The Empire in Africa
Located in Western Africa, Sierra Leone is a nation caught in a struggle between extreme poverty and extreme wealth; while diamond mining provides the bulk of the country's income, most of its people struggle to survive by raising their own crops.
In 1991, a civil war broke out in Sierra Leone, with a rebel group called the Revolutionary United Front taking on government forces in a bid for a more just economy and an end to hunger.
However, the forces behind Sierra Leone's mining interests were more interested in protecting their investments than changing the economy, and both the nation's military and the RUF fell into indiscriminate violence against all parties involved.
In all, 70,000 people lost their lives in the nearly 15 years of fighting, while millions lost their homes and many thousands were maimed.
Filmmaker Philippe Diaz took a camera crew into Sierra Leone in the midst of the fighting to document the bloodshed and tell the story behind the brutality;
The Empire in Africa is the result, which incorporates interviews with politicians and military figures with footage of the mayhem. The Empire in Africa received its North American premiere at the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival.
Thank God for the Internet we know that these things are happening. From Kowledge to action. What is being done about this brutality? Makes me sick. Worst" man's inhumanity to man" I've ever seen. GOD and whoever else has Power, Do Something about this situation and, as someone above said, before it happens to all of us. The Powerful would like that.
After this documentary, the concept of morality, mercy and the beauty in humanity as God's creation is forever distorted in my heart. Only God, the almighty will bring justice to these people. I am appalled by the international community as a whole, and ashamed to be part of the human creation as of this moment.
My goodness, was this documentaries hard to stomach.
It is unnatural to say how saddening this situation is a whole, not just for Sierra Leone, but for the rest of humanity this is not the only country suffering and getting sucked dry by the imperial society in the world. Unfortunately for all of us we too are part of this problem, while we sit back in commercial america, enjoying our gluttony and imaginary illusions of beauty, success and power...we the suckers. We add to the fact that we are buying products exported from those countries to us, buying the american dream...that are the exploitation of other human beings.
The necessity for morality has been far gone shot, our depravation as a society who live for more wealthy than 80% percent of the world, we sit and complain about how wrong our false expectations and needs are not being met in this country. How I don't have the best car, or the best house or the best mate...falling into the pit fall medication that is slowly but surely killing the inside, hence-fore rotting our core as individuals resulting in the antithesis of what God intended for us in in the beginning. We are to far gone in our rebellion, sheep gone stray by our own illusions...buying into our own self worship. All these destructive "ME" mentality, people as a whole are beautiful creations of the Almighty, it is our responsibility to die to ourselves and think about others for once. This endless cycle of destruction will not end until the day comes, that day we will all see our foolishness, that day when the Lord comes back.
Europeans and their puppets in African governments shall one day pay for all the sins they have committed to Africans.
How can I find out what happened to that poor little boy who was stripped and tortured on the back of the truck? That image will haunt me for the rest of my life. As I watched, my entire body began to tremble, my heart started racing, and I broke down sobbing. I could actually feel this sweet boy's terror. I wish I could reach out to him.
I lived in Sierra Leone between 1990 and 1995 and watching this documentary is truely heart wrenching. Such a beautiful country with beautiful people devastated the way it has been. Unfortunately, the events of the civil war haven't had deserved media attention with most people not even knowing that Sierra leone exists as a country. We need to let this war and the others that have pre and proceeded it be a lesson to humanity. I fear, however, that human greed will prevail resulting in further bloodshed in the world.
UN is nothing but a tool for further eneslaving poor and less fortunate and plundering the resources of this planet for rich to live luxurious lives in this world. the hell with UN.
this planet must be annihilated though guilty and innocent both go, but unfortunately, that's the only solution to these atrocities since GREEDY elite will never give up and poor is kept poor and powerless for ever. so, i hope the next coming asteroid towards us is about the size of the moon and comes head on to collision with Earth; and then may be after another million years or so a brand new planet is born and there come decent humans to live on it.
us europeans have robbed most of the the world...
