So. Work finally started to pick up, although not without its kinks and hiccups, which, of course, were tied to the ICTR computer people actually getting us set up. But I should really not bitch about that too much. UN bureaucracy sucks. I need to deal with it. What has really been distracting business on the Tribunal is an incident between the Rwandan government and an attorney named Peter Erlinder. Basically a defence counsel at the ICTR went to Rwanda on non-ICTR business (he was defending an opposition leader who was recently arrested and charged with genocide denial. The opposition leader was calling for Tutsis responsible for killings of Hutus to be charged with war crimes while visiting Tutsi genocide memorials). Coincidentally the defence attorney, Erlinder, had filed a lawsuit against Kagame in the United States on the grounds of wrongful death for the assassination of the former presidents of Rwanda and Burundi (they were both killed in a plane crash in 1994, which was the spark for the genocide. There’s debate as to which side shot the plane down; some blame the former government, while some blame Kagame’s RPF). Its a sticky situation and is big news at the Tribunal. Some of you might have heard about it because he teaches at William Mitchell, but I’m not sure how widely its been reported on. The fact that he has represented the accused on the tribunal has some of the defence counsel here rattled.
In terms of my own work, I finally have a pretty good handle on what I’m actually supposed to be doing at the Tribunal this summer. Basically, the Karemera team of interns are going to be organizing all of the witness statements into a format that will be easier for the judges to issue their judgement when the time comes. We’ll basically be gleaning the important facts from their testimony as well as analyzing witness impeachment issues. We will also be doing some work on decisions in regards to motions filed by the different parties. Obviously I can’t talk about specific details, but I’m very excited about the work. I’m currently working on drafting a decision to a motion, and once I have preliminary memo done I’ll present it to the legal officer and one of the Judges. Pretty cool stuff.
Other than that, my spare time is generally been taken up by cooking, running, reading, and being social. The marathon training is going ok, although there have been a couple kinks, mostly tied to being unable to run the day after my birthday and then missing a long run because I was feeling sort of faint. In general the training has been very solid, though, especially since the rainy season has ended. The only thing is that running during the week has been sort of inconvenient; we only have so much daylight, and not a lot after work, so if I do run, I basically have to do it before work, which means waking up around 6 AM. I have less than two hours of decent daylight once I’m off work, and it probably wouldn’t be smart to run at night. It’s working out fine with my training so far, but it will be trickier as my weekday runs get longer. In general I’ve been pretty good about keeping to my schedule, although my body has been a little slow to adjust for some reason. My legs still feel a bit more sluggish than normal. Maybe it’s because I’m still trying to find some good routes and familiarize myself with the area. Most of the paved roads are so congested that they’re extremely unpleasant and unsafe to run on, so I try to stick to the dirt roads which are too bumpy to take a lot of cars. The downside to those is that I almost trip and kill myself at least once per run. I’m a very graceful human being, after all.
The other big news is that this weekend I’ll be hiking Mt. Meru, which is one of the tallest mountains in East Africa, at just under 15,000 feet. I’ll be leaving friday morning, getting back sunday night, and hopefully having some absolutely kick ass photos to post once I’m back. The nice thing is that the company we’re doing the hike through is providing most of the meals and lodging and transportation. Basically the only thing we have to worry about is snacks. It’ll be the tallest mountain I’ve climbed, and I’m sure once I’m out hiking for a few days I’ll have a really strong urge to get back on the Appalachian Trail. Still need to finish that sucker. Our group is 11, so it’ll be like the Traveling Circus all over again. The guys I’m hiking with all decided that we should grow out mountain beards for Meru, so I’ll have at least a weeks worth by summit day. It’s not going to be pretty.
The other big news is that the World Cup has started. It’s been incredible to be in Africa for it. The excitement is huge, even bigger than for the one in 2006. The highlight so far was the England-US game. The bar was about one third American, one third Tanzanian, and one third English/Canadian/Australian (they all cheered for the Brits). There was a whole lot of back and forth, but it was totally good-natured and a lot of fun. The Ghana game was absolutely amazing too. Everybody was behind Ghana and everybody was going wild when they scored that goal. Good times all around. It’s too bad I’ll miss the next game hiking.
Anyway, that’s all for now! Hope everybody is good!
