2 comments about The Shallow Graves of Rwanda.

1. Although not quite perfect in its smallest detail, this is the most authoritative analysis yet available of the aid that the UN and the international community tried to provide to Rwanda after the genocide of 1994, concentrating on the period from the author's arrival in June of that year and tending to discuss UNAMIR's work at the operational rather than the tactical level - although it does cover, with dispassion and objectivity rather than overt emotion, a number of individual horror stories.

   This must be regarded as a classic case study and, as one who worked under Ambassador Khan in Rwanda, I recommend it without reservation for students of the United Nations, those obliged to deal with this and other international organizations and, especially, those considering their resourcing.

   The areas in which I would wish to assist Khan were he to revise his text for a future edition are: definition of the boundaries between Operation Homeward (which escapes mention under this name) and Operation Retour, and to give due credit due to Lt Col Tom Mullarkey for his formulation of Retour; Operation Hope and its role in the chronology of UNAMIR-RPF relations; Khan's somewhat rose-tinted view of UNAMIR's discipline and performance; and the captions of some photographs (Plate 5 is not of the medical centre in Kibeho but of a church somewhere else; Plate 6 is misdated - and definitely not of a scene in 1943; Plate 7 is of Kigali Prison rather than of Gikongoro's); amongst a full and mostly accurate coverage of the tragedy in Kibeho, correction of some minor flaws in the attribution of witness testimony.

   In identifying these errors, this is not to say that I think this a poor book: I think it quite the opposite and believe that it deserves to be read very widely!




2. "The Shallow Graves of Rwanda", Shaharyar Khan, 2000, I.B. Tauris, London, ISBN: 1-86064-616-6, HC 228 pgs., includes 1 map, 2 pgs. Acronyms, 16 Illust., 1 pg. Biblio., 8 pg. Index. 9 1/2" x 6 1/4"
   
   Khan, retired Pakastani Muslim career deplomat, was give "onerous responsibility" to seek a peaceful settlement in Rwanda as Special Representative of UN Secretary-General after Tutsi Pres. Habyarimana's plane was shot down April 6, 1994. Arriving 3 mos. later, on July 4, 1994, the author learns a civil war &/or genocide had occurred with about 800,000-1,000,000 Rwandan's massacred, largely by Hutu majority wielding machetes in a planned mass-killing of the Tutsi minority. For reader's not familiar with Rwanda, the country is one of the smallest of the smallest countries in the world, less than the size of a small pea on a full Atlas-sized map page of Africa - it is surrounded on the W-N-E-S by Zaire, Uganda, Tanzania & Burundi.
   
   Despite author's claim of his book as a diary, it is nothing of the sorts. He gives a brief synopsis of Rwandan's clash arising in the 1930's from colonists imposing Western values, intra-ethnic tensions, over-population, & that docile compliant mind-set of Rwandan peoples who are silently obedient to any authority. This is bizzare when put in context of the brutal killings which were barbaric, revengeful, & savagely carried out on men, Women, & children left to die slowly by hemorrhage, evisceration, limblessness, genitalia excisions, head bashings or smaller victims tossed into urinal pits to drown or suffocate in feces. It transcends by far anything reported in the Holocaust or Armenian Genocide.
   
   The Author provides a list of 47 acronyms to distinguish & represent various Worldly, African, or United Nation offices, programs, organizations, plans, committees, missions, departments, coalitions, forces, etc. which are supposed to have helped Rwanda, but are herein documented to have been uniformly counter-productive, adversarial, overlapping & heavily endowed groups which spent millions if not billions of dollars in observing the situation, but not even pennies for rebuilding as roads, electric power, communications, etc. The author, despite his "onerous responsibility" was shown to have absolutely no power, & though he ussued decrees, demands, resolutions. suggestioons & reports, he discovered that no one really listened to him, or if they pretended to do so they readily changde their minds. We are informed that various organizations which should have been involved in peaceful measures were actually involved in the illegal & irrational importing of land mines, grenades, pistols, ammo & automatic weapons from Italy, Israel, Egypt, China, etc., instead of aid supplies.
   
