When I see the sort of natural tragedy we have witnessed in the Far East I am initially horrified at the scale of the tragedy and then at the terrible loss of life. And yet in some ways I am less horrified than I am by human disasters such as the massacres in Rwanda Burundi. This, like the Holocaust, like Cambodia, is a human tragedy of epic proportions.
Still to this day, I cannot overcome the feeling of anger that the UN and France, who were on the spot, stood by despite all the advance warning. That the Free World did not intervene is simply a reflection of their double standards and makes nonsense of any claptrap about acting out of moral or on humanitarian grounds.
The details can be found in a remarkable book, “Shake Hands with The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda”, written by General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian soldier who was in charge of the UN Peacekeeping force in Rwanda before and during the massacre. He kept on warning the UN that disaster was being planned by the Hutus, and even encouraged by the French. He was actually commanded by Kofi Annan not to intervene!
How anyone can have an iota of confidence or trust in the United Nations or Kofi Annan after reading this is totally beyond me. Except of course for corrupt French Presidents who use the UN as a cover to make dirty money. But, then, what’s new?
