I’ve finally gotten around to watching the movie “Hotel Rwanda” from 2004. I’ve read countless of documents about this tragedy, as well as having watched documentaries; and now I’ve seen this movie. It’s a sickening thought that we were out partying, at home sleeping, or at work thinking about our “hardship at the office” while this was going on in Rwanda.
I’m sure that no movie nor book can do the nightmares of the Rwandan genocide justice, as sure as I am that this clusterfuck by the U.N. and the so called civilized world cannot be exaggerated.
Had there been oil or some precious metal at stake, the conflict would have been resolved within two weeks, of that I’m convinced. As convinced as I am about the fact that we so quickly return to our daily grind, possibly entertaining the thought that “It must have been terrible”.
It is for no one alone to carry such a burden on their shoulders, but the actions of people like Roméo Dallaire need to be carried onward, their story told.
How can we have allowed this to happen, less than fifty years after the second world war?
I don’t know how many trillions of dollars the “military intervention” in Iraq has cost to date, but a 1/10000 part of that would have ended the Rwandan conflict without a doubt. The difference? There’s oil in Iraq.
Website: Orphans of Rwanda
Documentary: Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire
Another movie: Shake Hands with the Devil (2007)
Book: Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (ISBN 0099478935 and 0679311718)