I met Ambassador Krueger and his wife and coauthor, Kathleen, at
the American
Society for Public Administrations (ASPAs) annual conference in
Dallas
earlier this year.After reading their book and chatting further
with the authors,
it occurred to me that the couples firsthand experiences in Burundi
might help
shed light on a cloudy applied topic: the ethics of public
serviceparticularly
in the face of such horrific human rights violations.
In effect, how should a public servant behave and what should one
do in
similar circumstances? Surely, the mounting evidence of genocide in
the last
century and the continuing pattern of ethnic cleansing and related
humanitarian
crises through the first decade of this century suggest that were
likely
to witness similar challenges for some time to come. Does our
community of
practice need a clearer road map, a code of conduct, and special
set of public
management competencies to prepare public managers to act
appropriately should
their skill and courage be needed?
With this in mind, Howard Balanoff, chairperson of ASPAs new
section
on certified public management (CPM), and The Public Manager
arranged for
me to interview the authors before a student audience atTexas State
University
in San Marcos,Texas, in June 2008. (See video highlights of the
seminar
at www.thepublicmanager.org.)What follows is part book review and
part recap
of our interview, enriched by the give-and-take with students that
followed.
Setting the Stage
Having decided among themselves who would relate different aspects
of their
experience in Burundi,the husband-and-wife teamdivided
responsibility for writ-ing specific chapters.Bob sets the stage
through a meaty preface and the early
chapters,recounting the small countrys
brief, but tortured historybefore and
after the Belgian colonial regimeand
the events leading up to the political assassinations
and civilianmassacres in Burundi
beginning inmid-1994.Throughout
his documentation of the genocide,
repletewith firsthand reports of these incidents
from Physicians for Human
Rights and Amnesty International, the
ambassador adds the couples own photos
of the human wreckage, leaving no
doubt about what transpired (and who
was responsible).
When reports of violence and official
military and police complicity began
to reach the embassy, Bob felt he
needed firsthand evidence of what was
being reported. Against the better
judgment of his civilian and military
advisorsand over the objections of
(in all likelihood, complicit) Burundian
officialshe continued to drive out
into the countryside and isolated
towns and villages to see for himself
what was being alleged.He did this for
several reasons: (1) to determine the veracity
of such atrocities before reporting
back toWashington, his international
counterparts, and the media; (2)
to prevent further violence simply by
dint of his on-site presence as the U.S.
ambassador; and (3) to provide leadership
in the hope that others would
stand up in unity and in some way assist
potential victims.
This ambassador and former
member of Congress discovered that
the bureaucratic culture of which he
believed he was a part was not exactly
thrilled with his actions.He had not
been sent to this remote nation of six
million people85 percent Hutu
(largely impoverished and institutionally
uneducated) and 15 percentTutsi
(overseers installed by the Belgians)
to solve the countrys tribal and
political squabbles. In effect, his mission
was not to involve himself in Burundis
internal affairs at all. So what
to do? Ignore what was going on
around him? Be silent, or worse, gloss
over reported atrocities because such
news would support a narrative that ran
counter to U.S. strategic aims (for example,
gaining other benefits from BurundisTutsi
leadership)?
Kathleen and Girls
Meanwhile, Kathleen shares her
personal experiencesalong with those
of the couples two young daughters
as they arrive months later in the midst
of all the chaos.What struck me from
reading these chapters was the warmth
that the family experienced among local
Burundians and an international
community of new-found friends and
acquaintances, many of whom had
been in Burundi or the region for
decades.Kathleen, too, regularly found
ways to reach out into the countryside
both toshow the flagand help in any
way she could. Eventually, once events
began to spiral out of control, this help
included secretly hiding or transporting
people out of harms way and providing
emergency food,clothing,and shelter
and other assistance through a network
of local Burundian citizens (both
Hutu andTutsi) as well as members of
the international communityall at
considerable risk to themselves and
their families.
Beginning of the End
A short time later, inMarch 1995,
after an incident of violence against
Belgian residents,Kathleen and the girls
were required to leave the country.Yet
another hardship, the family was separated
again, and Kathleen soon learned
she was pregnant.
Bob stayed behind, only to get
deeper into the imbroglio and experience
an assassination attempt when
his four-car convoy was attacked while
attempting to document widespread,
official cruelty in the countryside.
Several passengers were killed and
others injured, but the ambassador escaped.
Nevertheless, in June 1995, the
Department of State prohibited any
embassy official from traveling more
than fourteen miles from the capital
without formal approval fromWashington.
Subsequently, Bob was called
back toWashington for consultations,
and he never returned.
In the aftermath of Ambassador
Kruegers departure, theTutsi-led BurundiArmy
engineered another coup,
deposed the Hutu president, and spearheaded
another genocidal wave that left
more than fifty thousand Hutus dead
and many more in concentration
camps.It wasnt until NelsonMandela
and others intervened in 200001
that the country began to move in the
direction of a multi-ethnic sharing of
powerincluding, most important,
leadership of the BurundiArmyand
a process of truth and reconciliation
modeled after that of South Africas.
Reflections
This book lays out the context and
graphic evidence needed to understand
what happened on the ground in
Burundi in the last decade of the twentieth
century. Reflecting on the
Kruegers experience leading up to the
outbreak of genocide gives rise to
questions as to what could have been
done differently to prevent the tragic
events that followed: What specific training was offered
to key public officials of the U.S.
missionincluding the ambassador
and his State team, the U.S.
Information Service, civilian and
military members of the Department
of Defense (DoD), and others
to prepare them to respond
to such circumstances prior to
traveling to Burundi?
What leadership was provided in
the way of in-country briefings,
orientations, and meetings with
host country and United Nations
(UN) officials, other missions and
donor organizations, and local
media to openly discuss the early
signs and triggering events that
could precipitate such a humanitarian
crisis?
Once the crisis was well underway,
what could have been done
differently to mitigate the horrific
consequences of the genocide as
circumstances on the ground descended
into chaos?Were public
servants given the green light and
the tools to protect individuals by
warning, hiding, transporting,
feeding, medically treating, or defending
them?
What aspects of bureaucratic culture
(including the behavior of
State, DoD, the UN, etc.) must be
transformed to prevent such failings
among public servants in the
future?
In the aftermath of such atrocities,
what role, if any, should U.S. officials
be prepared to play to help
heal the wounds and repair the
damage from the horrific carnage
and human rights abuses that have
been committed?
Conclusion
Clearly, universal lessons can be
gleaned from the Burundi genocide
and analogous humanitarian crises (in
Rwanda, Bosnia, apartheid South
Africa,Nazi Germany,OttomanTurkey,
etc.).Given the repeated occurrence of
racial and religious persecutions (genocide,
ethnic cleansing, and extermination
of entire classes of human beings)
across the globe in the modern
era,what have we learned that can inform
a new, universal code of ethics
for those in public management positions?
What is the role of the public servant
to prevent and mitigate such human
rights abuses and what new skill
sets are required in a truth-andreconciliation
process? This insightful
memoir of the Kruegers raises questions
about the ethics of public service
(for the Department of State and
others) and offers a road map for our
community of practice in the way of
an expanded code of conduct.