My aim was to visit at least 100 countries, and with Brazil, I finally did it. I'm now loitering at 104. Or is it 105, I lose count...
Unlike a lot of fellow travellers, I tend to only dip my feet into a country, quite often only staying a day or two before heading off somewhere else.
Country numbers 54 and 55 were my first trips alone - something I never thought I'd do.
In 2013 I published an e-book entitled The Red Quest, detailing my mission to visit each and every country of the former Soviet Union. Along the way I sa... full info
I swore off genocide movies after seeing the Killing Fields... I have refused to watch Hotel Rwanda or Last King of Scotland as it makes me so angry that the world has never intervened to stop genocide. Nothing was learned from the Holocaust! And I particularly blame the UN which stands by and watches the genocide. If you want the problems in Africa to go away, hire some mercenaries for a couple of weeks, and the situation will be resolved.
I was at NATO when Yugoslavia was coming apart, and was extremely frustrated with the restrictions placed upon our forces; limiting them to peacekeeping rather than peacemaking. Thusly, the Dutch forces stood by watching the Serb forces round up ~8000 men and boys to be hauled away for execution. If I had been the commander I would have ordered my troops to fire, even if every last one died defending the defenseless. That would have been the honorable thing to do! I was U.S. Mission to NATO's duty officer the week we decided to start bombing Serbia into submission, where it was my job to read the message traffic arriving during the night and decide what was important enough to wake the Ambassador to read. I took some satisfaction that NATO was finally conducting some peacemaking!
A touching blog Jason. Why does mankind never learn? Why do we allow these senseless killings to go on? We are always hearing the rhetoric 'never again' yet as Bob so eloquently put it, the one organisation that does have the power to do something, The UN, always ends up looking like the proverbial eunuch or a toothless tiger when the shit really does hit the fan. Your description of the museum and your experience on the street brought a tear to my eye. We couldn't even begin to conceive what some of these people have been through.
One of your best blogs Thank you for posting such a thoughtful blog. It brings back memories of my time there, and after visiting the numerous Genocide Memorials, I believe that those UN and world leaders who knew that this carnage was occurring and did not intervene should be convicted of war crimes. If Rwanda had oil reserves, this genocide would never have occurred. It is the same reason why the situation in Syria is allowed to continue, a definite comparison to the decisive intervention in the oil rich countries of Iraq and Libya.
Thanks for the comments, guys.
Bob, I cannot imagine what it was like in Yugolsavia during the civil war: to read and see photos about something like this is one thing but to be actualy there...
And Shane, I completly agree. Syria has non oil and is only worthy of a cursory effoty by the UN. I do wonder when the rhetorical and political spin will start a out Iran...
Again, thanks for taking the time to make a comment on this blog.
Thanks for the informative blog. :) I saw some clips about Hotel Rawanda on U Tube, which I am going to watch. There were a lot of parts there, so hopefully the whole movie is available.
I actually saw Hotel Rwanda a few years back, before I'd even planned visiting Kigali. It was a quite-harrowing film, though according to what I've read since, a quite watered down account of the actual horror. Worth watching though. Since visiting the genocide museum, and reading more about what happened in Rwanda, I've bought a book written by the Canadian UN general in charge, Romeo Dallaire, entiteld 'Shake Hands With the Devil'. Looking forward to reading about his frank account of what happened and how redundant he felt.
Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I swore off genocide movies after seeing the Killing Fields...
I have refused to watch Hotel Rwanda or Last King of Scotland as it makes me so angry that the world has never intervened to stop genocide. Nothing was learned from the Holocaust! And I particularly blame the UN which stands by and watches the genocide. If you want the problems in Africa to go away, hire some mercenaries for a couple of weeks, and the situation will be resolved. I was at NATO when Yugoslavia was coming apart, and was extremely frustrated with the restrictions placed upon our forces; limiting them to peacekeeping rather than peacemaking. Thusly, the Dutch forces stood by watching the Serb forces round up ~8000 men and boys to be hauled away for execution. If I had been the commander I would have ordered my troops to fire, even if every last one died defending the defenseless. That would have been the honorable thing to do! I was U.S. Mission to NATO's duty officer the week we decided to start bombing Serbia into submission, where it was my job to read the message traffic arriving during the night and decide what was important enough to wake the Ambassador to read. I took some satisfaction that NATO was finally conducting some peacemaking!