Review: A People Betrayed
| Author | Gerald Caplan |
| Published date | 01 March 2001 |
| Date | 01 March 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070200105600118 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
implemented,
for
improving
the
chance
of
peacekeeping
success
in
the
future
are
few
and
far
between.
Although
Dennis
Jett's
Why
Peacekeeping
Fails
offers
little
hope
for
the
future
of
peacekeeping,
his
analysis
of
the
United
Nations'
relative
success
in
Mozambique
and
its relative
failure
on
the
other
side
of
Africa
in
Angola
during
the
mid-1990s
makes
a
valuable
contribution
to the
ongoing
debate
regarding
the
utility
of
post-cold
war
peacekeeping.
Jett,
a
highly
experienced
United
States
foreign
service
officer, does
not
shy
away
from
the
sensitive
issues
within
the
United
Nations
itself
as
he
identifies
the path
to
past
failures.
Incompetent
UN
appointed
civilian
mission commanders,
'dead
wood'
UN
bureaucrats
sidelined
to
field
appointments
rather
than
blocking comfortable
positions
at
UN
head-
quarters
in New
York,
inadequate mandates,
and
insufficient
resources
are
only
a
few
of
the
peacekeeping
warts placed
under
his
critical
micro-
scope.
Like
all
authors
who
undertake
an
analysis
of
peacekeeping
fail-
ures,
Jett,
reluctantly
I
am
sure,
comes
to
the
sad
but
true
conclusion
that
the
United
Nations
is
not
and
will
not
be capable
of
resolving
it's
systemic
deficiencies
to
the
betterment
of
its
peacekeeping
role.
Major
General
(ret'd)
Lewis
MacKenzie
A
PEOPLE
BETRAYED
The
role
of
the
West
in
Rwanda's
genocide
Linda
Melvern
New
York
& London:
Zed
Books,
2000,
xiii,
272pp,
US$19.95
paper,
ISBN
1-85649-831-x
Linda
Melvern's
new
study
of
the
1994
Rwandan genocide
can
only
be
warmly
welcomed,
in
part
because
it
is
a
good,
solid
book. But
beyond
that,
we
need
to
celebrate
almost
any serious
work
on
this
apocalyptic
event,
so
few
of
them
have
there
been
relative
to
its
enormity. In
the
past
two
years,
besides
Melvern,
we have
had
a
UN-sponsored
report
on
the
role
of
the
Security
Council
leading
up
to
and
during
the
genocide;
the
report
I
authored
for
an
independent
panel
established
by
the
Organization
of
African
Unity:
and
Carol
Off's
new
book
The
Lion,
The Fox
and
the
Eagle,
the
Lion
being
Canada's
General
Romeo
Dallaire,
commander
of
the
UN
forces
in
Rwanda.
Compare
this to the
continuing
flood
of
works
dealing
with
every
conceivable
aspect
of
the
Nazi
Holocaust,
although
it
ended
55 years
ago
while
the
Rwanda
genocide
is
barely half-a-dozen
years
old.
176
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter2000-2001
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