   We are informed about the insurgent military groups, RGF (Hutu) vs. the RPA (Tutsi) lead by 37-yr-old Tutsi leader Maj. Gen. Paul Kagame who quickly advanced from VP to Pres. of Rwanda. He was recently accused by French Magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere (Feb. 2007) as ordering the assassinations of April 6, 1944 & it was also alleged the U.S. and the U.N. quashed earlier inquiries since Paul Kagama was an ally of the U.S.
   
   So, all in all, the book is not what it purports to be, is poorly written & poorly cllated,& it is highly repetitive of the miserable accountings of beastly killings that had already occurred before the impotent author had set foot in Kigali. If there was a "fall guy" for the U.N., it was the author. It is not a book about the Rwanda genocide, it is a book about power, politics, & money.

No comments about 21st Century Terrorism: Planning for the Unthinkable, A Comprehensive Federal Guidebook on Terrorism and Public Health Emergencies.

5 comments about Jackal: Finally, The Complete Story of the Legendary Terrorist, Carlos The Jackal.

1. Among self-described "professional" revolutionaries, few cut a more fascinating figure than Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a k a Carlos the Jackal. Before he was captured in 1994 and subsequently tried and sentenced to life in prison in France, the Jackal, a terrorist-for-hire whose higher-profile clients included Muammar al-Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro claimed to have nixed 83 people; dozens of hijackings, bombings and assassinations were blamed on him following his association, around 1970, with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. And yet, slovenly, feckless, girl-chasing and politically disoriented Carlos, however murderous, is almost too laughable to picture as a terrorist mastermind. Reuters man Follain does a nice job here of tracing, if not demystifying, Carlos' life of crime, from his guerilla training in Cuba as a teen to the bitter, pathetic and at times hilarious end. (When moved between prisons, he made sure to notify the subscription department of Cigar Lover magazine of his change of address.)



2. Good, good info on Carlos and his Venezuelan roots (I should know, I'm from Venezuela) and a detailed (and sometimes breathtaking) account of his most spectacular actions and capture. But, not being a native speaker, I have a problem with Follain's grammar. I mean, it's sometimes sloppy. I don't know, still and all good book.



3. John Follain cannot decide if he wants to be dramatic or expository. So he aims for both - in miserable spurts that completely fog the history of this madman and of modern terrorism itself. Rarely are the Jackal's motivation and vision clear. Even muddier is the larger story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the U.S.' growing intervention in Mideast politics and the backlash therein. I knew close to nothing about these issues going into the book and I still don't. I confess I gave up half-way through when I could no longer kid myself into thinking this clumsy book was a serious work of non-fiction.



4. Twenty years ago Carlos was widely blamed/implicated for incidents ranging from the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre of Israeli athletes to bombings throughout France. Back in the 70s -80s Carlos the Jackal became synonomus during the so-called Red-terror campaign by left wing groups in addition to his connections with Palestinian terror groups.
   
   Follain does a good job describing the Marxist upbringing of the young Illych Sanchez Ramierez (the Jackal's real name), his attendence of the KGB guerilla training school in Moscow (he was later kicked out), to the Jackal's affiliation with groups such as the PFLP and the RAF (Baader-Meinhoff Group). Follain describes how the devout Marxist was actually a playboy (he waited to pose for camera men after the 1975 OPEC takeover) and would kill for his own motives (such as French train bombings because his wife was arrested by French authorities).
   
   This is a very succesful attempt at an in-depth analysis of the once illusive Jackal. I would definatley recommend it for those interested.



