Remembering Bob Ledogar by Rita Reichenberg

Dear colleagues,

Robert Ledogar who recently passed away was my supervisor, teacher and mentor back in the 80' in Guatemala. I have written a short piece on how I remember Robert - and shared it with his niece Nancy.
If you would seem appropriate to publish it in our newsletter, please go ahead.

With best regards. Dita Reichenberg

..........

I met Robert Ledogar in the mid 1980s in Guatemala. It was soon after a fragile peace agreement was signed following thirty years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced another two million, the majority of whom were indigenous peoples.

UNICEF in Guatemala had received a considerable amount of funding to address the multiple difficulties of displaced populations. Bob, who was Deputy Representative for Central America, was acutely aware of challenges that UNICEF would face in delivering any meaningful support to dispersed and traumatized populations.

I was invited to Guatemala, to make a presentation about the project I was coordinating: psychosocial support to children traumatized by the 1985 earthquake in Mexico. After my presentation, Bob expressed doubts about the relevance of the Mexico initiative to the very different situation in Guatemala. He was clearly not impressed and shared his concerns very gently, but firmly.

Intrigued by Bob's questioning, I reached out to the Guatemala refugee community once I returned to Mexico. Over a period of months, I learned from them about the genocide of indigenous people and grasped the historic magnitude and tragedy of their oppression. It became clear why Bob was so hesitant about the approach we had adopted in Mexico.

To my surprise, I was invited back to Guatemala to carry out an assessment of displacement in rural and urban areas. This time, Bob, although still reluctant, took me under his wing. He carefully selected books from his private library for me to read, knowing that the academic and mainstream literature would not fully reveal the historic discrimination and exclusion, the inequities, violation of human rights and abhorrent poverty of indigenous peoples.

For a whole week, we met for hours every day to discuss the situation and the possibilities for visiting villages in zones still not recovered from the civil war, and often dangerous. He provided me with introductions to his network of key informants: university professors, indigenous leaders of small NGOs, and priests and nuns working in remote parishes of the Guatemala Highlands.

While giving me a crash course on Guatemala and slowly building trust, Bob faced an almost insurmountable dilemma regarding my travel to the Highlands. The government had imposed travel restrictions on the entire international community. Beyond a 30-kilometer perimeter around the capital, travel was possible only with a military escort. Such official travel arrangements would obviously have defeated the purpose of carrying out a participatory assessment.

Bob made an extremely bold decision. He sent me on a semi-private, almost "undercover", two-week journey to Highland areas hundreds of miles away. He prepared a detailed list of things for my backpack: a sleeping bag, first aid kit, walking shoes, warm clothes, head scarf and, importantly, a false ID. He drew a map and wrote brief notes in the margins about people who would help me along the way.

We agreed on the extra-official approach. For official purposes, I was an assistant to Marcos, the director of a small NGO, who would be driving our jeep. On the morning of my departure, Bob was visibly nervous, still weighing his decision. Knowing that we would not be able to have any contact during the trip, he hugged me and said: "For two weeks, I will be praying for you to come back safely."

Upon our return, Bob invited us to his house for dinner. Marcos and I reported on villages that no longer existed because of the military's "scorched earth campaign"... on many community leaders who had been executed... displaced people who took refuge in communities of different Mayan ethnic groups... on lack of drinking water, malnourished children, on the heroic efforts of traditional midwives and the extraordinary techniques used to cultivate corn and other crops in the jungle.

I also reported how his prayers had shielded me at numerous military checkpoints where my false identity could have been discovered. Bob invited me to stay for a week in his house while writing my report. He wanted to prevent the information from getting in the hands of several staff members who were in tight with the military.

The findings of the assessment clearly revealed the priorities for action, many of which would involve human rights organizations and criminal courts. Bob suggested that I separate the report's testimonies' section from the part focusing on basic needs.

That done, the big question remained: how to deliver the support. While I proceeded with the second phase of the assessment – displaced people in the urban slum areas – Bob was strategizing on UNICEF's approach with his boss, Agop Kayayan, the Regional Representative for Central America.

Agop and Bob were the most unusual combination of professionals. One was a flamboyant and bold negotiator who could make pacts with even the toughest adversaries to ensure the delivery of basic services for impoverished children, while the other was deeply thoughtful, cautious, aware of complexities and risks involved in bringing support to the most vulnerable in a highly polarized environment.

For Agop, for example, the Ministry of Health was the preferred partner, but Bob cautioned about its discriminatory, often directly harmful treatment, of indigenous people. To prevent a hasty decision, Bob suggested waiting for the assessment results from the urban areas.

Finding out in which of the hundreds of slums the internally displaced really lived was itself a daunting task. In fear of persecution, they had exchanged their traditional wear for local clothing in order to blend in with other dispossessed people. Again, it was Bob who introduced me to a couple of indigenous staff working for a small NGO. Together, we walked the muddy slums and met some extraordinary people from the Highlands who were silently organizing mutual support groups in the slums.

The assessments, carried out with local activists, especially groups of women, revealed that the top priority was gaining access to safe drinking water. For people squatting on land occupied without legal titles, with no infrastructure, in handmade shacks, the purchase of water was their biggest expenditure. The legalization of land ownership was a precondition to drill even one community water well.

So Bob and Agop again put their heads together and masterminded a two-pronged partnership with the National Water Authority, not the health ministry. For the Highland villages, UNICEF would support the drilling of water wells and tagged on the training of health promoters and community organizers; in the slums, UNICEF would finance the building of temporary water tanks while researching underground water sources and training health and community workers.

My three months of consultancy were coming to an end. At the farewell dinner in his house, Bob said: "I guess you are now ready to apply for a proper position here. I would gladly welcome you back, so that you could carry out the project."

A couple of months later, I moved to Guatemala. During the following very rewarding three years, Bob continued to guide me, with his insistence on participatory methodologies, measurements and indicators, but above all, his passion for social justice. In the Highlands, the Integrated Rural Development project eventually reached more than hundred villages and the Urban Basic Services covered five biggest slums with about 70.000 people.

Through Bob, I met the outstanding indigenous leader Rigoberta Menchu, who later received the Nobel Peace prize, as well as Frank La Rue, who was exiled in Mexico and later served as UN Special Rapporteur for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of expression. When I met Frank in Mexico, I was surprised when he thanked me for the testimonies I had gathered in the Highlands of his native country, which he found useful for his work. How did he know about the testimonies I had helped gather?

When I asked Bob why he never told me he had shared the sensitive testimonies, he smiled and said: "You did the lion's share of compiling them and it was my duty not to further burden you with putting them to good use."

Farewell my dear friend, my teacher, my mentor! You have done so much good in your life!