The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

J U L Y - A UGU S T 2 0 0 8 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 65 A F S A N E W S A s a first-tour political officer at Embassy Dhaka, Luke Zahner exhibited exemplary courage and integrity while reporting on human rights issues and setbacks for democ- racy in Bangladesh. Working within the system under extremely difficult conditions, Zahner conducted research and gathered first-hand information documenting serious human rights abus- es by the military-backed Bangladeshi government. For his courageous efforts to provide Washington with an accurate account of the undemocratic activities within the country, Zahner was selected to receive the W. Averell Harriman Award. Zahner arrived in Bangladesh in the spring of 2006, during the run-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for early 2007. As a result of the failure of the two main political parties to cooperate, the pre-election period turned violent. In January 2007, a state of emergency was declared and the military supported the appointment of a new caretaker government, ostensibly to level the playing field and prepare for elections by the end of 2008. The state of emergency suspended many fundamental civil rights, and what followed was a spike in the number of human rights violations, particular- ly deaths and torture in custody over the course of 2007. Zahner was involved in investigating many of those cases. He undertook painstaking research, gathered first-hand infor- mation, established contact with democracy and human rights activists, and pressed government interlocutors. He courageous- ly challenged conventional wisdom and defended his findings to post management. He persisted in convincing his superiors of the necessity and importance of reporting these abuses, and of supporting those defenders of democracy and human rights whose accusations were often questioned by the government authorities. The nomination also recognized Zahner’s work on the annu- al human rights report, noting that he knew how and when to judiciously challenge efforts to dilute the report. He successfully brokered compromise language betweenWashington and the mission that upheld the report’s high standards for credibility and worked hard to resolve differences of interpretation betweenWashington and the embassy. Luke Zahner is from Rockville, Conn. He was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Bonn, Germany, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Before joining the Service, he worked for six years (1996-2002) in the Balkans for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, includ- ing service as an elections and political advis- er, as well as OSCE spokesman in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was a USAID public affairs officer from 2002 to 2004 and a USAID democracy and governance advisor covering Iraq (2004-2005). He did a TDY to Iraq in 2004, where he helped with preparations for the first elections there, in January 2005. Zahner joined the State Department Foreign Service in 2005, and will head this summer to a consular tour in Jerusalem. W. Averell Harriman Award FOR AN ENTRY-LEVEL FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER Luke V. Zahner 2008 AFSA CONSTRUCTIVE DISSENT AWARD WINNERS Touring a dilapitated shelter in a Burmese Roingya refugee camp outside of Cox’s Bazaar, March 2008. From left: Zahner, Political Assistant Ali Sarker and Ambassador Patricia A. Butenis looking out on the Ganges River at the Bangladesh-India border in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, April 2007. Left to right: Zahner, Amb. Butenis and Father Eugene Homrich at the Catholic mission in Pirgachha, Bangladesh, in April 2007, hearing from a parish priest about the torture and killing of a local indige- nous activist by Bangladesh soldiers a month earlier.