Flight 3407's Other Loss -

Much has been written about Beverly Eckert, the 9-11 widow who died in this week's crash of Continental Flight 3407 in Buffalo. In newspapers and television broadcasts throughout the world, stories about the crash singled out Eckert among the 50 fatalities Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell ordered flags in the state to be flown at half-staff in Eckert's honor. President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Joe Lieberman and Rep. Carolyn Maloney were among those who issued condolence statements that honored her activism in lobbying Congress to improve national security and approve the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission.
What Eckert did was commendable. A grieving widow, she found a way to channel personal grief into positive action, yielding legislative results that benefited the public as whole.
But the media and politicians seemed to have forgotten the noble service of
another passenger on that ill-fated flight, Allison Des Forages. Des Forages, a native of Schenectady, N.Y., and a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, was a hero in every sense of the word. According to her obit in The Washington Post, she was a scholar who had warned her country about the threat of massacre in Rwanda, long before blood was spilled. She had lobbied Congress, and the Clinton White House, trying to avert a disaster, unsuccessfully asking the Administration to block Rwandan radio station signals because the broadcasts were inciting Hutus to kill Tutsi.
After the Rwanda genocide, Des Forages was its witness and chronicler, writing its history in the book, "Leave None to Tell The Story." She testified before international tribunals judging those who led or assisted in the genocide.
Des Forages gave voice to the voiceless, and then made sure that their murders were remembered. She was not translating private grief into a public cause. And because her story did not lend itself to human interest coverage and concerned millions of people living in a country Americans do not know or much care about, even in death, she has largely been ignored.
Will no flags fly at half-staff for Dr. Des Forages?