Scream Bloody Murder

Last night I tuned into CNN to watch "Scream Bloody Murder," a two-hour documentary reported by the network's senior international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. Chronicling the stories of six crusaders, each fighting for justice amidst neglected genocide, the documentary was dramatic, incredibly well produced and educational, and also deeply saddening.

The topic of genocide is as important as ever, as this month marks the 60th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the treaty adopted by the United Nations making genocide an international crime).

Amanpour set the stage by telling the story of Raphael Lemkin. A Polish Jew whose family died in the Holocaust, Lemkin literally invented the word genocide. He spent his entire life fighting for the innocent, and lobbied the UN until it unanimously adopted the Genocide Convention in 1948.

Amanpour and her team went about telling the stories of five other men who courageously spoke out, but were ultimately unsuccessful in trying to stem the tide of mass murder and getting foreign governments to care about it.

They went to Cambodia to interview a French priest who witnessed the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge. They went to Washington to talk to a Congressional staffer, whose sanctions bill against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who used chemical weapons against the Kurds, was defeated by the House and supported by the Reagan administration. They traveled to Sarajevo and walked the streets with a former diplomat and magazine editor, who put pressure on the Clinton administration to act in Bosnia as Muslins were being killed by Bosnia Serb forces. They sat down with the head of the UN's peacekeeping force in Rwanda who was left helpless as the Hutu government slaughtered the Tutsis. Lastly, they discussed the genocide in Darfur with the former top UN official in Sudan, who wished the international community would have taken earlier steps to prevent the murdering of ethnic Africans by the Arab government and government-backed militias.

I tremendously enjoy these CNN specials and look forward to watching "Planet in Peril: Battle Lines," the network's sequel to last year's series, which will air on Thursday, Dec. 11.