information about the winners of the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the political book in 2003 ( Memento of October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
  9. ↑ Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book Prize Winners 1993-2018 , renner-institut.at, accessed December 1, 2019
  10. ↑ Alison Des Forges, Human Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 66 . The New York Times , accessed February 14, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Des Forges, Alison
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Liebhafsky Des Forges, Alison
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Schenectady , New York
DATE OF DEATH February 12, 2009
Place of death Clarence , New York