Speaking for Myself

by Cherie Blair

  “Say what?” she replied.

  Prime Minister Koizumi was in relentlessly high spirits throughout the meal, finally getting everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” to George Bush, whose birthday it was.

  As the evening was winding down, the Queen and Prince Philip caught my eye. “Marvelous news, Mrs. Blair,” she said quietly, giving Chirac a covert look.

  “Of course,” said the Prince, “I’m so old, I won’t be here then.”

  “Oh, sir, please don’t say that. I certainly hope you will.” And I did. I’m actually quite fond of the old boy.

  “Well, one needs to be realistic,” added the Queen. “It’ll be for Charles and the boys, not for us.”

  How terrible, I thought. How can we possibly have the Olympics without the Queen? She smiled and moved away. I found the idea that the Queen might not be there quite upsetting.

  The spouses’ program was surprisingly royal, I realized. The following morning we were going to Glamis Castle, where the Queen Mother was born and brought up. In line with the G8’s theme of Africa and climate change, I had arranged that a tree be planted in the name of each spouse, mirroring a plan in Burkina Faso that encouraged the planting of income-producing trees.

  The following morning I was chatting with André as he was trying to restore some order to my hair, when his cell phone rang. He listened, said nothing, and then crossed to the TV and turned it on. It was his boyfriend, he told me, saying he was okay, but there had been some kind of explosion in London. Like any mother, my first thought was for the safety of my children. I called Jackie but couldn’t get through on her cell phone. The Downing Street phones were working, however: Leo and Kathryn were fine. The ’tecs had picked them up from school, and they were on their way home. Next I got hold of Nick, who was in Oxford, and finally Euan in America. Although the two older boys weren’t in any more danger than they had been a day or a week before, when something so terrifying strikes at the heart of all you hold dear, there’s comfort to be found in just hearing your family’s voices. As the enormity of what had happened began to come through, I felt both angry and numb.

  A series of four coordinated bombs had gone off during rush hour, killing fifty-six people and injuring seven hundred. Among the dead were the suicide bombers. These were streets I knew. The bomb on the Piccadilly Line was beneath Russell Square, where the first meetings about Matrix had been held. The bus that was so callously targeted after the underground was closed was in Upper Woburn Place, where the old industrial tribunal building used to be.

  The summit was to go ahead, it was decided; otherwise the terrorists would be seen to have won. But all the leaders immediately understood that Tony had to go to London, leaving our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to chair the climate change session that morning.

  The spouses’ program also went ahead, but the atmosphere was far from the one I had planned and expected. Among the guests I had invited that evening was Alexander McCall Smith, author of the popular No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and emeritus professor of medical law and bioethics at Edinburgh University. We ended up discussing the finer points of moral philosophy.

  That night I lay in a luxurious hotel, surrounded by every kind of security imaginable, and it was dreadful. I thought of all those hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who tonight wouldn’t sleep because they had lost someone close to them, someone they were never able to say good-bye to. To go from the euphoria of the previous day to this terrible tragedy was beyond comprehension.

  Chapter 31

  Benediction

  When tragedy strikes, there’s a profound need to make sense of it. It wasn’t long, however, before my “What are we doing here?” turned into “What am I doing here?” Increasingly I knew I needed to find my own voice.

  One of my last conversations with Fiona in the summer of 2003 had made me acutely aware that something had to change. “You have to go underground,” she said. “Go back to being a mother and a barrister and nothing more. The press all hate you. They have all the cards, and you will never win.” But how could I do anything in terms of the press if that was how she felt? Once the team changed, things gradually got better.

  Decisions often emerge from negative experiences, and at least I knew now what I was not prepared to do. I was not prepared to spend the rest of my life worrying about what people thought about the way I dressed. It didn’t matter in real terms, and it certainly didn’t matter to me. What did matter to me, I realized, was helping other women find their voices. Women make up half the world’s population and yet continue to be underused at best, and abused and defiled at worst.

  By the summer of 2005, Laura Bush and I had known each other for more than four years, and although our politics were different, we were definitely friends — always delighted to see each other and catch up.

  At the Gleneagles summit, Laura had proposed that I join her on a visit to Africa immediately following the G8. She was going with her daughter Jenna to visit South Africa, where her other daughter, Barbara, had been working in an AIDS clinic. They were then going on to a number of other countries before visiting Rwanda. Having been involved with the International Criminal Court, I was interested to see what impact the Rwanda tribunal had made, and everyone — which is to say Tony and the Foreign Office — seemed keen that I should go. Then came the inevitable question: who was going to pay? Laura’s offer of a lift was rejected as “inappropriate,” and in any event, I couldn’t do the whole trip, as I had legal commitments. Obviously Rwanda was too poor even to think about paying. The Foreign Office said it wouldn’t pay. Downing Street said, “We don’t have a budget.” So after going round the houses, Sue Geddes was informed that I would have to pay my own way.

  This was the final straw. “You claim to want to highlight the cause of Africa, yet you won’t back it up,” I told the private secretary concerned. “And as for handing over two thousand pounds of my own money for Sue and me to represent Britain, I am simply not doing it. I shall tell Laura Bush that I can’t go because the British government doesn’t think it sufficiently important.”

