World Traveler Leaves Heart in Crystal Lake
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Northern Now, Northern Illinois University Magazine, Spring 2006 (PDF, 4.6mb) - See page 15/16 |
This article is reprinted with permission from the Northwest Herald and is authored by Kevin P. Craver.
From helping Third World refugees to helping transition the fall of the Iron Curtain into lasting democracy, Karen Hilliard of Crystal Lake does not get home much.
But she still calls the area home, despite a globetrotting career as a foreign service officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Despite two decades aiding democracy and living standards all over the world, Hilliard considers her work in Ukraine, where voters last year took to the streets in peaceful revolution against a rigged election, a crowning moment.
"In my 20-year career, it was one of those high points for me, to see one of those programs I worked on directly lead to the liberation of a country," she said from Kiev, the nation's capitol. "If I retire tomorrow, I'll feel that my career has been worthwhile."
Hilliard has spent two years as the regional deputy director for the agency's mission in Ukraine, Belaurs and Moldova, which gained their independence with the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The U.S. government allocated $18.3 million to help Ukraine develop a legal election framework, aid democracy-minded social groups, and marshal 1,000 international election observers.
Those observers reported widespread fraud in the Nov. 21, 2004, presidential run-off election that gave the presidency to Viktor Yanukovych, who favored closer ties with Russia rather than the West. Supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, a reform-minded pro-Western candidate, took to the streets in what now is called the "Orange Revolution," after the color adopted by Yushchenko's campaign.
Although Hilliard was disappointed with the fraud, her agency forbids interference in such affairs. But the Ukrainian people, who had spent much of the past century suffering from foreign occupation and corrupt government, interfered for her. Half a million people descended on Independence Square in Kiev, and kept a permanent presence until the Ukrainian Supreme Court nullified the results and called for a second run-off Dec. 26. Yushchenko handily won and was inaugurated Jan. 23.
"It was very energetic for all of us who had labored so hard to ensure a free and fair election," Hilliard said. "It was one of those situations where you could lead the horse to water, but you couldn't make him drink. The Ukrainian people stepped up to the plate."
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| Karen Hilliard |
Hilliard's career has taken her from dropping rations out of helicopters to hurricane victims in Nicaragua, to floating supplies down the Amazon to health workers in Ecuador, and to Haiti when U.S. troops withdrew in 1999 and the nation began descending into chaos. Her family - sons Clark, 14, Nathan, 12, and daughter Mathilda, 9 - accompany her on her assignments. She adopted Mathilda in Nicaragua. Hilliard's career also has taken her to Egypt, Oman and Malawi.
"USAID, as opposed to the State Department, [doesn't] have missions in Paris and London," she said. "Many of the places we go, if not overtly dangerous, can turn that way quite suddenly. In many of these places, the infrastructure is so poor that the government has no way to control the situation."
But the U.S. government watches over aid workers and their families, she said. That is a relief to her parents, Ervin and Winifred Ruffing, who have lived in Crystal Lake for 31 years while their daughter has traveled to places where she is needed.
"The fact of the matter is after so many years you become accustomed to it, and you realize that's what she does for a living, so you have to assume everything is going to be all right," Winifred Ruffing said.
Hilliard's children take globetrotting in stride, for it gets difficult as they get older and leave behind more friends, she said. But of all the places they have visited, their favorite destination spot is in McHenry County.
"Every time I ask my kids where I want to go on vacation, the answer is, 'I want to go to Crystal Lake to see grandma and grandpa.' What about Spain, what about Rome? 'Nope, Crystal Lake,'" Hilliard said with a laugh.
WHAT IS USAID?
President Kennedy officially signed the law creating the U.S. Agency for International Development to promote democracy and free-market economies, and raising living standards in developing countries
Although chartered in 1961, the agency traces its lineage back to the Marshall Plan, created to help rebuild Europe after World War II. While independent, it receives foreign policy guidance from the U.S. State Department.
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