ICC

January 17, 2011

For three years I waited to sit in this seat. To look into the eyes of a person that was in a long list of criminals I wanted to personally understand more.

He sat behind the glass but only 20 feet away, and next to me his mother.

The image of a woman watching her son go thru the International Court tried as a murder and rapist is something I never would have imagined seeing about until today. As much as I wanted to pound the thick sheet glass and ask him why he directed so many men in the wrong direction, his mother was standing in the way.

She put a human note on a situation I thought only people who where inhuman could be involved in.

The woman hidden behind the witness protection blinds is telling her story how three men raped her and stole her things. How she was held down by one man and violated by another, and like a ride they took turns. We couldn’t see her or hear her voice in its natural state. She was a voice for the thousands of women taken advantage everyday in the Central African Republic. Her story was sad but I know that other victems stories can be one hundred times more tragic then hers. The judges spoke to her with such care. They made sure she felt safe when her murders commander sat only 10 feet away. Bembe couldn’t see her. In fact he slept.

I was finally in a place I had dreamed of seeing for years. Confirming that this was the kind of work I wanted to do. Finding what made people human, both the good and bad side. It feels like it will be an endless search for me. Something that I will never stop looking for. A drive for one answer that is in constant passing.