Retired Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire continues to be haunted by what he witnessed and went through in the horrific genocide in Rwanda in 1994. In a book to be released this fall: Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda he tells of his time as head of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR).

He has harsh words for the self-interests of the US, the UK and France.
Using detailed notes kept by his aide in the field he details his pleas to the UN.

“The Security Council and the office of the secretary-general were obviously at a loss as to what to do,” he writes. “I continued to receive demands to supply them with more information before they would take any concrete action. What more could I possibly tell them that I hadn’t already described in horrific detail? The odour of death in the hot sun; the flies, maggots, rats and dogs that swarmed to feast on the dead. At times it seemed the smell had entered the pores of my skin . . . We had sent a deluge of paper and received nothing in return; no supplies, no reinforcements, no decisions.”

Random House is publishing the English edition.

“What’s in the book is what we felt people could bear,” said Anne Collins, his editor at Random House Canada, which will publish the English edition. “But Gen. Dallaire had to remember all of it. We only put in the minimum — he wanted to show what it was like, to walk through a slurry of blood and mud up to your knees. But he did not want to make a document that you could not bear to read.”

Gen. Dallaire also provides a frank account of his own struggle to live with what he has seen, which has led to his sometimes public struggle with posttraumatic stress disorder.

He also talks about wrestling with his hatred when a Belgian peacekeeping unit withdrew during the slaughter.

“I gave myself over to hate of a nation that had not only lost its nerve to stay in the fight but that was prepared to sacrifice the names and reputations of its own soldiers to soothe its own conscience.”

In May of this year Rwandans voted for a draft constitution designed to prevent another genocide. Elections will be held this fall.

British Columbia
The Okanagan Mountain Park fire jumped a line near Kelowna last night, prompting the swift evacuation of 10 thousand people. About 25 homes in the Kelowna suburbs are on fire. Another 6 thousand people are on alert. Kelowna is a city of 100,000. Canadian soldiers have been sent in to assist 3 thousand forest fire fighters.
Jack whipped off this email to friends…

Just a quick note to let you all know that everything has gone to hell in a handbasket tonight, here in Kelowna, British Columbia, and we are evacuating our home with the forest fire visible on top of the ridge directly above where we live. It traveled ten kilometres between six p.m. and midnight tonight. 3100 homes evacuated to this point, more than five thousand people dispossessed. Not nice.

Stay safe.

Canada’s Dirty Little Secrets
The Annual Report of the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada which is to be released today says that organized crime is on the rise in Canada. As efforts have been made to curb the activities of biker gangs across the country the Mafia, the Columbian cartels, the Eastern European groups, the Yakuza and other Asian rings have stepped in. More high ranking officials are now on the take.

Computers and security
It hasn’t been a good summer for computer users and security types.
Sobig F is currently making the rounds and one security company says that one in every 17 emails they have intercepted had the virus.
It appears it has been sent out by spammers to use peoples computers to act as untraceable relays for their unwanted messages.
Dispatches from Outland sums it up.

These problems could be avoided if people would install virus protection and keep it updated, and keep their OS updated with the latest patches (and if you use Windows XP, you don’t have an excuse for not doing that). Every stinking time one of these viruses or worms makes headlines, you get the same advice: install virus software and keep it updated; install the latest patches to your OS.

I guess it’s akin to all those warnings about buckling your seatbelt that seemingly bounce off peoples’ skulls without even ruffling their hair. Seems like significant share of the traffic fatalities I hear about involve someone being thrown from their vehicle, while a familiar saying attributed to highway patrol personel is “I’ve never had to unbuckle a dead person.”

People, please, please, please: If you don’t have antivirus software, get some and install it today. Set it up to automatically download the updates. Find out if you need to download any security patches for your operating system, and if you need them, download them and install them today.

If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for the children.

A sniffy look
Another god-blog has been featured in the media, this time in Aussie papers and as Martin Roth says, it’s a bit of a sniffy look at Going Jesus. I think it’s more of a bit of a swipe because the blogger is American and the reporter doesn’t know much about or care much about blogging.

My fellow Canucks
Got a blog? Then list it here at BlogsCanada.

link via Ian’s Messy Desk

If you have a god-blog (relating to matters of faith in protestant, catholic or orthodox traditions) add yourself to The List.

AOL Journals
I commented on the AOL blog platform last week. I had a question that has been answered.
If you want to leave a comment at an AOL journal/blog do you have to sign in?
Yes. You have to sign in to comment. You know how we really really hate spam? I really really hate signing in. I suppose when I stumble across something on an AOL journal/blog that moves me to comment I could email the journal/blogger. But then again, that might be sort of spamming….
Next question: What is the logic to this sign-in to comment at a blog policy?

Choruses, Hymns and Cows
If you have ever wondered what the difference is between a chorus and a hymn, well, wonder no more. Signposts explains.