International politics and cooperation
Christa Meindersma talks about what is happening on the frontline of international politics and cooperation. And what it's like as a white woman to negotiate African borders and Timorese independence.
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Christa Meindersma set up schools for the Red Cross in Tibet, conducted peace negotiations in East Timor and West Africa as an advisor to Kofi Annan, and dealt with the situation in Darfur. Helping people in need, Christa has seen it all. She tells what is happening on the frontline of international politics and cooperation. And what it’s like as a white woman to negotiate African borders and Timorese independence. To be the top adviser to the UN in peacekeeping operations and to work with military personnel of all stripes. Do research in the jungle of Eastern Congo.
Until the end of 2005, Christa was senior political adviser to the United Nations and negotiator in peace talks. She worked closely with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the border negotiations between Nigeria and Cameroon. Back in the Netherlands, in 2006 she conducted negotiations for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with rebels from Darfur to bring peace and reconstruction in Darfur one step closer.
In addition to her career as a political adviser to the UN and as a negotiator in peace talks, she is involved in the human rights of a country that is less often on the international agenda: Tibet. In the late 1980s, Christa, a mountaineer drawn to the Himalayas, traveled overland to Tibet.
This journey, via Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India, turned out to be a political eye-opener and inspiration for her further unique international career.
In Tibet she volunteered to teach English to Tibetans and helped the Swiss Red Cross set up a medical training program for ‘barefoot doctors’. On December 10, 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, she was shot when Chinese special forces opened fire on spectators at a nonviolent demonstration. After treatment a week later at the military hospital in Hong Kong, then 26-year-old Christa flew to India to meet the Dalai Lama and address the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Her speech put Tibet back on the international agenda!
Christa recently wrote a book about it: De rode kogel – berichten uit bezet Tibet, which was published by Querido in 2023. In the Netherlands, Christa continued her international passion: In 2013 she rescued old manuscripts from Timbuktu (Mali) when she worked as director of the Prince Claus Fund. In addition, she supported organizations across Europe to address the refugee crisis in 2015/16 for Porticus, the philanthropy of the Brenninkmeijer family and was a regular commentary on foreign policy on TV and other media for The Hague Center for Strategic Studies. Christa is currently working on her second book on the forgotten conflict in Kosovo.
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