Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land [Hardcover]

The vast majority of Hondurans would have never dared to set foot in Nueva Suyapa, a mountainside barrio that was under the thumb of a gang whose bravado and cruelty were the stuff of legend. But that is precisely where Kurt Ver Beek, an American sociologist, and Carlos Hern?ndez, a Honduran schoolteacher, chose to raise their families. Kurt and Carlos were best friends who had committed their lives to helping the poor, and when they accepted that nobody elsenot the police, not the prosecutors, not the NGOswas ever going to protect their neighbors from the incessant violence they suffered, they decided to take matters into their own hands. The reporting is really remarkable  it's detailed, it's in depth, it's cinematic....This book is a triumph. You should all get it. David Grann, #1 Fascinating. Halperin captures the other side of the immigrant crisis  a world that few outsiders see.... This is an unexpected thriller starring a mild-mannered Christian from the midwest who teaches study-abroad students and runs an NGO.... Halperin tells the story with an immersive narrative voice reminiscent of Tracy Kidder, allowing the reader to peer over the shoulder of people trying to fight the good fight in near-impossible conditions. Whats more, he pulls no punches in describing the compromises, ethical transgressions and shadow activity in which one must engage to make change in a basically lawless country. A compelling tale and the perfect doorway into the complex inner workings of the poorest country in Latin America, where people struggle for power and the rule of law is weak. Halperins reporting is prodigious; Nueva Suyapa and its residents appear on the books pages not as some faceless mass but mothers and fathers and sons and assassins and students and extortionists and sometimes several of those things all at the same time, always just trying to get by. In this gripping work of investigative journalism, Halperin examines the risks, sacrifices, and criticismlƒ!