Workin' on the railroad

I was chatting with Alejandro on Skype today, and he asked me what I was doing.

//Chewing some really tough beef,// I typed, trying not to get juice splattered on the keyboard. But that wasn't what he meant.

//No, I mean at work!// the response came.

Oh, that. I guess I haven't written much about that, because this part of my life, anyway, is easy. The Uganda Coalition for the International Criminal Court is a tiny organization, not even a full-fledged NGO. The full-time staff in our bureau is one lawyer who knows quite a bit about the ICC but is actually more of an advocate for victims' rights. The rest of us are interns. I've already seen two people cycle out on their way back to school. Apparently there are other bureaus scattered throughout the country, with a focal person in each office. Their job is to educate people in the region about the activities of the ICC, discuss the many forms of justice available in Uganda, and advocate for victims' rights. This manifests as training sessions with police officers, university outreach, fundless campaigns for legislation, regional information sessions with locals, more intensive sessions about the ICC for paralegals, playwriting, poster making, and generalized public relations. We write articles, visit courts when human rights cases are involved and talk with advocates, magistrates, justices, and members of Parliament.

The work is really very similar to what I did for the newspapers. At first I was a little bit nervous. Onyango or one of the interns would hand me a paper and ask, "Can you type this for me?" I began to worry that they were doing this because I am a woman, therefore I must be more like a secretary. But as time went on, I discovered that this is actually because I'm the only person here who can really type. Everyone else in the office hunts and pecks, and it takes them ages to type up a manuscript I can have completed in a few minutes.

I've spent the bulk of my time building a web site for the organization. You can check it out at www.ucicc.org. I've also set up a Facebook group for the UCICC, and a MySpace profile comes next. The UCICC has very little notoriety outside of Uganda, so I am trying to develop a presence online. Hopefully it will help us find sponsors. I've also drafted a few information packets, drawn up a poster, generated some logos, read through the 1995 Uganda Constitution, edited a paper for a university outreach session, helped with logistics for the annual general meeting, and written letters to Parliament. Nothing fancy at all. I can tell you a lot more about the Rome Statute and the structure of the ICC now than I could have two weeks ago, I know the exact date Uganda ratified the treaty (14 June 2002), and I can rattle off the names of the five LRA leaders for whom the ICC has issued a warrant: Joseph Kony, Okot Odhiambo, Vincent Otti, Raska Lukwiya, and Dominic Ongwen.

That's about it.

Really, the work is simple and quiet. It takes me a long time to get anything finished, but only because of connectivity issues and power fluctuations. Also, because people here like to talk. But talking is how I do most of my learning, and I don't regret a minute of it. Today I got to play with a baby. That was fun. Babies smell good. Everyone said she looked like me, then asked when I was going to have a child. I can't seem to convey that I am not exactly hot stuff in the United States. To them, over 20 and you get married. That's that.

I guess this pace is what I need, after last year. It's allowing me to shore up the few strands of self-respect I've got left, which is good, because our readings at school have been hard to swim through and I haven't tested well. At least I know that I can be useful in the world of NGOs. I've been setting people up with e-mail addresses and teaching staff the basic elements of photography, videography, and web site creation. The women in HURINET-U's capacity building department are especially happy about that.

I do wish I had more legal work to do. Alejandro has been writing policy papers in Hong Kong, and Emily is drafting court opinions. That sounds awesome! I'm trying to read what they've done, so I can learn from them, too. It makes me a bit nervous to know that I'll be going to a firm next summer with only partially relevant professional experience. To feel better, I tell myself that by the time I'm done I'll have lived for ten weeks in a developing country, handled sickness and financial trouble and pushy men and communication issues, and supported a drive to pass implementing legislation for the ICC. It's not like I haven't gotten a lot out of this, already, right?

There are a few interesting subjects I've come across that we didn't mention in class, too. National corruption is a big one. I'll write more on that in another post. Reasons for implementing ICC legislation is a big question, too. A lot of people here truly believe that the only purpose for embracing the ICC is to end the war in the North. They're not thinking longterm about the resolution of potential future violations or jurisdictional issues such as rationae personae.

This morning I had a fantastic conversation with a young man who is trying to categorize victims of the war in the North. His thoughts were very interesting. You have rape victims, land mine victims, victims of (generalized) violence, child soldiers, torture victims, and the list goes on. If you lump all of those people into one category and grant them some award, how should that award be divided? Who has suffered more, and who will need more for recovery? I gave him some information about victim participation in ICC trials, but I'll bet his report will be a lot more detailed than that.

Since brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief. There is a lot to learn here. Maybe not book learnin', but that's not my comparative strength, anyway. It's experience, and all the richness of life.