On September 28, while Americans were worrying about health-care reform and a troop surge in Afghanistan, the citizens of Conakry-capital of the West African country of Guinea-were being brutally massacred by their own government. More than 50,000 people had converged inside their national soccer stadium for a peaceful protest against the ruling military junta. Suddenly, the presidential guard, the notorious “red berets,” fired their AK-47s point-blank into the crowd until their clips were empty. Those left standing were attacked with bayonets and batons, and more than two-dozen women were raped, most repeatedly, some penetrated by weapons. When the tear gas settled, at least 157 people were dead, nearly 1,500 injured.
If it had been up to the Guinean bad guys-who tried to secretly bury more than 100 bullet-ridden corpses at an army camp-the world would never know this atrocity occurred. That’s where good guys like Peter Bouckaert come in. While the troops were continuing to terrorize the city, Bouckaert, the director of Human Rights Watch’s emergency research team, hit the streets of Conakry on October 10, interviewing witnesses and victims to determine what really happened. “Atrocities are not new to us, but what we found in Guinea shocked us,” said Bouckaert. “We were shaken by the sheer brutality of what happened.” On October 27, Human Rights Watch released its findings that the attacks were premeditated, which resulted in France suspending military ties to its former colony, the United States issuing a stern decree, the European Union enacting an arms embargo, and FIFA moving a World Cup-qualifying match to Ghana.
That, in a gritty nutshell, is exactly what Bouckaert’s been doing for the last 10 years. In the past six months, Bouckaert’s travel itinerary included a trip to northern Iraq to assess the growing tensions between Kurds and Arabs, and a jaunt down to Yemen, where government and rebel clashes have hurt innocent civilians and threatened to further destabilize the region. Six days before the Guinean bloodshed occurred, he made a much more restful stop in Santa Barbara, where lunch guests at Montecito’s Birnam Wood Country Club listened intently to Bouckaert’s tales of torture, torment, and hope.