Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda Review

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(More customer reviews)This program is well done and very informative. It is definitely worth watching for anyone interested in the disaster in Rwanda. The interviews alone make the program worthwhile.
My only complaint about this program is that it is unmistakably USA-centric. A significant focus of the program is the shameful role of the U.S. in opposing every meaningful proposal for timely intervention or support of the meager peace keeping force on the ground in Rwanda. Though all the attention given to this aspect of the Rwandan disaster is worthwhile, there was no discussion of the responsibility of other Security Council members, especially France. The role of France is particularly deserving of analysis because of its close relationship with the regime, its role as a military adviser to the regime, and the use of its troops in Operation Turquoise to shelter the regime's retreat to refugee camps outside Rwanda once the genocide had been completed. Yet the program hardly mentions France at all, still unapologetic over its role in Rwanda. Similarly, the program skips over entirely the difficult questions surrounding the troubling lack of moral leadership of the Catholic and Anglican Churches in what had nominally been the most Christian country in Africa. The feckless response of the UN leaders in New York is not examined very closely, notwithstanding a few regretful, self-serving bromides from Kofi Anan, who was in charge of peace keeping missions at the time. There is not a single mention of UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who helped suppress any effective UN response. If time did not permit examination of all these issues, then the coverage of the American response should have been reduced to allow more focus on Kigali, New York, and Paris.
I recommend this program, but I also recommend that it be re-titled: "Ghosts of Rwanda: The American Perspective." I also recommend "Bystanders to Genocide" in the September 2001 issue of The Atlantic (the author was briefly interviewed in the program) and the report of Organization of African Unity, "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide", both of which are available on the Internet. There are also a number of good books on this tragedy.


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FRONTLINE marks the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide with a documentary chronicling one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. In addition to interviews with key government officials and diplomats, the two-hour documentary offers eyewitness accounts of the genocide from those who experienced it firsthand. FRONTLINE illustrates the failures that enabled the slaughter of 800,000 people to occur unchallenged by the global community.

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