Although the program announced Comandante Daniel would award the Medal of Latin American Unity Free Nicaragua the task was performed by attractive young women dancers who draped medals over the necks of delegation leaders as part of the choreography. Marking another awkward moment, however, they ran out of medals halfway through, leaving Presidents Calderón and Chávez without their prize. To cover the oversight, the dancers and music continued to play while the first lady improvised.
Instead of giving his formal remarks as programmed, President Ortega closed the proceedings with the departing words, “my people await me,” and rushed off to Plaza de la Fe for a rally accompanied by Presidents Chávez and Morales, along with the President of Taiwan (looking as lost as an Eskimo in Africa), who had arrived with several busloads of at least 200 delegates.22
WOMEN OF COURAGE
Thankfully, embassies also found plenty of people to admire. The International Women of Courage Award, established in 2007 under then–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, gave embassies a platform to extol the bravery and leadership of women who might never attain high office but who had made a dramatic impact nonetheless. “The award honors women around the globe who have exemplified exceptional courage and leadership in advocating for human rights, women’s equality, and social progress, often at great personal risk. This is the only State Department award that pays tribute to emerging women leaders worldwide.” 23 The honorees come to the United States for the special International Visitor Leadership Program, which provides an opportunity to meet with Americans and make connections that will allow them to continue to empower women in their countries.
The number of honorees ranged from eight to ten in the award’s first four years and, perhaps not surprisingly, a number of recipients came from Afghanistan (six) and Iraq (four), both priority countries for U.S. foreign policy. Zimbabwe had two recipients, while others hailed from countries as disparate as Sri Lanka and Argentina.
Embassy Kabul set the stage for readers in a nomination cable describing the indescribable.
Women in Afghanistan face extraordinary circumstances that frequently prevent them from attending school, working outside the home, or even living free from the fear of becoming the victims of domestic violence. However, the number of courageous Afghan women who fight against pervasive cultural norms to better the lives of all women in their country is outstanding. Despite serious threats to their own safety, sometimes by members of their own families, numerous women in Kabul and the provinces continue their work to advance women’s rights in Afghanistan.24
One Afghan winner, Mary Akrami, ran two shelters for women escaping domestic violence or forced marriages. “Several women at her shelter have made the bold and virtually unprecedented move of stepping forward and denouncing their abusers publicly and filing court cases against them.” A second Afghan winner, Aziza Siddiqui, traveled to remote rural villages to educate women on their rights, organizing meetings in more than fifty villages. Colonel Shafiqa Quraishi, unusual in being a female police colonel who worked for the Ministry of Interior for Gender, Human, and Child Rights, recruited thousands of women to the force and then created unheard-of benefits such as prenatal care and child care. She then managed to get forty-two promotions for women processed in the Afghan National Police—women who had been repeatedly passed over for a decade.
Shokuria Assil, one of only four female members of the Baghlan Provincial Council (roughly the political equivalent of a U.S. state legislature) also championed underdogs. When the Ministry of Education summarily fired three teachers, she challenged the decision and argued that the firings were unjust. She got the women reinstated and eventually convinced a ministry official to apologize publically. This would be impressive in the United States; it was unheard of in Afghanistan. She also advocated for programs for the mentally ill, started a networking group for professional women, and pushed to start a women’s driving school.25
The winner from Argentina, Susana Trimarco de Veron, is the mother of Marita Veron, kidnapped by a human trafficking ring on April 3, 2002, when she was twenty-three years old. Desperate to find her daughter, Trimarco dedicated herself to exposing the traffickers. Her search through global trafficking networks led to the rescue of ninety-six victims, including seventeen Argentine women who had been forced into prostitution in Spain. The embassy nomination read:
Trimarco’s efforts have led her into dangerous situations, disguised as a prostitute, trolling bars and alleys in search of anyone who might know something about her daughter’s whereabouts. She has been threatened, spied upon, and tricked. She has received false leads and death threats, but has not been deterred from her investigations into human trafficking in Argentina. Thanks to her work, the Argentine government is beginning to focus on this crime. 70 cases have been filed in Tucuman province.26
The horrible reality is that some of the nominees and award recipients have been physically abused and beaten for their work. Iraqi nominee Najat Shakir Munshid al-Hameedawi was not only a civil society activist, but a district council member and a member of the Baghdad Suburban Services Board. Her duties on the municipal body focused on women’s and children’s services. At the provincial level, she served as the Istiqlal representative to the Baghdad Suburban Services Board and the chair of the Women and Children’s Committee for all of the rural districts of Baghdad. Unfortunately, none of this grassroots work was sufficient to prevent her brutal treatment. The embassy wrote:
What truly makes Ms. Najat’s achievements and tireless efforts amazing is her incredible story of courage. Ms. Najat put her life and that of her family in danger on a daily basis by working for the Government of Iraq and with Coalition forces. She risked her life further by speaking up for her strongly held ideas of democracy and women’s rights and against the terrorist groups and sectarian militias who do not want to see a stronger role for women in Iraqi society. The terrorist threat became reality on a Friday in the winter of 2006, when Ms. Najat was violently dragged from her home in front of her family by a gang of Jaysh al-Mahdsi (JAM) Special Groups militia. She was tortured and brought to trial in one of the Sharia courts operated by JAM and sentenced to death. However, on her way to execution, she convinced the executioner that she was innocent and to let her go for the sake of her small children. Her executioner released her with strict instructions to leave Baghdad and Iraq.27
Ms. Najat refused to leave and continued her work.
