Catching up with Clea Koff

This month we are reading The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, a novel that takes us to the Balkans, and in the company of a young woman and her grandfather, both physicians, and a lot of inventive folktale-like storytelling, into the physical and psychological wounds of several generations of conflict.  There's even some digging for bones, and that reminded me of an earlier nonfiction Rights Readers selection from some years back, The Bone Woman, a memoir by Clea Koff. Koff is a forensic anthropologist who was part of the team investigating war crimes in both Rwanda and the Balkans. Here's an interview from last summer where she explains the kind of evidence a forensic team working for the International Criminal Tribune for the Former Yugoslavia might bring to bear on the ongoing trials of war criminals such as Ratko Mladic. For readers of The Tiger's Wife who'd like to know the reality behind the book, The Bone Woman would be a good place to start.

Of course, I was interested in finding out what Koff has been up to recently and was surprised to learn that she is the author of two mysteries, Freezing and the forthcoming Passing about a pair of L.A-based forensic investigators solving missing persons identification cases. Sounds promising! Mystery fans! Let me know if you think one of these would be a good option for our August mystery month selection some time...

New Amnesty-USA Blog

Amnesty International - USA has combined its blogs into one comprehensive blog called Human Rights Now. Apropos of our Rights Readers selection this month, The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop, they have a post on Guatemala referencing the Holiday Card Action for the Guatemalan Foundation of Forensic Anthropology. The blog should be a great way to keep up with the latest news from AI. Check it out!

Los Angeles Event: Guatemala Femicide Conference

We featured this recommended action for a House resolution condemning the brutal murders of women in girls in Guatemala in a recent issue of our newsletter,

The majority of women killed in the past few years in Guatemala lived in urban areas of the country and were 18-30 years old. Many were abducted in broad daylight in front of witnesses. Despite the lack of detailed forensic information, significant evidence suggest that sexual violence, particularly rape, characterizes many of the killings. The brutality of the killings, with sexual violence and mutilation, bear many of the hallmarks of the terrible atrocities committed during the civil conflict. These atrocities have gone unpunished, and reveal that extreme sexual violence and discrimination remain prevalent in Guatemalan society.

An opportunity to learn more is coming up on March 21 and 22 at Loyola Marymount University with a conference that promises,

...to create a safe space to lecture and debate the femicide, its theories, the culture of violence behind this issue, and the actions to take in order to investigate, prevent and stop the violent murders of women in this country

More info here.

For a little artistic inspiration for your actions, check out this post.

Guatemala Series

Loyal Readers may be interested in the NPR series, Unearthing the Future, completed this week focusing on the intersection of human rights and technology in Guatemala. One of the featured stories focuses on the use of forensic anthropology in human rights investigations, a subject familiar to our Readers who read Clea Koff's Bone Woman, and highlights the work of the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala. A few of you may recall taking action on behalf of members of the Foundation who received death threats (see Guatemala: Human rights defenders at risk). The series page has plenty of slideshows and links even if you're not inclined to take in the audio. Then visit here to take action on behalf of an Italian environmentalist working with indigenous peoples in Guatemala who has been the recipient of threats for his work.