One Day the Soldiers Came - Charles London [2]
November 1965: Joseph Desiré Mobutu overthrows the president of the Congo and renames the country Zaire.
April 1992: The Bosnian Parliament, following the lead of Slovenia and Croatia, passes a referendum declaring Bosnia’s independence from Yugoslavia which triggers a civil war supported by the Serb controlled government in Belgrade.
April 1994: Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana is assassinated and the act is immediately blamed on Tutsi extremists. Under the pretext of national security, the Hutu Power government of Rwanda begins a mass extermination campaign to kill every Tutsi in the country. The international community does nothing to stop the killing. Paul Kagame, a Tutsi general, takes over Rwanda in July 1994 and puts a stop to the killing, sending hundreds of thousands of Hutus, including those responsible for the genocide, fleeing into Zaire.
November 1996–May 1997: The First Congo War erupts and Laurent Kabila, with the support of Paul Kagame, overthrows Mobutu, ending his thirty-year reign.
July 1998, Laurent Kabila severs ties with his Rwandan backers. Ethnic Tutsis in the eastern Congo rebel against his government with the support of Rwanda and the Second Congo War begins.
March 1999: NATO bombardment of Serb positions ends the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovar Albanian population in the Serbian province of Kosovo. When Serb forces withdraw, the Kosovo Liberation Army begins exacting revenge on the Serb civilians left behind. The United Nations takes over administration of the province.
May 2001: I begin research for this project.
July 2001: I spend a month in the Burundian and Congolese refugee camps in western Tanzania.
September 11, 2001: Terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center kill over 3,000 people. Images of the burning towers are seen even by children in the jungles of Thailand.
October 7, 2001: The United States begins Operation Enduring Freedom to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan. Ensuring girls’ access to education is one of the stated goals of the new government.
January 2002: I visit the war-ravaged eastern Congo, passing through Rwanda.
January 17, 2002: Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Congo, forcing the evacuation of half a million people, including the research team from Refugees International, who retreat back to Rwanda.
September 2002: I visit Thailand to research the lives of refugees and illegal migrants living in Bangkok and on the Thailand-Burma border.
March 2003: The United States goes to war in Iraq. The pre-war planning does not include cogent provisions for children in the aftermath of the regime; many young people join the insurgency.
May 2003: I visit Kakuma Refugee Camp, near the Kenya-Sudan border to interview the Lost Girls of Sudan. At the same time, the United States resumes its resettlement program of the Lost Boys and a large number of Somali Bantus from Kakuma. The program had been suspended due to the 9/11 attacks.
July 2003: A transitional government takes control of the Democratic Republic of Congo, officially ending the civil war, though violence in the east continues.
March 2004: Rioting erupts across Kosovo when three children drown under mysterious circumstances.
June 2004: I visit Kosovo to research the lives of refugee children returning home and trying to rebuild their lives amid ethnic tensions. I also spend a month in Bosnia with young adults who had been children during the war ten years earlier to learn how they are coping with peace.
November 2004: Rebecca, a Sudanese “Lost Girl” is reunited with her cousin in the United States.
October 2005: A small group of Congolese refugees in a Tanzanian refugee camp begin the repatriation process, returning to the eastern Congo. Over the next year, thousands more follow. I have no idea if the children I met, now young adults, are among the refugees returning home.
July 30, 2006: The first free elections since independence