This is a slightly disingenuous documentary which seems to concentrate on atrocities committed by ECOMOG - & they certainly did commit atrocities - while virtually skipping over the far more extensive atrocities of the RUF & their cohorts.Foday Sankoh was a pretty barbaric individual who continually breached agreements he signed & kept the conflict going - again something one would never glean from this documentary.By stating that Sankoh died of 'unknown causes' may play well to the conspiracy concept - but he in fact died of complications following a stroke.
At one moment one man says in the film''I dont know what is the Government'' why don't they just live us alone. Life is very hard as it is but imagine that people from another part of the world take advantage of you for their own interest and this is taking place over large periods of time since the colonies first enslaved the people from these land. Imagine that those who have interest have absolutely no respect for human life as you can see from the brutal crimes and tortures they inflict on other human beings who have the ability to love, fell pain and have dreams. These people live among us and control our lives, if we are at their mercy there will be the end for us.
By the 53rd minute, I couldn't watch this doc any more.
I have known about the conditions in Sierre Leon for many years, but that didn't make the brutal images any easier to watch.
There is a continual mish-mash of who did what to whom and which group did what,
It all boiled down to the haves and the have nots; the continual interference of the UN and the UK and Nigeria; the Junta and the RUF;
and the ensuing misery and suffering of the civilians who got in the way.
So, so sad.
No end in sight till everyone's dead and the rich and powerful governments pave the way for the industrialists to take whatever mines are left.
I don't recommend this doc if you're already feeling depressed!
amazed by all the ignorant ppl commenting on this doc...THIS is the product of political decisions made under the UN flag, NOT the different tribes in sierra leone!
united nations my ass...
I could not watch this. I think there is a line between evoking empathy and bludgeoning the viewer into outright horror, and this documentary despite its merits crosses well over that line. I had to turn it off in tears. What a mess we have made of ourselves. How can we answer to it?
Harrowing relistic movie depicting a nation in crisis, hope we would learn a hard lesson from it as a prize for democracy.
this is very graphic. the warning at the top doesn't say enough.
some of the most disturbing scenes are trumped by the scenes of the UN representatives calmly reading prepared statements word for word with no emotion. ******* disgusting.
Having said that, do not take everything you gleam from the film as fact. The muddled narrative and gratuitous shots take a lot away from the message (which itself seems fairly subjective). Read as much as possible about Sierra Leone before you watch this film and judge appropriately.
WARNING: this is very very very graphic. Like...people being shot from close range, vultures picking at corpses, bodies still smoldering and aflame, children being beaten and tortured. There are no 'feel good' moments, this is devastating and haunting.
The documentary was so informative. I’m ashamed to be a human being. My heart goes out to all of the innocent people being treated as they do. That poor child in the back of the truck shocked me more than anything, He was probable tortured and killed. What upsets me just as much is my own government contributed to these atrocities all for the sake of MONEY. More people need to see this sort of thing, the more public it becomes the more governments will have to do something… So so sad world we live in.
This really makes me so sad/mad and disappointed in the humanity of people...The Profit motive is destroying Africa and all other countries, though faster in Africa...The true extent of UN atrocity's is probably more far reaching then I can even imagine in my wildest dreams...
If he's in the army, he only appears to be saying 'there is someone else thinking in there'.
Wow!!! very good documentary.
"International laws are enforced only when they serve the interests of International Power".
Too many economic interests.
There is so much information as to the causes of these conflicts (politics, economy, greed, resources, straight up evil etc) that it makes your head spin how whatever it is gets so out of hand people end up killing one another, as shown graphically in this documentary. One thing I do know is you have to be one strong person to actually go there while this is going on let alone videotape it. I really didn't like when they stripped the kid naked in the back of the truck and beat him. Poor kid. I mean seriously, what the f--k.
I must be a total wuss, got to 30 minutes and had to stop. Another place we've stomped all over without a second thought and created so much ill feeling that the people war amongst themselves. The legacy of greed.
Hey KONY 2012 douchebags - this is a real documentary about the issues in Africa.
It's a little complex, no simple answers.
Watch and learn.
Still want to send guns to Africa?