Students Chat with Justice Goldstone

Visit of Richard Goldstone : Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Students from Thurgood Marshall High in SF chat with Justice Richard Goldstone

On April 14, 1997, students from San Francisco's Thurgood Marshall Academic High School met for an internet chat with Richard J. Goldstone, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. This chat session is part of a series of internet exchanges between high school students and distinguished visitors to the Berkeley campus. Harry Kreisler, Executive Director of the Institute of International Studies, and S. Beth Atkin, Visiting Fellow at the Institute, developed the online curriculum used by the students to prepare for the chat session. Thurgood Marshall students worked with Kreisler during the spring semester under the supervision of their teacher Ellen Reller. See also the students' response to the Goldstone internet chat.

Harry Kreisler and Justice Goldstone at the computer Harry Kreisler: Hi everyone. Are you all there? I am pleased to introduce you to Justice Goldstone.

LaToyia: How are you doing this afternoon sir?

Carlissa: Hi, my name is Carlissa. How is your day going?

Goldstone: It is going very well, with a lot of interest in the work I have been doing in South Africa and for the War Crimes Tribunal.

Carlissa: How is the work you are doing? Is the work hard or is it somewhat easy because you have been doing it for a while?

class at computers

Goldstone: I am now working back in South Africa and there the work is very fulfilling and going well. It is exciting to be a member of the first ever Constitutional Court in our country. I am able to help lay the foundation for a human rights culture and respect for all our people.

Carlissa: How did you get in the work that you are doing now?

Goldstone: I got into it by being a practicing lawyer in Johannesburg and ended up at the age of forty as a judge. That appointment led to my getting involved in human rights issues during the apartheid system and investigating human rights abuses before and after the release of President Mandela. The main investigation into violence received international attention and that led to my appointment as chief prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia tribunal. On the Africa side, my appointment to the Constitutional Court was made by the new government of President Mandela.

LaToyia LaToyia: Do you enjoy the kind of work you do in Bosnia?

Goldstone: It is not the sort of work one enjoys, but I believe deeply that it needs to be done and that brings a sense of satisfaction to the work.

Carlissa: I think that the work you are doing is very great.

Goldstone: Well Carlissa, there are many aspects of the work, and maybe you should choose a career path that will enable you to also do this sort of work.

LaToyia: I plan on becoming an lawyer for the rights of youth or to do work like you abroad.

Goldstone: Very good, LaToyia. We need people like you. In particular there is a shortage of women doing this work which is a pity because there are so many women who are victims in these situations.

Gregory Gregory: Who or what was most important in causing you to become involved in the work of being a justice?

Goldstone: Gregory, many things influenced me -- family, particularly a grandfather; and most successful lawyers in many countries regard becoming a justice as the best outcome to a career.

Gregory: What did they do to influence you?

Goldstone: They thought I had the ability to succeed in the law. They encouraged me to read books about lawyers and do the subjects in school that would be useful to me later as a lawyer. And importantly, my parents made financial sacrifices to enable me to spend six years at the university to qualify.

Ed: Why would you risk your life to help people you don't know? If you had a second chance, how would you confront apartheid?

Goldstone: Hello Ed. I don't believe I risked my life. I certainly received death threats, but anybody in a prominent position in public life today is subject to that sort of thing. I don't know of anything to be done to confront apartheid that was not done. It took too many years of national and international anti-apartheid activism to bring down apartheid. It only ended when a sufficient number of white people realized that it was in their own interest to put a stop to it.

Thomas: What type of reactions did you give to your death threats, and why did you get them in the first place?

Goldstone: Well, the only action is to ignore them, although from time to time governments responsible for my welfare provided me with body guards. I got their death threats because some people did not like the results of the work I was doing and in particular identifying those responsible for human rights abuses.

Next page: War Crimes