In Zimbabwe, Jestina Mukoko, a former television news broadcaster, turned her skills to the Zimbabwe Peace Project, an NGO made up of four hundred Zimbabweans who monitor human rights, providing the international community with accounts of human rights abuses.
Her work came to an abrupt halt early one morning, when she was abducted by state security agents, dragged from her home in her nightclothes, and held incommunicado . . . During her abduction, she was tortured by agents who beat her, subjected her to falanga (beating the soles of her feet) and forced her to confess to an alleged plot to mount a terrorist incursion from neighboring Botswana . . . She was repeatedly denied adequate medical care for injuries and medications that went untreated during her detention.28
It is reassuring to see a smiling Mukoko in a March 10, 2010, State Department photo standing between Secretary Clinton and First Lady Michele Obama, and it would be logical to assume such high-profile international attention would be enough to ward off further violence. But the Zimbabwean government continued to harass her even after her award, just as she continued, more determined than ever, in her work.29
In fact, international visibility can cut the wrong way. One of the 2010 Women of Courage Award winners, Jensila Kubais of Sri Lanka, was so frightened at the prospect of government reprisals that she begged the embassy to revise the citation narrative. “In a meeting with us, Kubais underscored the implications of the wording of the award’s citation, noting the importance of avoiding references to her work on ‘human rights violations’ and focusing instead on her work as a ‘
minority community leader.’” The embassy noted that Kubais and her group had been threatened by the Criminal Investigation Division of the police and that tagging her as a human rights activist could result in dire consequences. Kubais substantiated this fear by noting that a previous recipient had been vilified in the pro-government press.30
Visibility from the award was also a problem for the U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan. The ambassador was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was dressed down by an apoplectic foreign minister for the embassy’s nomination of 2009 award winner Mutabar Tadjibayeva. The embassy described the “icy tone” of the foreign minister, who concluded the meeting without shaking hands. The embassy was frank about the tradeoffs the award would bring, noting it would likely set back other initiatives, such as Uzbekistan’s role in the Afghanistan transit framework, an overland supply route, and the hoped-for return of DEA agents to the U.S. mission. Cooperation had been suspended in 2007, and the embassy frequently raised the possibility of having two openly accredited DEA special agents join the mission—a move that would require Uzbek approval.31
The Tadjibayeva case is yet another in which a woman human rights activist was imprisoned for speaking out about government violence against peaceful protestors. “Tadjibayeva suffered horribly in prison, enduring forced psychiatric treatment and long stays in solitary confinement . . . She was placed in an unheated solitary confinement cell in winter for almost 50 days. She developed anemia, low blood pressure, and kidney problems.” In truly Orwellian fashion, the prison doctors performed surgery on her but refused to discuss her diagnosis or what the procedure was for. She was released on medical grounds during a June 2008 visit by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher. Both the embassy and the State Department were reticent about whether Boucher had won her release, but both the BBC and the New York Times made the connection. According to the embassy, she continued her human rights advocacy and never shied away from criticizing authorities. She commented to a political officer shortly after her release, “They can break my body but they can never break my spirit.” 32
There is a disconcerting postscript to the Tadjibayeva story. Coming from a part of the world where nothing is ever what it seems, even stories of heroism arrive laden with ambiguity. Tadjibayeva returned her award when she learned that a dissident turned president from neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Roza Otunbayeva, was honored with the same award in 2011. Tadjibayeva said that Otunbayeva, as head of state, bore responsibility for a bloody interethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan in which four hundred people were killed and thousands injured in fierce clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. In a statement she said, “When Mrs. Otunbayeva was a leader of the opposition and was speaking out against injustice, I think then it would have been right to award her. But it is during her presidency that we have seen bloodshed.” 33
The embassy in Kyrgyzstan also had trouble making up its mind about Roza Otunbayeva, leader of the Social Democratic party and former foreign minister. Reporting on a lengthy conversation with her in December 2009 about the ruling Bakiyev family’s plans for succession, the embassy was dismissive. “We have little confidence in her information and less in her analysis.” 34 Four months later, following widespread rioting that led to the overthrow of President Bakiyev, she was leading the country.
Tadjibayeva was correct; the coup that brought Otunbayeva to power unleashed deadly interethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. But Washington had a different interpretation of her role. The announcement of her award painted Otunbayeva in glowing terms, crediting her as the central figure in ridding her country of authoritarian rule, becoming Central Asia’s first female head of state and head of government in a traditional, majority Muslim country, and pulling a divided opposition into a provisional government that kept Kyrgyzstan whole.
