What does it mean to be a witness?
目击者意味着什么？
Why is it important to bear witness to people's suffering, especially when those people are isolated from us?
为什么作为目击者，去见证人们的苦难很重要，尤其当这些人孤立无援之际？
And what happens when we turn away?
如果我们坐视不理，又会发生什么？
Three years ago, I traveled to the Central African Republic to report on its ongoing war.
三年前，我来到中非共和国，去报道那场还在持续的战争。
I'd heard warnings of massacres in the country's jungles and deserts,
我已经听说了发生在这个国家丛林和沙漠里的大屠杀，
but no one could locate these massacres or tell me who was killed, or when.
但没人能说出具体位置或告诉我谁在何时被屠杀了。
I drove into this war with little information.
我带着极少的信息深入了这场战争。
I witnessed scenes that were tragic and unreal,
我目睹了悲剧和难以令人置信的场景，
and only at the end did I realize that I had witnessed the slow preparation of ethnic cleansing.
直至最后我才发现我所见证的是一场种族清洗的缓慢前奏。
The Central African Republic is a country of about five million people the size of Texas in the center of Africa.
中非共和国有着500万人口，面积相当于得克萨斯州，位于非洲中部。
The country has known chronic violence since French colonial rule ended in 1960.
这个国家自1960年法国殖民结束后就以漫长暴力著称。
The war I reported on was between the minority Muslim government, called the Seleka,
我所报道的这场战争是少数人的穆斯林政府，他们被称为塞雷卡，
and citizen militias, mostly Christian, called the anti-balaka.
与民兵组织--其中大多数是基督教徒、被称为反巴拉卡武装之间的战争。
The first sign of the impending cleansing was the breakdown of trust within communities.
大清洗即将发生的第一征兆是社群间信任的崩塌。
Three days after I arrived in the country, I watched the small city of Gaga be abandoned.
我到这个国家第三天，眼看着一个叫加加的小城被废弃。
A battle was about to break out.
战争一触即发。
And to save themselves, many people were working as government spies, identifying friends and neighbors to be killed.
而为了自救，很多人当起了政府间谍，揭发着朋友和邻居，以致他们被杀害。
Cities and towns, any place with humans, had become unsafe.
城市和小镇，但凡有人的地方，就有危险。
So people moved to the jungle. I felt strangely isolated as pigs and livestock moved into the empty homes.
所以人们躲到丛林里。我感到一种怪异的孤立，就像猪和牲畜移到了空荡的居所。
In a war zone, you know that you are near the killing when people have left.
在战区，当人们都逃离时，就离杀戮不远了。
The war moved across the jungle and reached Gaga, and I was surrounded by the thunder of bombs.
战火从丛林蔓延至加加，我被炸弹的巨响包围着。
Government forces drove into the jungle to attack a town sheltering a militia.
政府武装力量直驱丛林，袭击民兵驻扎的小镇。
I rode on motorcycle for hours, crossing jungle streams and tall elephant grass,
我骑了几个小时的摩托车，穿过丛林和高高的象草，
but I only got to the town after the government had burned it and its people were gone.
但当我到达小镇时，政府已将其摧毁，镇里空无一人。
To see if I could speak to someone, I shouted out that I was a friend, that I would not hurt them.
我试着看能否找到人了解情况，高声呼喊“我是你们的朋友，我不会伤害你们”。
A woman in a red shirt ran out of the forest.
一位红衫女子从丛林中跑出。

Others cautiously emerged from the trees and asked, "Est-ce les gens savent?" "Do people know?"
其他人从树后好奇地现身，她问道：“Est-ce les gens savent？”“有人知道吗？”
The question surprised me. Their children were hungry and sick, but they didn't ask for food or medicine.
这个发问令我震惊。他们的孩子伤病缠身、饥肠辘辘，但他们并没有索要食物或药品。
They asked me, "Do people know what is happening to us?"
