Kathi Lynn Austin

Kathi Lynn Austin is an expert on arms trafficking, peace and security, and human rights. For nearly 20 years, Ms. Austin has carried out original, precedent-setting and in-depth field investigations into the illegal trade in weapons, illicit trafficking operations, illegal resource exploitation, transnational crime and terrorism.[1] She has documented conflicts spanning Africa, Latin America, East and Central Europe, and South Asia.[1]

She is founder and Executive Director of the Conflict Awareness Project, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to investigating, documenting and bringing to justice major arms traffickers, war profiteering networks, and transnational criminal organizations that fuel war and conflict around the world.[2] In 2011, she was named "Arms Control Person of the Year" by the Arms Control Association.

In 2014, Random House will release Austin’s dramatic investigative field memoir, THE UNOFFICIAL SPY, about her professional pursuit to bring arms traffickers and other war criminals to justice.[1]

Austin has served in official capacity as a member of the United Nations Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Liberia as well as Chief of the Joint Mission Analysis Centre for the United Nations Peacekeeping Missions in Timor-Leste and Burundi.[1]

In 1997, Austin directed Forsaken Cries: The Story of Rwanda for Amnesty International. The short documentary film examined the Rwandan Genocide.[3] On November 13, 2000, Austin spoke to the National Press Club about Kenya's illegal arms trade and militias citing evidence she gathered during a three-month investigation.[4] On 21 April 2004, she was appointed by Kofi Annan to a four-member panel charged with monitoring the Democratic Republic of Congo's compliance with Security Council Resolution 1533 (2004), passed on 12 March 2004.[5][6]

Austin is a visiting scholar at the Center for Human Rights at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former director of the "Arms & Conflict Program" of the Fund for Peace. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[3]

"Kathi Austin, a UN arms-trafficking expert… has spent much of the past decade tracking illegal weapons smugglers operating in the DRC and other conflict zones across Africa. Partly as a result of her dogged efforts, the alleged leader of one of the world's largest trafficking networks, Viktor Bout, was recently arrested on terrorism charges in Thailand." - excerpt from New York Times op-ed, "The Real UN: More Than Just Talk" by Ban Ki Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Film

Angelina Jolie will star as Austin in a forthcoming Paramount Pictures movie.[7] Her character's antagonist will be based on arms dealer Victor Bout.[8]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Hunting Lord of War" San Francisco Bay Guardian, 2008
  2. ↑ Conflict Awareness Project website, cites title and organization mission
  3. 1 2 Ms. Kathi L. Austin
  4. ↑ The Fund for Peace - FfP Calls on UNHCR to End Killings and Arms Availability in Kenya
  5. ↑ Expert panel named to monitor UN arms embargo in eastern DR of Congo
  6. ↑ Ods Home Page
  7. ↑ Jolie plays spy game for Paramount - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety
  8. ↑ Angelina Jolie tapped for spy thriller | Angelina Jolie | Movie News | News + Notes | Entertainment Weekly
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