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| 10 Years On, Hollywood assigns blame for Rwanda Genocide | |
| 2004-02-25 | |
| EFL "Give him another kick," film director Raoul Peck orders an actor playing a militiaman at a roadblock in a scene recreating Rwanda’s genocide. Urged on, a group of men give an horrific portrayal of attackers beating and hacking their victims with machetes, simulating slashing their Achilles tendons to prevent escape. "We don’t waste bullets on cockroaches like this," says one of the actors, raising a club to bludgeon a man already on his knees. The scene being shot in the capital Kigali evokes some of the worst slaughter in Rwanda in 1994, when Hutu extremists killed some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates in 100 days. -snip- "When it’s too near, people are still hiding from the truth or trying to hide the fact that people knew about it and did nothing to stop it," said Peck. "Ten years later, we have the tremendous chance to do a film that may stay as a witness and as a tool for others to explain what really happened here." For Peck, a Haitian-American, another motive for making a film about genocide is to show that what happened in Rwanda was driven more by politics and history than by ethnicity. (Cue the drum roll, please) And the verdict by the Hatian born American film director is.... "Belgium’s racist policies during the colonial era are much to blame, he says, as is the West’s failure to act once it became clear that genocide was underway. The West is totally implicated in what happened here," he said. "The United States, England and France were all pushing the U.N. to get out of Rwanda. Nobody has clean hands on this." The mystery is solved. Hutu extremists are exonerated. On to the next revisionist project.
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| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #14 IIRC, Ruanda-Urundi (the Belgian colony's official name) was part of German East Africa, parcelled up and spread among Great Britain (Tanganyika), Portugal (Mozambique), and Belgium at the end of World War I, prior to the creation of the League of Nations. While the League of Nations (and later, the United Nations) may have been the official "grantor" of executive power, the decision was made long before. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-2-25 11:38:09 PM |
| #13 No mention of chainey? Mucky will be pissed. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-2-25 9:25:51 PM |
| #12 Rwanda was a United Nations (previously League of Nations) Trust Territory. Belgium was not the colonial power. It was the United Nations selected administrator. I expect the movie will make this clear. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-25 6:41:01 PM |
| #11 Ack! English reading JFM. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-25 6:25:00 PM |
| #10 JFM, what's your recommended reading of the Algerian crisis? I'm in a minor forment about Phwrance at the moment... send news. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-25 6:24:15 PM |
| #9 In 1994 the French president was Francois Mitterrand. Before the genocide he had sponsored the future genociders because they kept Rwanda in the French orbit. After the genocide he sent the French Army, the Army whose uniform I had worn, to cover the retreat of the genociders. Had he had full powers the Army would have helped the genociders against the Tutsi insurgency. But he had to contend with a right wing prime minister. He is also quoted as having said "In those countries one genocide more or less doesn't matter". The day he died I went to a shop who is near Place de la Bastille and I found it occuppied by 200,000 left wing people, mourning for the great man. Those bleeding heart left wingers ever so keen to cry upon the death of a Black or Arab provided he is killed by a Western country or Israel were mourning for Mitterrand the genocider. What a shame. What a rage. |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-2-25 5:35:17 PM |
| #8 LH the only reason that Belgium colonized that region was to make sure that Haliburton was closed out of the deal and that Leopold would be able to build his dream hospital complex. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-2-25 5:23:27 PM |
| #7 actaully Belgium DID do a lot to accentuate Hutu - Tutsi hatred, including maintaining ethnic designations in identity docuements, and subjecting hutus to forced labor. Of course the Germans started the system, IIUC. And the west did play a role in allowing the genocide to happen. Of course Frances role was far worse than the US - we simply failed to intervene - the French actively intervened to protect the genocidaires. I'd think you guys wouldnt be so quick to defend US policy in Rwanda, since it was CLINTON's failure. And Maddy Albright's. Of course the GOP wasnt actively pushing for intervention either. (to the credit of Bob Dole, he was very sensitive to genocide issues,and pushed for intervention in Bosnia when both Dems and GOP were reluctant. Not sure what his stand on Rwanda was.) So - westerners most directly implicated - Belgium, Germany, France. the entire axis fo weasels. Cant understand why you need to defend them. Criticizing them doesnt mean excusing the genocidaires, any more than attacking terrorist apologists means excusing terrorists. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2004-2-25 5:18:24 PM |
| #6 1994? Let me think, who was President back then? Warren Harding, I think, or was it Nixon? Bush I, maybe? |
| Posted by: Matt 2004-2-25 4:12:12 PM |
| #5 Thanks for the chuckle, Super Hose. |
| Posted by: badanov 2004-2-25 2:49:44 PM |
| #4 They were prolly Belgian Jooooos... with strong ties to the US... and Bush, let's not forget it's Bush's fault... somehow. Jooos & Bush. Yep, that's the ticket. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-2-25 2:20:17 PM |
| #3 making a film about genocide is to show that what happened in Rwanda was driven more by politics and history than by ethnicity. Sounds like a Oliver Stone Production, adapted from an original screenplay by Michael Moore. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-2-25 2:07:23 PM |
| #2 I wonder on whon this Hatian-American intends to blame the current turmoil in his birthplace. I'll give you a hint - its not the Hatians. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-2-25 1:52:07 PM |
| #1 No SH... as you know it was our Evil Zionist Masters who did it. We had to have some way to test the Zionist Death Ray...... So, is anyone holding their breath until Hollywierd does a film about Saddam's Iraq, the mass graves, rape rooms, and rape squads? Anyone? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-2-25 1:47:21 PM |