Word: karefa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Sergio Bitar, a native of Chile, is now a fellow at Harvard's Institute for International Development. John Karefa-Smart left Sierra Leone to become a lecturer at the Harvard Medical School. Pavel Litvmov has been polishing his English at Manhattanville College in Purchase. N.Y., so he can resume the study of physics that he had to abandon in the Soviet Union. These men have one trait in common--all were political prisoners in their native countries, and all were aided by an organization known as Amnesty International...
...John Karefa-Smart, who turns 60 this year, now teaches preventive medicine at the Medical School. A former foreign minister of Sierra Leone, he was imprisoned in that country during the fall and winter of 1970. The government of Sierra Leone claimed at the time that a state of emergency warranted Karefa-Smart's imprisonment, but he was in tact detained for political reasons. Echoing Bitar and Litvinov, he cites Amnesty's apolitical nature as one of the keys to its success. "Amnesty is definitely helping the many political prisoners who are still in Sierra Leone," he says...
...some of those cases that come to its attention, due to sheer volume. "We're successful with those cases we take, but we can't take everybody," she explains. And when a prisoner is freed, it is often impossible to attribute his release directly to Amnesty Litvinov, Bitar, and Karefa-Smart all mention that a combination of forces brought about their liberation, but Amnesty can serve as an effective channel for these forces...
...high Sierra for Karefa-Smart...
...Karefa-Smart continues to look toward his homeland, writing to friends there, sure that he must return, determined that he will. But he says he is afraid that should he return people might say, "Ah, Karefa-Smart is back. Perhaps better days are at hand." And the political turmoil will begin again...