I'd hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain

[the_fonz_]

Fuck.... hate LJ even more then I used to. I just wrote up a huge rant about Central African politics in general, Rwanda specifically, and how useless the 'never again' policy is turning out to be. Worked for almost two hours on it, and one mis-click, and poof its all gone. This is going to be an abbreviated, althought not by much, post. First off

Comments

[neonkiss]

I will buy you McDonalds cookies and you will like them.

[mortonofski]

One or two random points here...

Yeah, I do recall Rwanda threatening to invade the Congo; I didn't really read up on it, though.

Re: the characterization of Dallaire and the UN's role: Apparently the same producer or screenwriter or some form of crew is also behind the documentary for Shake Hands with the Devil - they explicitly mentioned in the Globe that this was the story of the hotelier (sp?), not Dallaire, so they completely glossed over his character and just made Nolte a generic Canadian colonel/straw man. I can't say that I've seen Hotel Rwanda, but I agree that from the looks of your post and the Globe article, they've taken more than a few liberties with the script (i.e. in terms of the role of Egypt [and Boutros-Ghali's personal role], and especially in terms of the UN's role [the bureaucracy, the fact that Rwanda held the presidency of the UNSC at the time of the genocide, the fact that the SRSG, Booh-Booh, was completely ineffective and that Dallaire seemed to imply that if they'd had the second SRSG, Shaharyar Khan

Sometimes in April

[the_fonz_]

I havent heard much about Shake Hands With the Devil, but theres a made for TV movie coming out in March 19th.... just need to find a friend with HBO. Its called Sometimes in April and it sounds good (see link):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4202751.stm

I think I'm going to re-read Dallaire's book if no one is going to borrow it. At least the movie has got me interested in this again.

Fonz

[molto_vivace]

Hate Livejournal?

Shame on YOU for mis-clicking.

[the_fonz_]

What can you expect when you're running on 4 hours sleep and its 3am the next day. I should really learn to write this up as documents first and then transfer them.

Fonz

[pogos]

dallaire's comments are pretty rough for him. hard to say how i feel about this. its good to get information out, on rwanda and africa, but i'd say a fairly high percentage of information about something like this should be accurate. artistic licence should be pretty limited. i dunno. i'll probably be seeing it pretty soon.

do they talk at all about the belgians?

[the_fonz_]

I agree with you, which is why I wrote the post.

As to the Belgians, they do talk about them.. but not nearly enough for my liking. They talk about how the Belgians divided the country in Hutu and Tutsi's, and then they are mentioned when 10 of Dallaires soldiers are killled and the Belgians pull all their men out, and they talk about them briefly when the French/Belgians come in to rescue the foreign nationals. They dont really mention that they were subverting Dallaire, of the machinations in the UN.... or talk much about them in a historical perspective, aside from the racial divisions that is.

I think I will be far more satisfied after watching Shaking Hands With the Devil... but then again you never know.

Fonz

[pogos]

pff. damn artists.
;)

heavy hearted.

[burningisadora]

Just saw the film. It was so beautifully done in some scenes and then there were the others (ie: nick nolte at the bar with his 'niggers' comment) that leave you wondering whether or not anyone was paying any attention to dialogue. I also bought Shake Hands with the Devil because I have no patience to organize to get yours, and the library copies are out. I'm going to go see the film Shake Hands with the Devil in the next couple weeks. I can't say that my heart is looking forward to it, but my brain and other wiser parts of me are hoping for inspiration. I don't really know what else to say...