“I was driven particularly because I thought the outcome might, in a small way, assist the peace process,” he told the Forward. “I really thought I was one person who could achieve an even-handed mission.”Goldstone is widely credited with having helped bring down the curtain on apartheid through a government-commissioned investigation he led that exposed the existence of covert state-sponsored terror units deployed by South Africa against its own black citizenry.
“He was brave. He could’ve been killed,” said Benjamin Pogrund, a former South African journalist and the founder of Yakar Center for Social Concern in Jerusalem.
Nelson Mandela, the country’s first post-apartheid president, later appointed Goldstone to the country’s highest court. More recently, Goldstone has served as the chief U.N. prosecutor of human rights and war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Goldstone is proud of his Jewish identity and links it firmly to his human rights concerns. A president emeritus of World ORT, an international Jewish vocational training organization that maintains some of its biggest projects in Israel, he also serves on the Hebrew University of Jersulem’s board of governors.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten