With unprecedented access to the UN Department of Peacekeeping, “The Peacekeepers” provides an intimate and dramatic portrait of the struggle to save a failed state. We follow the determined and often desperate manoeuvres to avert another Rwandan disaster, this time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We are with the peacekeepers in the “crisis room” as they balance the risk of loss of life on the ground with the enormous sums of money required from uncertain donor countries. And we are with the UN troops as the northeast Congo erupts and the future of the DRC, if not all of Central Africa, hangs in the balance.
“The Peacekeepers” is an honest and sometimes painful look at just how difficult peacekeeping is today.
The film was followed by a discussion with Bernard Miyet, Under-Secretary-General for UN Peacekeeping Operations 1997-2000.