“A small and challenging post in Africa please”
“Chargé departed on leave this morning. I have assumed charge. P.S.: burning barricades across the airport road and demonstrations throughout the day. Help!” And so it all began, six weeks into Kinshasa…. Fortunately rain stopped play — as it often did —…
Great Lakes’ Mission
In the fall of 1996, a humanitarian crisis loomed in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. Fighting in eastern Zaire between rebel troops led by Laurent Kabila and troops of the government of Zaire drove refugees, mostly Hutus from Rwanda, from…
“Being There” on the Banks of the Neva
In search of fertile ground for research on diplomatic mini-missions? Look back five years to the former Soviet Union. Following the creation of fifteen newly independent states, there was a proliferation of one-person foreign offices. Diplomats hung their signs and raised their…
The Ambassadorial Automobile
I suppose I have been an unrepentant “car buff” for just about as long as I can remember and John Hadwen’s article on The Head of Mission’s Most Valued Friend immediately prompted some treasured memories, not of Ambassadorial drivers, but rather of…
On Leaving the Foreign Service
Editor’s Note: With the permission of Elizabeth Gammell, bout reproduces below her letter dated November 27, 1997 addressed to Sylvia Cesaratto, Assignment Officer; Commercial Trade/Policy Personnel Division (SPF) DFAIT.
Letter from the Monkey House
If you read September 11’s Ottawa
Editor’s Notebook // Carnet du rédacteur
This edition of bout, the last of volume 14, brings to a conclusion one of our focuses this year: Canada’s Year of Asia-Pacific. Indeed, the APEC summit has just been held in Vancouver, amidst protesters and virtual panic about the continuing problems…
