Episode 134: Tom Periello

credit: Jamelle Bouie

Tom Periello is President Obama's special envoy for the great Lakes Region of Africa. This includes the countries of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Now, this is usually the part of the intro in which I briefly tease my guests career. But in Tom's case he's had many different careers. He's served in the United States Congress for one term representing Virginia, he was a human rights lawyer for the war crimes tribunal for Sierra Leone and he was a co-founder of the global grassroots advocacy movement Avaaz among other things. And in this conversation Tom describes how and why he's alternated between pursing positive social change at home and abroad.

We kick off with a very topical conversation about the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And just to set the scene a bit: on December 19th, the second and constitutionally mandated final term of the president Joseph Kabila expired. He did not leave office. There have bee…