Human Rights: Editor’s Letter
During the day, I edit story after story on human rights for the Fall issue of ReVista. During the evening, I work on my biography of Irma Flaquer, a courageous Guatemalan journalist who was…
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Theme: Human Rights
Water Access
Take a moment to imagine your day without water. No morning shower, no coffee, no glasses of water throughout the day, no flushable toilet, no washing your hands. Beyond being an unpleasant day, without water we as a human race would simply perish. Not only are we as physical beings made up largely of water, we depend on it to remain hydrated, to clean and purify, to transport and to sustain …
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From Water Wars to Water Scarcity
When Bolivian President Evo Morales arrived at the new Uyuni airport last August and found no water running from the tap, he publicly reprimanded and promptly dismissed his Minister of Water. As it happened, the pipes were merely frozen. The incident underscores the critical—and highly symbolic—role of water in the politics of this landlocked Andean nation. …
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A Search for Justice
In 2004, when I left Harvard and last saw you, I thought I would never learn the truth of what exactly happened to Carlos Horacio in the horrendous holocaust of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá. Yet fate was holding a tremendous surprise for my daughters and me, filled with…
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First Take: Memories and Their Consequences
I visited the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos in Santiago, Chile, two years ago. It was a heart-rending experience. To enter the museum, I moved through a stark and subterranean passage and found myself in a somber space of transition. There, a wall of photographs transported me back in time—long ago in a messy graduate student lounge in Cambridge, Massachusetts, four of us stood in shock …
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