We Did Nothing - Linda Polman
I picked this up at the airport on my way to Spain.
It's written by a journalist and is about various UN missions she was reporting on. There are different sections on Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda.
I'm not keen on 'event' news which is pretty much all we get these days. I loved this because it gave some background and reported on what it was actually like.
Somalia - the situation had deteriorated so badly the UN were confined to their two basis. The journalist lives in a large packing case the base was delivered in with contractors who are there to make money. (ie dogs are needed to control the crowds outside the base). The UN are supposed to be training a police force but they don't have money to pay them so the would be police have to make their money by stealing.
Haiti - the Americans take over the island in a morning and hand it over to the UN (who are so poorly equipped they don't even have hats.) The mayor is elected but he is a anarchist who doesn't believe in laws and the only thing he cares about is setting up a big free pop concert.
Some capitalist type people turn up wanting to export shells from the island. The government doesn't have a phone or a base and when they eventually track down the mayor he denounces them as imperialists.
Rwanda - written a year after the genocide. The journalist is invited there by the government to show that things are back to normal. Rwanda is where the gorillas are that were in the film Gorillas in the Mist.
On the way up to the forest they are stopped by soldiers and all their equipment is confiscated. The soldiers say 'What gorillas?'
There is a refugee camp on bordering Zaire - thousands of people scared to go home, and they have been chopping down the forest around the camp for firewood.
One day the Hutu refugees are all rounded up and marched to an area where they are forced to stand for three days without food or water. Anyone who flees is shot. In the middle of this is the Zambian UN camp - they are unable to do anything.
This whole section is extraordinary and almost unbearable to read.
An amazing book.
