Motel Rwanda: An African AH

I hope everone enjoyed this! I had a blast writing it, especially since it's something that you don't think of very often. I know it's short but this was mostly confined to the actual genocide, I admit that as much as I am fascinated by African politics, I'm still pretty ignorant on them as a whole and am not ready to carry the TL on any further.

However Barry's information that he posted and the fact that I'm taking an African Geography Class :)D:D:D:D) in the fall mean I'll have the information to carry on further in the future. Keep your eyes peeled because maybe in a few months I'll try and predict the distant butterflies from this event (as the last footnote noted, there are a ton).

Thanks for the comments everyone, especially Barry for posting all that info! Also Dan, I haven't seen Shake Hands with the Devil yet, but I do admit I want to after writing this, as well as the actual Hotel Rwanda and Last King of Scotland (Forrest Whittaker is supposed to be a BAMF in that one I hear).

Thanks for reading and commeting, and keep your eyes peeled for the future!
 
I'd wager to say that the career of Romeo Dallaire would be quite different as well. It'd be fair to say that had the Rwandan incident gone this way he wouldn't have gotten PTSD and almost killed himself. I could definitely see him becoming a fixture in the Canadian Liberal Party and rising to prominence there.

Good TL by the way!
 
I'd wager to say that the career of Romeo Dallaire would be quite different as well. It'd be fair to say that had the Rwandan incident gone this way he wouldn't have gotten PTSD and almost killed himself. I could definitely see him becoming a fixture in the Canadian Liberal Party and rising to prominence there.

Good TL by the way!

He is currently a Liberal Senator for Quebec. Here, if he gets hung out to dry, despite being a hero in Rwanda, he may well blame the Canadian government of the day, and seek election as a member of one of the opposition parties, most likely the old Progressive-Conservatives.

Edit: After reading the most recent update, (I got dumb and made a reply without doing so first), I'll have to wager that Mr. Dallaire would be rather upset with both the Canadian Forces/DND and the Canadian Government in general, for cashering him when his actions were quite justifiable, instead of defending him. The outcome of all of this could have the effect of toppling Jean Chretien's Liberal government in 1997. (That election was already very close, and the Liberals were very nearly forced into a minority government in OTL. Here, they have an unpopular trial outcome that could be pinned on them, and quite likely a very bitter Lt. Col Dallaire will blame them for what happened to him, and as a rather famouscivilian, can speak his mind to the media, and be widely heard.)
 
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burmafrd

Banned
Would the Canadian government really be that stupid to try an international Hero? With all the applause he would be getting, that would be a politically suicidal move.
 
Would the Canadian government really be that stupid to try an international Hero? With all the applause he would be getting, that would be a politically suicidal move.

Don't that forget that the Belgian government withdrawn the Belgian force because the Belgian public strongly objected to continued Belgian presence after casualities being inflicted. The popular support for military intervention is quite low in a lot of western countries after Somalia.

While the UN certainly mishandled a lot of things about Rwanda, the point is that 1994- 1995 was perhaps the low point of the concept of humanitarian intervention. Global support is just baseline.
 
Well I would say Dalliaire almost certainley would not have tried to kill himself and while I know he's a Canadian politician, I would venture to say he would be more successful...though I can't tell you the exact scope since I'm ignorant to Canadian politics and details about his current political career.

Would his presence be enough to topple the exsisting government in the immediate post-Rwanda years...not sure. Certainley would help, especially if it was a close election.
 
Two more things...

I'm not really sure that in real life Dallaire would have been court-maritaled had everything that happened here actually happened. It would certainley be unpopular.

My reasoning for it is that the foriegn diplomats and those that should have been secured first would be the few people that would be against the way things were handled. Maybe a few are influential enough to at least try something against Dallaire, also militaries are pretty strict about following the set rules. If Dallaire gets away with his actions because he got lucky and they worked, it would only be a matter of time before you have a bunch of mini-Napoleons running around these UN missions and have a degree UN-military structural anarchy. Also it was one of the few ways I could have the western governments bungle something obvious, I know its AH but to have so many common sense things happening in Rwanda almost makes it ASB to a degree (pretty sad huh?), the trial of Dallaire was one of the few ways I could have a western government screw up while still saving Rwanda.

Also about possible genocides post-rwanda, I would imagine Rwanda would have a serious effect when it comes to deterence. While some would undoubtedly happen, everyone would fear that they would be the next Rwanda (i.e.: a random occurance where the UN and the west actually stepped up and won something as easily as they should be able to do all the time). I can see that while genocides would still occur they would be less frequent and not nearly as bad as they occured in OTL.
 
Well I would say Dalliaire almost certainley would not have tried to kill himself and while I know he's a Canadian politician, I would venture to say he would be more successful...though I can't tell you the exact scope since I'm ignorant to Canadian politics and details about his current political career.

Would his presence be enough to topple the exsisting government in the immediate post-Rwanda years...not sure. Certainley would help, especially if it was a close election.

Well first off, Dallaire's trial and dismissal from the Canadian Forces is going to be a huge scandal. Chretien's going to get burned by it pretty bad. In fact I'd agree with RCAF Brat to say that the whole ordeal will probably push Dallaire away from supporting the Liberals (as his family traditionally did) and into the camp of the Progressive Conservatives (Centrist). However I could easily see him simply lambasting the government and not aligning to any party.

Now since he's not sitting in such a good situation in OTL PM Chretien isn't going to risk calling an election as early as he did in OTL. In TTL he's probably going to wait the scandal out as long as possible. However he's going to have to call an election sometime in 1998.

Come 1998 the Canadians are going to the polls. Now undoubtedly the Liberals are going to have a better campaign than OTL. However all parties are capable of capitalizing on the contraversy over Dallaire and Rwanda. The Reform party will probably capitalize on the Anti-UN sentiment in Western Canada brought up by Dallaire's dismissal to gain a few seats. And the PC party will probably gain seats in Ontario and Quebec (along with the bloc).

Now in OTL the Liberals maintained their majority by only 5 seats. In TTL they've been weakened substantially but I still see them winning a plurality of the seats. This means that Jean Chretien is going to be forced into a minority government situation (most likely with Alexa McDonough's NDP). This will undoubtedly lead to a more unstable Canadian political scene and this second Liberal government not lasting nearly as long as it's OTL counterpart did.

Providing the Liberals cooperate with the NDP I see them adopting a substantially more left of center policies. Much of the growth that occurred in OTL during this time will probably be curtailed as the Liberals buy the support of the NDP with social programs etc. This practice won't work for an unlimited ammount of time as eventually the NDP will ask for too much, get turned down, and then turn on the Liberals in the hopes of gaining more seats in the upcoming election.

Thus I could see the Canadians going back to the polls say in 2000 to pick a new goverment. In TTL I could easily see right wing parties (perhaps a Reform/PC coalition) capitalize on the ineffectiveness of the Liberal/NDP coalition to force a change in government.

Hope that made some semblance of sense...
 
The book was absolutely rage-inducing as far as the apathy and inaction went. Fuck. It still pisses me off.

Glad to see at least someone trying to make it better, even if it's only fiction.
 

stalkere

Banned
This is a very well written and believable TL on a subject that I have some personal interest in.

I wish it had run out like this - I was one of the guys that took relief supplies to the camps in Zaire/DROC/whatever it is this week... and ventured into Rwanda a few times. ITL, I would have probably been in the groups doing the airdrops or secring the LZs/DZs at Kigali or other places.

Nicely done. I always thought Dallaire did the best he could have humanly have done - this says he might have done more.
 
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