Giant_and_Dwarf-FIN

Giant and DwarfIn the folk song “Roméo Dallaire”, written by Canadian singer Andy McGaw, the choir sings:Thank you for callin’ the United NationsWe can’t take your call right now cause we’re all on vacationIf you need support, hug your teddy bearIf you’re in big trouble, boys, better say your prayersJust as the Belgian soldiers (and leading politicians) had acted in Rwanda in 1994, sodid the Dutch soldiers in the UN Safe Zone in Srebrenica in 1995. A force of heavily-armedSerbs was not hindered in any way by 400 lightly armed soldiers bereft of air support. Whatfollowed was the largest massacre in Europe since the end of World War II in which 8,300men, including hundreds of boys under the age of 18, were murdered.History nearly repeated itself in 2000 in the West African country of Sierra Leone, wherethe Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels had been conducting a brutal civil war since1991. The RUF in the context of this book is interesting in that, similar to Angola, their warwas financed by trading in the aforementioned blood diamonds. 153 The civil war in SierraLeone took more than 50,000 victims and was responsible for 2.5 million refugees insidethe country. More sordidly, the RUF is infamous for their child soldiers who showed exceptionalbrutality by removing the limbs of people as a part of a scorched earth policy used tospread terror. In December 1999 the UN finally sent a military mission to the country calledthe United Nations Mission to Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL): originally a total of 6,000 troopswere approved by the UN but eventually this number grew to 11,000. RUF leaders quicklyrealized the UN soldiers had no interest in actual combat and the UNAMSIL quickly becamea punch bag and an additional armoury that could be used to arm and supply the RUF.In May 2000 a truly degrading episode occurred when the rebels captured more than 500UNAMSIL soldiers and used captured armoured personnel carriers in its efforts to overrunthe capital city of Freetown.The government of Great Britain at the time decided to stop being a bystander andsent in the Royal Marines, elite members of the British Navy, to Sierra Leone. The operation,code named Operation Palliser, is a prime example of a quick and successful militaryintervention into a developing country. The first British aircraft carrying the commandosarrived in Freetown 36 hours after the British decided to intervene. The support came atexactly the right time: when the commandos arrived, the RUF had already taken controlof half of the country and the UNAMSIL was completely demoralized. The original missionfor the 1,200 British soldiers was to secure the evacuation of foreigners from Freetown andto restore security in the capital. The initiative of the British commander, General David153 The war in Sierra Leone was the backdrop for the film Blood Diamond from 2006 starring LeonardoDiCaprio in the lead role. He portrayed a South African mercenary looking for his own fortune in diamondsin the war and violence torn country. The film was directed by Edward Zwick and was nominatedfor a number of Oscars.168