Well, then we just don't know whether or not he was armed. I don't know what the deal is for Norwegians in such an instance. Your Norwegian may have been some medic, some poor corporal who was told to stand lookout and he was unarmed. Or he may possibly have been armed. I don't like to assume anything. The fact is, you and I weren't there, we don't even have an account of what happened other that some pieces of what you remember about an article. So far be it from me to judge that poor guy and say he "deserves" anything. If you can find the article, then we can debate it.
his answer was that he couldn't get them on the radio, and he couldn't get their Ghanaian commander on the radio either....Which means, incredibly, that soldiers assigned as bodyguards needed authority to shoot?
That's one of the problems with this type of Mission: there isn't exactly a single chain of command. It was once believed or hoped that the mere presence of "bluers" would act as a deterrent. But, sadly, such is not often the case.
I can't imagine US troops giving up their man without a fight in such a case.
The point is, no US troops were there. The US wasn't willing to put its soldiers' lives at risk.
Ref the school, if you could provide a link to that story, I could comment on it better.
Since the mobs in many cases were armed with knives and axes, it seems an armed, disciplined force might have saved some were they willing to fight.
The operative phrases here are "in many cases" and "it seems". That fact is, you and I weren't there. What "seems" to you may in fact be very different from the reality. It's really hard for armchair warriors to know what such situations are really like. I've read that there were mobs of machete-wielders with armed soldiers among them. And it may not have been impossible to "fight" or "fire on" the perpetrators without harming the victims. Sorry, I'm not going to judge those guys or put them down or say they "deserved" anything.
So, I find it hard to be respectful of UN peacekeeping based on what I have read here...
What you'll often read here are lunatic ravings about how the UN is trying to take over the US.
Yes, there are many problems with UN peacekeeping. The UN has been asked to do these big peacekeeping missions over the past 15 years which are not what the UN was ever designed to do. Often, the missions are given impossible tasks and mandates and very little support. That way, the powers that be can look like they're "doing something about it" and then critisizing the UN when it falls apart. Cheap route to the "moral high ground."
Critisize peacekeeping all you like, but I do take exception to your critisizing the peacekeepers on the ground. You haven't walked in their mocassins.
Here's what really frosts me: They deserve to be haunted by their consciences until the day they die. Perhaps you would have done no better, and not even as well as Gen. Dallaire had you been in his place. Better to say, "There but for the Grace of God go I."
I happen to have a great deal of respect and admiration for Gen. Dallaire. Rather than merely critisizing, he's looking for solutions. A voice of experience to be listened to. I consider him a great man, a very thoughtful man, a man of conviction and vision who is doing much good in the world.
It's not just that "few countries maintain serious militaries" -- it's whether they are willing to send them to these peacekeeping missions. And under what conditions. And whether countries are willing to make the necessary financial contribution. Whether there is the political will to contribute blood and treasure. When it came to Rwanda, nobody gave a flying fig.
Here's a little speech by Gen. Dallaire where he touches on these subjects: Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Nope, not US military or any military at all. Just another "stupid UNPROFOR". Before that, I was in Cambodia.
I accept your criticism of my remarks. My comment about Dallaire was unfair. I have heard him speak, and I agree that he is a very thoughtful man, and in fact I was impressed with him.
My criticism of him was unfair because I was using him as a symbol for other things I dislike, when he was struggling against those very things.
The interview with Marchal, his #2, is here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/interviews/marchal.html
The general tone of fecklessness is, I think, notable, but the antidote to that is to read the interview with an American involved in it from our side:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/interviews/marley.html
Marley makes Marchal look like George Patton. You will note that weeks were spent arguing about the dictionary definition of "genocide" while people were dying. The same kinds of discussions and evasions were going on at UN HQ, and in Europe, as everyone twisted and turned to avoid using the "g" word.
We now know that France was effectively allied with the Hutu government, they had provided weapons and training for the militias, and during the genocide they intervened essentially in response to the Tutsi counterattack, to provide a safe zone for the Hutus.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/842957/posts
"The Akazu death squads had received military training from the French; Hutu extremists were always assured of a warm welcome in Paris and the flow of French arms to the Hutus continued throughout the genocide. Whenever the Tutsis regrouped sufficiently to threaten Hutu power, France mounted a discreet military intervention to save its friends. The French troops who arrived towards the end of the 1994 massacres were thoroughly confused by the reality of the million Tutsi dead: they had been told they were coming in to prevent a massacre of Hutus by the Tutsi minority."
And here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/readings/french.html
Dallaire was betrayed from all sides. He was ordered not to intervene by New York, as to intervene would violate their "neutrality". While France was fairly openly allied with the Hutu, Boutros and Annan seem also to have been sympathetic to them. This would be similar to the present situation in the Sudan, where Paris, Ottowa, Brussels, and UN HQ are all aligned with Khartoum, which in part explains the lack of response to the killing that has gone on there.
In any event, the Hutu believed that if they hit the UN force, they would fold, and that seems to have been the result. Ten Belgians were taken and tortured to death, and within a few days Belgium withdrew its forces leaving Dallaire with little to work with. It was Belgian forces that were in control of Don Bosco school, where the refugees under their protection were killed.
I appreciate the overall measured tone in your reply to me, it must be annoying, experienced as you are in these kinds of operations, to read criticism from someone who has not been involved. And I withdraw my criticism of Dallaire. I do not withdraw my criticism of UN policy or overall incompetence in Rwanda, but I recognize that, as you point out, the UN is a proxy for actual nations. If the UN is unable to focus it is because the countries behind it are unable to focus.
And you are right, as the interview with Marley makes ever so clear, the US was completely unwilling to get involved.