7th July, 2011
Revelation about the hotel housekeeper who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault suggest that she embellished claims of abuse to receive asylum, fudged her tax returns, had ties to people with criminal backgrounds, had unexplained deposits in her bank account and changed the account of the encounter she gave investigators. Yet those who would rush to judge her should consider the context.
Mr. Strauss-Kahnâ€
The same leaders whose theft and mismanagement have kept so many Guineans poor in the decades since independence from France, in 1958, have also been ferociously violent, massacring as many as 186 unarmed demonstrators calling for democratic reforms in 2007, and at least 157 demanding the same in 2009. After the latter massacre, members of the state security forces gang-raped dozens of women to punish them for protesting and to terrorize men and women into silence.
While the American government condemned the massacres, the bauxite kept shipping, supplying Americans with aluminum cookware and automobile parts. Thatâ€
People fleeing state-sponsored violence and extreme poverty will do anything to leave. I receive requests every few weeks to write expert-witness affidavits for West African asylum claimants. As a personal matter of conscience, I will not write in support of an applicant whose testimony I believe contains inconsistencies.
Yet asylum claimants are often asked to perform an impossible task. They must prove they have been subject to the most crushing forms of oppression and violence – for this, bodies bearing the scars of past torture are a boon – while demonstrating their potential to become hard-working and well-adjusted citizens.
This is where the lies and embellishments creep into some asylum seekersâ€
Just as Mr. Dialloâ€
Guinean press accounts, and recent conversations Iâ€
As the case against Mr. Strauss-Kahn seemingly disintegrates, he is enjoying a political renaissance at home, yet I keep asking myself: does a sexual encounter between a powerful and wealthy French politician and a West African hotel cleaning woman from a dollar-a-day background not in itself suggest a gross abuse of power?
Culled from The New York Times
•McGovern, an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale and the author of “Making War in Côte dâ€