Alison Des Forges: Difference between revisions
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|name = Alison Des Forges |
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Revision as of 20:59, 1 March 2009
Alison Des Forges | |
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Born | Alison B. Liebhafsky August 20, 1942 Schenectady, New York, United States[1] |
Died | February 12, 2009[1] Clarence Center, New York, United States | (aged 66)
Cause of death | Aviation accident |
Nationality | American |
Education | B.A., M.A., Ph.D. (history)[1] |
Alma mater | Radcliffe/Harvard
Yale[1] |
Known for | Human rights activism |
Spouse | Roger V. Des Forges (1964)[2] |
Children | 2[1] |
Alison Des Forges (née Liebhafsky) (August 20, 1942 – February 12, 2009) was an American historian and human rights activist who specialized in the African Great Lakes region, particularly the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. At the time of her death, she was a senior advisor for the African continent at Human Rights Watch.
Life
Des Forges was born Alison B. Liebhafsky on August 20, 1942 to Sybil Small and Herman A. Liebhafsky. She married Roger Des Forges, a historian at the State University of New York at Buffalo who specialized in China, in 1964. Des Forges earned her B.A. in history from Radcliffe College in 1964, and her M.A. and a Ph.D. in the same discipline from Yale University in 1966 and 1972. Her master's thesis and doctoral dissertation both addressed the impact of European colonialism on Rwanda.[3][1][2]
She specialized in the African Great Lakes region and studied the Rwandan Genocide. She was also an authority on human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Burundi.[4]
Des Forges left academia in 1994 in response to the Rwandan Genocide to work full time on human rights.[5]
Des Forges was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1999, and became the senior advisor at Human Rights Watch for the African continent.
She died on February 12, 2009, in an air crash, en route from Newark to Buffalo. [1]
Witness to Rwandan Genocide
In April 1994, she was one of the first outsiders to claim that a full-blown genocide was under way in Rwanda, and afterwards led a team of researchers to establish the facts. [6] She testified 11 times before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and gave evidence about the Rwandan Genocide to panels of the French National Assembly, the Belgian Senate, the US Congress, the Organisation of African Unity, and the United Nations.[3]
She wrote the 1999 Leave None to Tell the Story, which the Economist [6] and the New York Times [1] both describe as the definitive account of the Rwandan genocide. In the book, she argued that the genocide was organized by the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government at the time, rather than being a spontaneous outbreak of tribal conflicts.[4]
Bibliography
- Defeat is the Only Bad News: Rwanda under Musiinga, 1896-1931 - Ph.D thesis at Yale University - 1972 -
- Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda - Human Rights Watch et FIDH - 1999 - ISBN 1-56432-171-1
- Roth, Kenneth; DesForges, Alison (Summer 2002). "Justice or Therapy?". Boston Review.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Chan, Sewell (2009-02-13). "Alison Des Forges, Human Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 66". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
- ^ a b "9/11 widow, MacArthur Fellow, jazz musicians among victims" (2009-02-13). USA Today. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
- ^ a b "Alison Des Forges". hrw.org. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved February 13, 2009.
- ^ a b Bigg, Matthew (February 13, 2009). "Key human rights advocate dies in U.S. plane crash". Reuters.com. Thomson Reuters. Retrieved February 14, 2009.
- ^ "Alison des Forges". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
- ^ a b Obituary. The Economist February 21-27 2009. British print edition, p88.
External links
- Bio at Human Rights Watch website
- Tribute at Human Rights Watch website
- PBS Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda interview with Alison Des Forges
- Obituary: Alison Des Forges, The Economist, 19 February 2009
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