My Friends' Killer Is My Friend
While many news organizations are cutting their foreign bureaus, the Associated Press has been bolstering its international coverage. As a result, the AP is offering interesting stories that no one else is. Chris Tomlinson's "Rwanda Genocide Victims, Killers Meet" is a terrific example. Tomlinson identifies an important but little-known trend --that "experts say Africa is more peaceful today than at any time in the past half-century" -- and explores how and why through the story of a woman who is now friends with the man who killed six of her friends during Rwanda's genocide. Tomlinson uses passages such as this one to help us understand the improbable reconciliation between Xavier Nemeye and Cecile Mukagasana:
As Cecile laid bricks for the new village alongside Xavier, she slowly learned to accept that he was only a pawn in the genocide. It helped that they went to the same church, the church where Cecile's family once hid.
She is still not quite sure how or when they became friends, as she sits in her four-room brick house with a tin roof that Xavier helped build.
"A sense of closeness would begin to form between us — we just found ourselves together," she says, smiling at how inadequate the explanation sounds. The strength of her will is clear — it is almost as if she is willing peace, and believes any less would be a betrayal of her faith and her village.
Thank you Stephen Scholle for suggesting this story. Do you know of any other great examples of international coverage? If so, leave us a comment or e-mail us at newsgems@sbcglobal.net.
http://www.mywire.com/pubs/AP/2007/12/12/5164942