  It was ridiculous. The UK was Rwanda’s main development partner, with direct aid running at more than £34 million a year. On many levels it was a success story, an oasis of stability and economic growth, and if we wanted to have influence in the areas of concern — democratization and human rights — then it made sense for me to visit at the same time as the First Lady of the United States. Not to go would be a wasted opportunity to fly the flag for Britain. Fortunately Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet secretary and head of the Civil Service, finally decided that the visit should be paid for by the British government. Once that was agreed, everything fell into place.

  I flew via Nairobi and, following the success of our Olympic bid, decided to visit a project for young soccer players in a local township. I took as many 2012 T-shirts and soccer balls as I could stuff into my suitcases and, with a local hero by my side — the great marathon runner Paul Tergat — consolidated the message that the Olympics weren’t just about London but about sports round the world, and that they have the ability to lift the impoverished everywhere. That night, at a dinner at the Kenyan High Commission, I met both the Chief Justice and human rights lawyers and learned firsthand about the rapidly deteriorating situation in the country. At that point this situation was not generally known, and I left the next morning feeling thoroughly depressed. When I’d landed, I’d been quickly spirited along, but now, back at the airport, I realized the inroads China was making when I saw every sign translated into Chinese.

  An idiosyncratic rendition of the national anthem greeted our arrival at Kigali airport, and as the red carpet was unrolled, I realized we were in for a full state visit, with Janet Kagame, the President of Rwanda’s wife, there to greet me with her welcoming delegation. As for the British delegation, it consisted of myself, Sue, and Ken McKenzie, our protection officer. Twenty minutes later the band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the First Lady’s pl
ane whispered to a halt. The door opened, and out poured fifty people, with Laura and Jenna bringing up the rear. Among the welcoming party was the British Ambassador, and all four of us squashed into his Range Rover, while helicopters patrolled overhead. Anything that moved had been commandeered by the American Secret Service, including fire engines. As for the ceremonial exit from the airport, we had no alternative but to sneak into the slipstream of the American convoy.

  Our first stop was the Gisozi Genocide Memorial, where we laid a wreath before going into the museum itself. Set up with the help of the UK-based Aegis Trust, it presented the background and history of the civil war that had devastated the country and shamed the rest of the world. More than 800,000 Tutsis had been murdered and a lesser number of Hutus. In most conflicts children are absolved of responsibility and are treated with compassion, but in Rwanda that had not been the case. As with rape, infanticide had become a weapon of war. Tutsis were like cockroaches, the propaganda went, and to eradicate them, babies and toddlers had been held by their legs and their heads cracked against walls. It is hard to imagine a more hideous example of a crime against humanity, and Laura and I stood in this room and wept. Later we met some survivors — mothers and rape victims — who even ten years on found it hard to talk about the genocide.

  When Laura left, I stayed an extra day, wearing my legal hat. The leaders of the genocide were facing trial at the International Criminal Court for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, but the cases handled there were only the tip of the iceberg. Back in Rwanda there was a huge backlog of cases waiting to be dealt with by the internal courts, but the system could not cope. Based on numbers alone, it would take two hundred years to process all of the cases currently before the courts. While those awaiting trial in Arusha were, rightly, receiving proper medical treatment for illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, their victims, mainly women who had been repeatedly and brutally raped, were dying before they could give evidence, unable to get similar treatment.

  While the tribunal deals with the major perpetrators, Rwanda itself is pioneering a system for the “lesser players” known as Gacaca courts, based partly on traditional tribal methods of solving disputes and partly on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. I went to see one of these courts in operation, accompanied by Janet Kagame, a tall, imposing mother of four in her forties.

  We watched as men accused of individual crimes of violence and theft were brought before a village gathering of what appeared to be many hundreds of people. My abiding impression was one of color: the dresses of the women, the forest of umbrellas used as sunshades, and the accused, who were dressed entirely in pink. Witnesses were called, the accused answered questions, and an appointed group of nine elders from the locality gave judgment. It all takes place within the course of a day. There is no capital punishment, but individuals who are found guilty can be sentenced to more then twenty years in prison. Rough justice indeed.

  The idea behind the Gacaca courts is that the harm caused by the genocide was done to the community as a whole, and so the community as a whole should judge what happens to the perpetrators. For lawyers brought up on the common-law view of due process, there is some disquiet. Issues of bias and the rights of the accused come to mind. But what is the alternative? How do you heal a country after a civil war of such magnitude and horror? I’m not saying the Rwandans have the answer, but it was both instructive and fascinating to talk about what works and what doesn’t. One thing is clear to me: on such a grand scale, in a country as poor as this, the idea of trial by jury, or even trial by a tribunal of three judges, is not really a practical possibility. Yet to throw up your hands and not deal with these crimes at all is no answer either. Not to acknowledge them would leave festering resentment. At least giving these victims the opportunity to tell their stories is an acknowledgment of what they went through.

