13 Sept 13 – Aegis Special Representative Mukesh Kapila, who as UN Sudan chief blew the whistle on the Darfur crisis in 2004, will on Monday 16 September give a public lecture at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, before arriving at the Nairobi Storymoja Book Festival on 20 September. It will be the sixth African city he has visited in three weeks, following talks, lectures and special events this month in Lusaka, Zambia, and in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa.
Kapila’s Kampala lecture, ‘Against a tide of evil: why genocides happen and what we can learn from the past to prevent atrocities in the future’, reflects the theme of this speaking tour, which started in Lusaka on 2 September with a public discussion between Kapila and Elias Chipimo Jr, a Zambian lawyer and human rights activist turned politician. It clearly had a significant impact on the audience. Writer Katarina Zeravica was among those attending on the 2nd. “Thank you for a profound evening of insight and sharing,” she wrote on Twitter. “Lives have been changed.” Winnie-fredah Atieno Kabwe, Miss Tourism Zambia, also commented: “It was such an honour meeting you and learning. As humanitarians we have a huge responsibility ahead of us.”
Following a public seminar at the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria on 4 September, Mukesh Kapila met the next day with South Africa’s Foreign Ministry. “I appreciated good discussions with the Foreign Ministry on the long and difficult road to a just peace in Sudan,” he said afterwards. “No giving up!”
After an evening talk in Johannesburg hosted by CIVICUS on 5 September, Kapila attended the launch of the Open Book Festival in Cape Town on 6 September. There he shared a panel on the 7th with Gillian Slovo, Will Storr and Layla Al-Zubaidi to discuss media representation on conflict zones. The South African leg of his speaking tour concluded on 8 September with an interview at the Festival (pictured) by lawyer and writer Andrew Brown, asking Kapila about the background to his recently published memoir – ‘Against a tide of evil’ – which tells the inside story of the Darfur crisis and Kapila’s attempts to secure diplomatic action before blowing the whistle.
Among other media engagements in Zambia and South Africa, Kapila was interviewed for Johanneburg’s Radio 702 and Cape Town’s 567 Cape Talk. You can catch that interview online by clicking here.
After Kampala, Kapila’s Nairobi commitments will include an interview at the Storymoja Amphitheatre on the 20th geared towards teens, entitled “Careerpedia – Human Rights”. He will conclude the tour by delivering the Wangari Maathai Memorial Lecture at the National Museum of Kenya on 21 September.
For more information about Kapila’s forthcoming public engagements, see http://splashurl.com/nw4pveb
Mukesh Kapila’s memoir ‘Against A Tide of Evil’ is available from all good bookshops, but 50% of every copy sold through the Aegis Trust goes to genocide prevention.