Other women of courage nominees stayed away from politics and chose instead to focus on service. North Korean Lee Ae-ran was unable to enroll in university because her family came from a “bad class.” Faced with hopelessness, she tried to take her own life by drinking insecticide. U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens picked up the story from there, describing how Dr. Lee Ae-ran finally went to college in 1985, majoring in engineering, when the North Korean authorities opened the doors of science and engineering colleges to those from so-called bad classes.
She left North Korea in 1997 with nine members of her family, and in 2009 she was the first North Korean female defector to receive a PhD. “For many years, Dr. Lee has been helping with the rehabilitation programs for North Korean women who were divorced or have autistic children.” She organized Hana Women’s Group “to provide leadership training for North Korean female defectors . . . She has been supporting college students of defector families with scholarships. Last year, she created a fund of 30 million won to provide North Korean adolescents with 100,000 won each month for their private tuition fees. She has been stressing to the students ‘As long as you hope, you can live.’” 35
Many of the awardees successfully operated at the margins—filling an obvious need, keeping the government at bay, and connecting with the larger international community. Sister Clauda Isaiah Naddaf (aka Sister Marie-Claude) of Damascus, Syria, was an exemplar of that savviness. The embassy admired—and was intrigued by—the way she had found space to maneuver in the “murky no-man’s land” between civil society and the government. Like many recipients, she worked for women who were victims of violence and sexual trafficking. She faced down strict cultural taboos and paved the way for other groups. The embassy was smitten.
A visit with Sister Marie-Claude is never an everyday affair. She sits you down, unveils her vision for assisting women in need, explains the moral framework in which she operates, engages you in a discussion on how we, united, might begin to alleviate suffering, and then you meet the very women and girls to whom she has devoted herself. It is a powerful experience. Her boundless energy, fiery intelligence, and tremendous courage have won the respect of SARG (Syrian Arab Republic Government) officials, diplomats, and NGOs alike. She has stood firm in the face of political indifference and kicked down the doors of cultural constraint to better (and very often save) the lives of women and young girls who have found themselves abandoned, beaten on the street, or slaves to traffickers.36
And finally, Hadizatou Mani of Niger tells the story of how, when she was twelve, she was sold into slavery for $500. “I was negotiated over like a goat,” she said. Mani was a slave because her mother was a slave, purchased by a man in his sixties who beat her, sent her to work long hours in the field, raped her, and made her bear him three children.
When Niger outlawed slavery in 2003, Mani’s master tried to tell the government that she was not a slave but one of his wives. Hadizatou fought for and won a Certificate of Liberation and married a man of her own choosing. Her challenges did not end, however. Her former master sued her for bigamy and she spent six months in jail. According to embassy follow-up reporting, even after her award as an International Woman of Courage, her children still lived with her former master.37
The cables offer examples of embassy human rights work that goes well beyond mandated reporting cables. They represent months and years of careful relationship-building and hard-won trust that provided a window into communities fearful of authorities in their own countries. The officers’ long-standing relationships with these women personalize the work of human rights and hint at a vast world of impoverished, abused, and unwanted victims.
PEOPLE WHO JUST DON’T LIKE US
The U.S. relationship with Germany is among the most important in the world. Allied since the end of World War II, Germany’s industrial strength has been the backbone that rebuilt Europe. The reunification of East and West between 1989 and 1990, with its accompanying risk of a more neutral European position, tested the bonds of that relationship. Since that time, Germany’s steady leadership as the single strongest member of the EU has provided further opportunities for c
ollaboration. This is one country whose leaders are household names in the United States. Christian Democrats such as Konrad Adenauer, Helmut Kohl, and Angela Merkel are well-known figures, thanks in part to their long tenures and generally pro-U.S. stances. Social Democrats such as Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Gerhard Schröder often pulled at those bonds, causing consternation for U.S. policymakers. In the years since reunification, for the most part, U.S.–German relations rarely make headlines, remaining solid, reliable, and rarely colorful.
No one would ever call the German politician Guido Westerwelle gray. The embassy in Berlin saw him as “a wild card” and warned that his “exuberant personality does not lend itself to taking a back seat to Chancellor Merkel on any issue. If he becomes foreign minister, there is the possibility of higher profile discord between the chancellery and the MFA.” 38
In fact, the prediction was on target in several ways. Westerwelle’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) surged to gain 14.6 percent of the votes in the September 2009 elections, making it a junior partner to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union coalition. This opened the way for Westerwelle to take on the job of foreign minister, which comes with the title of vice chancellor.
Westerwelle’s foray into the realm of foreign policy, with a speech at the German equivalent of the Council on Foreign Relations, came in for scathing reviews. His remarks earned him the nickname of Guido Genscher, linking his ideology to that of his mentor, former FDP foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. Genscher’s penchant for charting a middle course between two superpowers alarmed the United States, which was concerned that his path would lead to German neutrality. The politics of resistance to fully aligning with the United States became known as “Genscherism,” a label for Germans seen as less than fully committed to NATO membership and to a U.S. presence on the European continent.
To the Secretary Page 17