  I can’t pretend that I know the answer, but part of the solution must be to go along with the grain of the society concerned, to go along with a system that is already embedded in its culture, rather than imposing one from the outside. This is not an uncontroversial view, however. Following my visit I addressed an international law college in Geneva, and it was clear from the response that not all the professors and students were willing to see this as a way forward. For some due process was all.

  On my next visit to Rwanda, in March 2007, I opened a survivors’ center, provided by the British government and run by a foundation that provides not only practical advice but training for trauma counselors. Now that the country’s immediate needs for shelter and food are beginning to be met, there is a real need for psychological counseling.

  The focus of that second visit was a seminar of women parliamentarians from across the world, but particularly from Africa. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the President of Liberia, is a shining example, a true role model. To take up the reins of a country so devastated by war, with no infrastructure to speak of, is a huge task at any age, let alone at sixty-eight. I had been invited to speak on violence against women, and listening to other delegates, I realized how far we had traveled in the UK. In the Sudan, for example, there isn’t even a word for rape.

  As a result of the war, women outnumber men six to four in Rwanda. One positive consequence is that 49 percent of the MPs are now women, which inevitably changes the government’s priorities. In stark contrast, the Kenyan delegate was one of only six women MPs in Kenya’s parliament. She explained how she had been trying to get through a law on wife beating and rape for years, but the attitude in the Kenyan parliament, she explained, was no different from that of the male population as a whole. She quoted a male MP as saying, “It is well known that when an African woman says no, she means yes.”

  The night of the official dinner was one of the most extraordinary of my life. Toward the end of the evening, the charismatic and legendary “Princess of Africa,” Yvonne Chaka Chaka, began to sing. Little encouragement was needed for the delegates to take to the floor, and soon even the two Presidents were dancing, while I was handed the microphone to join in with “No Woman No Cry.” And so, in spite of the difficulties that women in Africa face, this was a joyous celebration of life, a spontaneous display of warmhearted exuberance.

  The retreat by the Cabinet office over that first visit to Rwanda in the summer of 2005 marked a turning point, not only in my relationship with Downing Street but also, to some extent, in my relationship with the press. From then on, I felt I was being heard on issues I was highlighting, issues that increasingly related to women.

  Every year Breast Cancer Care focuses on a particular area of concern, and in October 2005 it produced a report showing that the organization was still not getting its message across in minority and ethnic communities. Within the Muslim community, in particular, the taboo against discussing women’s bodies made it hard to achieve the breast awareness that is so necessary for early diagnosis. With this in mind, Breast Cancer Care invited the Pakistani High Commissioner to share the findings. The problem was even greater in Pakistan, she said, and as a result, she invited me to visit her country early the following year, with the aim of highlighting the breast-awareness message. Breast Cancer Care paid my travel expenses, and the government agreed to pay Sue’s expenses so the charity didn’t lose money. The Foreign Office also agreed that I could continue on to Afghanistan. I had maintained contact with the Minister for Women there, and she was very keen for me to see for myself what was being achieved in the wake of years of Taliban rule.

  As all women with a growing family can attest, the crunch comes when your children start to leave home — and let no one underestimate how hard that is. Just as they have to learn to live without you, so you have to learn to live without them. Painful though it is, there are advantages. When I had four children at home, I rarely went away for more than three days at a time, but I was now able to take longer trips. By the time of my visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Euan and Nicky were away at university. For me it was never a case of “out of sight, out
of mind,” though, and I would speak to Leo and Kathryn daily, timing the calls so that they could tell me about their days. Even in the ten years since we’d arrived at Number 10, communications had totally changed. Now the kids knew that wherever I was in the world, I was always reachable by cell phone. There was something both surreal and grounding about finding myself in a truck negotiating a mountain pass or smearing antimosquito cream on my arms in equatorial Africa, and having Leo on the line asking where I’d put his goggles, or Kathryn asking if she could borrow a pair of my shoes and did I think black or brown mascara was better.

  The two destinations of that trip in early 2006 couldn’t have been more different. Among the Pakistani middle class, gender is no barrier to high achievement, and the women I met included a general, three newly qualified fighter pilots, and the governor of the central bank. They lived in an entirely different world, however, from those who packed the refugee camps set up in the wake of the 2005 earthquake and those who lived in Kashmir, where the women I met were completely covered, so conservative is their culture.

  Pakistan has the highest rate of breast cancer in Asia, due partly to environmental conditions but also because they don’t examine their breasts. In the developed world 80 percent of women going to the doctor with a nonbenign breast lump have a stage 1 or 2 tumor, for which there are many good treatments leading to a positive prognosis. In Pakistan, by contrast, 80 percent of the women presenting with a lump already have a grade 3 or 4 tumor. As a result, the prognosis is not good, and many can be offered only palliative care.

  I talked to one woman sharing a bed with another woman, lying top to tail. She was crying. When I asked about her condition, she pulled aside her hospital gown and showed me a suppurating tumor on her left breast. She was forty-two with young children. She had only come to the hospital, the British doctor told me, once she could no longer ignore the pain. There was very little they could do for her. In the UK, he said, doctors would rarely see a tumor like this, as it would be unlikely to get that far without treatment.