Journey for Peace , were devoted to the buildup to the partition of India, the explosion of violence, and the family’s subsequent life as refugees. Hussein had written movingly from the perspective of a young boy who sees his safe, secure world slowly starting to crumble around him.
Yael had worked for Fareed Hussein throughout her UN career. It was a relationship, she knew, underpinned by a kind of mutual exploitation. She used him, and the UN, to try and save lives wherever she could. Hussein used Yael as his secret conscience. Behind the scenes, Hussein had been happy for Yael to, if not violate, at least bend the concept of neutrality, as long as nothing could be traced back to his office. Indeed, that was one of the reasons her job existed: to broker the covert deals that kept the wheels of superpower diplomacy turning, and to ensure that the balance sheets of multinational corporations stayed healthy. Yael knew she operated in a gray area of compromises and trade-offs, sometimes sordid ones. Warlords walked free; crimes went unpunished. But lives were saved and wars averted. Overall, her moral account had stayed in the black.
Hussein had been her patron and protector, at least until Yael had been sent to Goma, in eastern Congo. There her task was to negotiate a deal with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu Rwandan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide. Hakizimani, a former minister of health, had once been marked out as one of the new generation of African leaders. But after his wife and three daughters were killed in a car bomb, blamed on Tutsi extremists, Hakizimani became the ideologue and propaganda genius behind the Rwandan genocide. His theory of “Hutu Power” demanded the complete extermination of the Tutsis. Every day, for hour after hour, he had broadcast on Radio Milles Collines, exhorting his Hutu compatriots to squash, kill, and stamp on the “cockroaches,” meaning the Tutsis. His instructions had been diligently followed.
Yael was to offer him a shorter sentence, in a comfortable prison in Paris, in exchange for surrendering and dismantling his militia. Almost two decades after the genocide, the Hutu militias had regrouped in eastern Congo. Under Hakizimani’s command they were launching raids into Rwanda and threatening to destabilize the whole region. Yael found the assignment repulsive, but she could not refuse. That was her job. She knew how to handle killers. It was a little late for her to start getting squeamish. The only difference this time had been the numbers involved. But Yael also had more personal reasons for wanting to meet the man dubbed “the Goebbels of Africa.”
Yael glanced at the SG’s desk. Next to the picture of Omar was one of a pretty young Indian woman—Rina Hussein in her graduation gown. Rina was a human rights activist. She and her father had not spoken for years. Rina had recently caused an international incident at the UN headquarters in Geneva. Rina and her comrades had pelted UN officials, Lucy Tremlett, and her rock-star boyfriend at a press conference with the yellow sludge from which coltan is extracted. Yael knew that the SG had pulled strings with the Swiss authorities to get Rina and her group released. Rina probably suspected as much, and it only seemed to fuel her rage against her father, whom she had recently denounced on Twitter as an “accomplice to genocide.”
Yael brought herself back to the room. The SG, she realized, was still talking. She listened patiently as he finished his exegesis on the file he had just read and Yael’s meeting in DC that morning, outlining what he called the “potentially catastrophic consequences” if the UN took on the Prometheus Group.
Braithwaite picked up his folder. “I beg to differ, Fareed. We need to go public with this. It’s dynamite.”
“Indeed it is, Quentin. Which is why it stays inside this room, at least for now,” said Hussein. He turned to Yael and gave her a
Yael had worked for Fareed Hussein throughout her UN career. It was a relationship, she knew, underpinned by a kind of mutual exploitation. She used him, and the UN, to try and save lives wherever she could. Hussein used Yael as his secret conscience. Behind the scenes, Hussein had been happy for Yael to, if not violate, at least bend the concept of neutrality, as long as nothing could be traced back to his office. Indeed, that was one of the reasons her job existed: to broker the covert deals that kept the wheels of superpower diplomacy turning, and to ensure that the balance sheets of multinational corporations stayed healthy. Yael knew she operated in a gray area of compromises and trade-offs, sometimes sordid ones. Warlords walked free; crimes went unpunished. But lives were saved and wars averted. Overall, her moral account had stayed in the black.
Hussein had been her patron and protector, at least until Yael had been sent to Goma, in eastern Congo. There her task was to negotiate a deal with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu Rwandan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide. Hakizimani, a former minister of health, had once been marked out as one of the new generation of African leaders. But after his wife and three daughters were killed in a car bomb, blamed on Tutsi extremists, Hakizimani became the ideologue and propaganda genius behind the Rwandan genocide. His theory of “Hutu Power” demanded the complete extermination of the Tutsis. Every day, for hour after hour, he had broadcast on Radio Milles Collines, exhorting his Hutu compatriots to squash, kill, and stamp on the “cockroaches,” meaning the Tutsis. His instructions had been diligently followed.
Yael was to offer him a shorter sentence, in a comfortable prison in Paris, in exchange for surrendering and dismantling his militia. Almost two decades after the genocide, the Hutu militias had regrouped in eastern Congo. Under Hakizimani’s command they were launching raids into Rwanda and threatening to destabilize the whole region. Yael found the assignment repulsive, but she could not refuse. That was her job. She knew how to handle killers. It was a little late for her to start getting squeamish. The only difference this time had been the numbers involved. But Yael also had more personal reasons for wanting to meet the man dubbed “the Goebbels of Africa.”
Yael glanced at the SG’s desk. Next to the picture of Omar was one of a pretty young Indian woman—Rina Hussein in her graduation gown. Rina was a human rights activist. She and her father had not spoken for years. Rina had recently caused an international incident at the UN headquarters in Geneva. Rina and her comrades had pelted UN officials, Lucy Tremlett, and her rock-star boyfriend at a press conference with the yellow sludge from which coltan is extracted. Yael knew that the SG had pulled strings with the Swiss authorities to get Rina and her group released. Rina probably suspected as much, and it only seemed to fuel her rage against her father, whom she had recently denounced on Twitter as an “accomplice to genocide.”
Yael brought herself back to the room. The SG, she realized, was still talking. She listened patiently as he finished his exegesis on the file he had just read and Yael’s meeting in DC that morning, outlining what he called the “potentially catastrophic consequences” if the UN took on the Prometheus Group.
Braithwaite picked up his folder. “I beg to differ, Fareed. We need to go public with this. It’s dynamite.”
“Indeed it is, Quentin. Which is why it stays inside this room, at least for now,” said Hussein. He turned to Yael and gave her a
Similar Books
