VOA慢速英语2009-Development Report - A Voice for the Victims: Al

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Alison Des Forges was an American-born human rights expert and historian. She was one of fifty people killed in a plane crash on February twelfth near her hometown of Buffalo¹, New York. She was sixty-six years old.

For almost twenty years, until her death, Alison Des Forges was senior adviser² to the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. In nineteen ninety-four, she did her best to warn the world that Rwanda was sliding into genocide.
　
Alison Des Forges

She was in the United States when the killing³ began. But she was able to persuade diplomats⁴ to move some people out of the most threatened area.

She spent the next four years documenting the events and the world's failure the intervene. She wrote a book, published in nineteen ninety-nine, called "Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda."

Members of the ethnic⁵ Hutu majority killed Tutsis and moderate Hutus. By some estimates, around eight hundred thousand people were killed; Alison Des Forges felt more sure saying at least half a million. She talked with people on both sides: those who organized the killings⁶ and those who were targets.

She had a doctorate⁷ in history which she received from Yale in nineteen seventy-two. She wrote her dissertation⁸ paper on Rwanda. Almost thirty years later, she received a MacArthur Fellowship for her work on the genocide that took place there.

It began in April of nineteen ninety-four after a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, both Hutus, was shot down. The killings ended three months later after Tutsi rebels fighting a civil war defeated the Hutu government.

Alison Des Forges demanded justice for the genocide victims. She appeared repeatedly as an expert witness at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. But she also called attention to thousands of killings by the rebels in reaction to the genocide.

She became unpopular with the former rebels who now lead the government. Late last year, she was banned from the country she loved after Human Rights Watch criticized Rwanda's legal system.

Most recently, she worked on a report about killings in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Alison Des Forges often worked with members of the International Crisis Group. The group which works to prevent conflicts remembers her as someone who always spoke⁹ for the victims.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Steve Ember.

1 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

2 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

3 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

4 diplomats   

n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人

参考例句：

• These events led to the expulsion of senior diplomats from the country. 这些事件导致一些高级外交官被驱逐出境。
• The court has no jurisdiction over foreign diplomats living in this country. 法院对驻本国的外交官无裁判权。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

6 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。

7 doctorate   

n.(大学授予的)博士学位

参考例句：

• He hasn't enough credits to get his doctorate.他的学分不够取得博士学位。
• Where did she do her doctorate?她在哪里攻读博士？

8 dissertation   

n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文

参考例句：

• He is currently writing a dissertation on the Somali civil war.他目前正在写一篇关于索马里内战的论文。
• He was involved in writing his doctoral dissertation.他在聚精会神地写他的博士论文。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。