Human Rights

Bukavu is perched high above Lake Kivu, gently encroaching on the placid body of water between Rwanda and Congo. Once known as the pearl of Congo because of its beautiful climate and mountains, the Bukavu I found last summer barely resembles the famed city I heard about as a child.

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA -- Dressed in a black Adidas track suit and seated amid a comfortable clutter of term papers and political science tomes in his modest office at Addis Ababa University, Prof. Merera Gudina hardly looks like a menace. But, ever since he was elected to parliament two years ago, people have been avoiding him.

There was, for example, the time that local mechanics were too terrified to repair his car when it broke down on the way back from his mother's funeral east of Addis.

Video from trip up river from El Charco

Carlos Avila Gonzalez and Phillip Robertson, for the Pulitzer Center
El Charco, Colombia

Carlos Avila Gonzalez and Phillip Robertson, for the Pulitzer Center
El Charco, Colombia

Carlos Avila Gonzalez and Phillip Robertson, for the Pulitzer Center
Narino, Colombia

Our route through the southern Colombian Andes to the Rio Tapaje.

We arrived and found a group of campesinos living in an old gymnasium in town. Many of them were from Pueblo Nuevo, a town an hour upriver that was caught in fierce fighting between FARC and the Army a few months ago. They also told us that the guerillas helped them grow coca and they were afraid to return to their town. Their situation has definitely gone from bad to worse. We made a trip the next day to Pueblo Nuevo to see if there was anyone left...

Carlos Avila Gonzalez and Phillip Robertson, for the Pulitzer Center
El Charco, Colombia

El Charco sits on a bend in the Tapaje river, a good sized town that is home to a growing population of displaced people from upriver. It is a violent and unpredictable place, filled with informers for the FARC and a heavy military presence. El Charco is poor and people have little or no civic services. The mayor told us that the city has gone without a supply of fresh water for more than two months.

Carlos Avila Gonzales and Phillip Robertson, for the Pulitzer Center
El Charco, Colombia

Carlos Avila Gonzalez and Phillip Robertson, for the Pulitzer Center
Tumaco, Colombia