NEW YORK—The Open Society Institute mourns the passing of human rights activist, friend, and colleague Alison Des Forges, who was killed last night in the crash of Continental Airlines Flight 3407 near Buffalo, New York. Des Forges, 66, was senior advisor for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division and a leading expert on Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Over the years, she has provided invaluable guidance and advice to the Open Society Institute.
An historian trained at Radcliffe College and Yale University who dedicated her professional life to understanding Rwanda, Des Forges spent four years documenting the 1994 genocide through extensive interviews with survivors and those accused of orchestrating the killings. A recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 1999 and author of the award-winning Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, she testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and in national courts in Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Canada. Des Forges documented massacres in Rwanda preceding the events of 1994 and was one of the few people to draw attention to the genocide as it unfolded.
“The tragic death of Alison Des Forges leaves a gigantic void,” said Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Institute. “She was the best informed, wisest, and most dedicated advocate of human rights in Rwanda. The loss to the worldwide human rights movement is incalculable.”
Des Forges followed developments in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo and provided expert analysis on these related crises to the United Nations, the U.S. Congress, and the Organization of African Unity. She co-chaired the International Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Abuse in Rwanda and the International Commission that investigated massive slaughter in Burundi. She was in the process of working on a report about recent killings in eastern Congo.
Her sense of humor, keen intellect, and passion will be greatly missed.