5. I really enjoyed this book even though the subject of its study is deplorable. Carlos the Jackal's story is not his alone. It tells of an era in which governments gritted their teeth and negotiated with terrorists despite official pronouncements to never cave in to their demands. Countries like France, and even East Germany, believed that by giving in to evil revolutionaries like those of the Carlos Group, they could buy their own safety and security. They failed to learn the important lessons of Munich; appeasement never works. As a man, Carlos was an adventurer, a philanderer, a spoiled gourmet, and a raconteur. He also seemed to have little political understanding of the causes he served, and regarded them only as a means to an end. Unlike the fundamentalist terrorists of our day, he fought to increase his own status and power which translated into his obtaining more women and luxuries at each step on his way up the status hierarchy. Somewhat surprisingly, the reader may find that it is difficult to summon up the requisite hatred for him as he really was more Goring than Hitler. Carlos could be bought for the right price and often he was. His brand of terrorism is now defunct which, when one compares his corruption to the absolute devotion of his peers, may not be such a good thing; although, it is nice to know that at least one of these villains will spend his life behind bars.

1 comments about IntelCenter Terrorism Incident Reference (TIR): Iraq: 2006.

1. The other books in the IntelCenter TIR series cover 2000-2007. Iraq has been entirely too busy, so this book only covers 2006. 2000-2005 have been covered already, and 2007 will get a book to itself.
   
   This is a tool though, not entertainment, and it is a very specialized tool, not a broadly applicable or conceptual tool. And it is one big aid to anyone researching terrorism in Iraq. This having been said, the difference between terrorism, common crime, and military operations can get nebulous in Iraq. Because of this, 600+ pages of events can get confusing.
   
   Within these caveats, it is a superb reference. Within the period covered (2006), and the geographical region (Iraq), it lists in chronological order, major terrorist events. To anyone researching terrorism within the period and area, this is priceless.
   
   The true value in this work is that it could save hundreds of man-hours and a small fortune in translation and access to databases. IntelCenter has built a staggering database, and publishes these extracts from that database. The tens of thousands of man-hours, filtered down to the exact set needed for this specialized research is a bargin at this price, and would be reasonable at ten times this price.
   
   Things that would radically increase the value for a relatively small effort:
   -Graphics; a simple map of Iraq, like the public domain ones from the CIA's online World Factbook, would give a lot of context to the nuggets cataloged here ("Oh, this incident happened right by that border crossing..."). A basic year by year plot of where terrorists were active would be great too ("Hmm, lots of bad stuff happened in this town, but not that one, I wonder why").
   -An index or tagging; more so than their other books, given the size of this one, tagging by category would triple the value of this book, and a real index, perhaps by location and event type would have a lot of value. Tagging would really highlight events for a researcher that was trying to rapidly develop an assessment or other product.
   
   My only real criticism is sourcing. Every event has a news or other source. A few (I noticed several out of tens of thousands of events) had the IntelCenter as the source. For raw data like this, primary sources are best, and an analytical organization, no matter how reputable, doesn't normally qualify as a primary source. I understand that this is to protect confidential sources, and I respect that, but it can be a hard sell to a down-to-earth boss.
   Another element of my reservations about sourcing is that most incidents cite only a single source. Some of these event probably showed up in more media, but this reference usually only cites one. On the other hand, when they cite more than one, they get busy; one event cited six or seven references.
   Finally, a brief discussion of the biases of sources during the period covered would be great for folks who haven't spent much time using these sources before.
   
   Others might criticize this work saying that all this information is freely availible, and that you're being charged for what you could get for free. True enough, but consider a little more carefully. First, some of the information is from paid services and not free. More important, I weigh the cost of this book against the time to run down all these nuggets of information, and the time and cost of getting many of them translated from Arabic, Farsi, French, Chinese, and others, and the challenges of coordinating to do searches in all these languages, and the cost to benefit ratio looks extremely healthy to me.
   
   Don't let these shortcomings fool you. This is a worth-while investment for anyone who is researching within the scope (time, region, and subject) of this book. The writing is clear and concise, the layout is straight forward, and while not encyclopedic, it is complete enough to provide a solid starting point for research.
   
   A good tool for the job!
   
   (Review of a copy given to me by IntelCenter)
   
   E.M. Van Court

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