他们问我，“有人知道发生在我们身上的事吗？”
I felt helpless as I wrote down their question.
我写下这个问题时，感到非常无助。
And I became determined that this moment in their lives should not be forgotten.
这一刻我决定，他们的这一刻不该被忘记。
In bearing witness to their crisis, I felt a small communion with these people.
我见证着他们的遭遇，与这些人产生了小小的共情。
From far away, this war had felt like a footnote in world news.
站在远方看，这场战争对世界新闻无足轻重。
As a witness, the war felt like history unfolding.
但作为见证者，这场战争就像历史的展现。
The government denied that it was committing any violence,
政府否认这些暴行，但我在小镇里穿梭时，
but I continually drove through towns where people described government massacres from a day or a week before.
人们控诉着就在一天或一周前政府进行的这场屠杀。
I felt overwhelmed and tried to calm myself.
我几乎喘不过气，努力冷静下来。
As I reported on these massacres, I bought and ate little sweets, seeking the familiar comfort of their taste.
当我报道这些屠杀时，我买来并吃着小糖果，以寻求糖果熟悉味道带来的慰藉。
Central Africans ate these sweets to ease their hunger, leaving a trail of thousands of plastic wrappers as they fled.
中非人们吃着糖果，用来缓解饥饿，留下逃亡路上的一路塑料包装。
On the few radio stations still operating in the country, I mostly heard pop music.
在这个国家仅存的几个广播电台里，我听到最多的内容是流行歌曲。
As the war mounted, we received less information about the massacres.
当战火更为喧嚣时，能从广播收到的有关屠杀的信息更少了。
It became easier to feel a sense of normalcy. I witnessed the effect of this missing information.
觉得一切正常就更容易了。我见证了这种信息缺失带来的影响。
Two weeks later, I slowly and anxiously drove into an isolated militia headquarters, a town called PK100.
两周后，我缓慢且不安地驱车前往一个隔离的民兵总部，一个位于名为PK100的小镇。
Here, Christian fighters told me that all Muslims were foreigners, evil and allied with the government.
这里，基督教战士告诉我，所有穆斯林都是外来人，他们邪恶并与政府勾结。
They likened Muslims to animals.
他们将穆斯林看作牲畜。
Without neutral observers or media to counter this absurd narrative, it became the single narrative in these camps.
由于缺乏中立的观察者和媒体去反驳这个荒谬的看法，这个看法成了这些营地中唯一的声音。
The militias began to hunt down Muslims, and emptied the capital, Bangui, of nearly 140,000 Muslims in just a few months.
民兵开始追捕并猎杀穆斯林，并清扫首都班基将近14万名穆斯林，就在仅仅几个月的时间里。
Most of the killing and fleeing of Muslims went unrecorded by witnesses.
被屠杀和逃亡的穆斯林无法记数。
I'm telling you about my reporting in the Central African Republic, but I still ask myself why I went there.
我现在向你们作着我在中非共和国的报道，今天我仍然在问自己，我为什么去那里。
Why put myself at risk?
为什么要置于危险中？
I do this work because I feel that ignored people in all our communities tell us something important about who we are.
我之所以这样做是因为我觉得，社群中被我们忽略的人，告诉了我们是谁的重要信息。
When information is missing, people have the power to manipulate reality.
当缺少信息，人们就有能力篡改事实。
Without witnesses, we would believe that those thousands of massacred people are still alive,
缺乏目击者，我们就会相信这数以万计的被屠杀者仍然活着，
that those hundreds of burned homes are still standing.
数百个被毁的家园仍然存在。
A war zone can pass for a mostly peaceful place when no one is watching.
没有目击者，一个战区会被视为和平之地，不被察觉。
And a witness can become precious, and their gaze most necessary, when violence passes silently, unseen and unheard. Thank you.
目击者是宝贵的，他们的注视是必需的，尤其当暴力无声无息、无人见证之时。谢谢。