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Posted April 10, 2006
MOVIE “GUN-RUNNER” VS REAL LIFE GUN-RUNNER
By Thomas Kai Toteh
Movies may be for the entertainment of a particular or a variety of
audiences, but the drama, in most movies portrays a situation or succession
of events in real life, which is intended for representation by actors
impersonating the characters and performing a dialogue action.
Lord of War is a movie that is thrilling to
many but troubling and stirring the bitterness of those who witnessed the
real events it portrays, and were and still victims of the situation the
movie tries to dramatize. The War of Lord is a movie of September 2005 in
which Nicolas Cage a.k.a. Yuri Orlov portrays a gun-runner who arms the
dictators, tyrants, and genocide perpetrators in Africa including Sierra
Leone and Liberia.
Though this movie is stunning
and entertaining, it may have the intent to enlighten or give a clear
picture of what is happening in African trouble countries and who are the
perpetrators. Lord of War is a story-telling perfection. The opening scene
depicts the life of a bullet, from its creation in the factory to the moment
it blasts through the head of a poor African child.
Some People who watch War of
Lord are only entertained and others are sorry for the sufferings of poor
Africans at the hands of wealth seekers who have no remorse and are
extremely insensitive to the incalculable disasters their actions may leave
behind. One viewer of War of Lord remarked, “This is a sad story to watch,
but it helps to tell us and the rest of the world what is really going over
there in Africa”
The movie which was filmed in
South Africa for its geographical setting for Liberia and the Sierra Leone
is based on the prevailing circumstances that the United Nations has been
struggling with since its formation in 1945. Gun-runners or arms traffickers
came into existence the day Europeans pulled out of Africa. Gun-runners are
today an open challenge to UN arms embargo (they are outwitting legal arms
export industry). The UN’s “hard to pin down” African Merchants of Death are
successful in Angola, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of
Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda,
Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Somalia, and the rest of African trouble spots.
Lord of War depicts how arms
are being traded to African war lords. But who are the real life
gun-runners? The United Nations knows who they are. UN knows who the
gun-runners are, where they come from and how they operate. In 2000, The
Guardian reported that UN named Victor Bout, a former KGB officer as a
millionaire gun-runner; he earned his name, “Africa’s Merchant of Death.”
Numerous articles and news were published about Victor Bout’s undermining
international sanctions by supplying arms for diamonds to rebels in Africa.
Where is Victor
Bout today? The multi-millionaire gun-runner and his collaborators are still
eluding the UN or are they significant contributors to other countries’
economies? Victor Bout, who operates a fleet of aircrafts around the world,
was in the news up to 2005, still active and defiant. LA Times reported
Victor Bout was last contacted in Moscow in 2004.
The United Nations war crime
tribunal had mad two fresh arrests: Former Yugoslavia leader, Slobodan
Milosevic who died in prison in Hague, and Liberia’s Charles Taylor for
crimes against humanity. The world at large burst out over the news of
Liberia’s and the world’s most feared warlord, Charles Taylor’s arrest. This
news received excitement because at least justice was rendered at last after
a long suffering.
But the questions today
remain: Where are the real life gun-runners? What country is harboring
Victor Bout and all the gun-runners? Where are they getting their arms from?
The answers to these questions would aid the UN and Interpol in bringing to
justice all those gun-runners in Europe to justice. The arrest of war lords
without the arrest of gun-runners does not achieve the resolve to end
warmongering.
For more information about
gun-runners, type as key words, Victor Bout in your search engine
About the author: Thomas Kai Toteh is a free lance
journalist and author of African Child: From Wizard to Refugee. He is
journalism major and minor in creative writing at the Old Dominion
University in Norfolk, VA. Prior to the civil war in, Toteh was a student
activist in Liberia. He can be contacted at
free3siblings@yahoo.com
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