Shooting Dogs - A Rwandan tragedy

10.18.15am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 15th Jun 2006

Rwanda flag

Last night Caroline and I went to see Shooting Dogs at the Lighthouse Cinema. Shooting Dogs is about the Rwandan Genocide that took place in 1994, it highlights the UN's inaction and consequences of that inaction and hopefully reminds people that a Genocide like this should never be allowed to happen again.

The film, based on real events, chronicles a few days in April 1994, after the death of the Rwandan President and tells the story of how the Hutu people went on an organise killing spree of the Tutsi people. Shooting Dogs tells the story of the L'École Technique Officielle , its staff, the pupils, families and the UN Peace-Monitors (clearly not Peace-Keepers), their choices and actions (or lack there of).

Shooting Dogs is very powerful and leaves you asking questions of yourself, the UN and all democratic countries be they in Africa, Europe, the Americas or elsewhere. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who has not seen it, I missed it when it first came out but am glad that the Lighthouse was showing it. I also want to see Hotel Rwanda and seeing Shooting Dogs has made me determined to go out and find it to watch.