Bah

"Then, launching into utopian hyperbole, he mused: "You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken.""

So he admits that politicians only need to take action after enough people piss and moan about it?

What about taking action because millions of people are dying not taking action because people are moaning about people dying?

Bah and bah again, comments like this cement my contempt of politics and politicians.

what a prize arse

Twittering would stop a genocide?

Yes, and if Anne Frank had sent text messages instead of scribbing in her diary, it would stopped the holocaust.

(so long as she remembered to set her 'phone to silent)

Disgusting

The only thing Twitter makes impossible is for tedious nerds in trendy thick-framed black glasses to shut up about what pathetic non-function they are currently creating by mashing up Google Maps and Starbucks.

Transparently bullshit, ...

... because everyone did know exactly what was going on and nobody did anything about it. (Except for the Belgian UN contingent, whose response was to leg it.)

What a pillock

Mine's the one with the phone in the pocket which most definitely does not have Twitter in it's browser history.

Way too scary to be funny

>>"You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly

>> about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where

>> action would need to be taken."

Ye olde 'wir haben es nicht gewußt'-defense.

(And here I was thinking that it was lack of political decisiveness rather than lack of information, that let that situation get as far out of hand as it did.)

I may be sounding old, but I don't think you should joke about things like that. And mister PM's statement is so far removed from anything remotely having to do with reality, that I can only classify it as absurdistic. Perhaps not a joke per se, but maybe it's inbred cousin. You know, the one who believes things when he reads them on Wikipedia. He may not be joking, but you can't take him serious either.

Twitter as a news outlet, ready to shape the Foreign Policies of tomorrow. Oh boy... we're in for it now.

Mine is the one with the 'How to survive a Nuclear Totalkrieg' in the pocket. [SPOILER WARNING] You don't.

ID cards

Would this counter the effect of the ID cards Rwandans were forced to have - the cards that made genocide as easy as setting up a checkpoint?

It couldn't happen here, though. We're civilised, I'm told.

Other uses of tech that could change history

Like maybe putting MPs expense claims on a Sharepoint site?

Incorrect

Rwanda happened unchecked because the UN and it's members decided to do nothing. The beginning and course of the Rwandan genocide were widely reported at the time in mainstream media in Canada and the USA - I assume also in Europe.

Further, Romeo D'Allaire, the general commanding the pittance of a peace keeping force in Rwanda held press conferences several times, and spoke to the CBC radio show 'As It Happens' several times in an effort to push the UN & co to give him proper support. 'As It Happens' is a very widely listened to news show in Canada, it airs in prime time (6:30PM and 8:00PM).

The world knew all about Rwanda, the world just did not care.

The PM seems ontrack to me

The thing is that stuff like murder, genocide, horrible abuse(s) ... tend to foster and ferment where there is no flow of information to the public at large.

Yes, such info might be available to governments (John Major anyone?) but by having similar info available to public by the public it sort of bypasses political ineptitudes.

No.

It would just make it different.

Just like if we had sent Terminators and Sarah Connor.

Gee Whizz...

...If you ever wanted evidence that this man lives in La La Land, here it is.

If Twitter were around at this time, the only thing it would have done is made the pain of knowing that Western Governments chose to ignore the mass-murder that was occurring, all the more difficult for those with a conscience to swallow.

Twit off Gordon

So if we all Twitter "Gordon Must Call a General Election Now!" will it work!

Will Gordon listen?

Burn in Hull

No worse place to be.

Dear Reg Editors

This article is insipid and extremely insulting - by running it, you're making light of the deaths of 800,000 people. I don't think you'd have quite the same attitude in running it if it were 800,000 Britons that were killed. It doesn't matter that someone else said it, you shouldn't lend any credence to it by running it. Simple as that.

@iamapizza

Avoiding history because someone might be offended ensures that history is forgotten even faster. You should be offended at the man they're quoting, not El Reg for writing a story about it.

Think I just stepped into the twilight zone

If this halfwit gets any further from reality he will be in a completely different dimension.

The UK Gov knew exactly what was happening in Rwanda they chose to do fuck all about it because there was nothing in it for them. The only reason they marched into Iraq is because the country floats on oil, and Tony was so far up George’s arse you could only see his feet, WMD’s my arse. What about the atrocity’s in North Korea? Don’t see him doing anything about that do we?

I wonder how many African friends he has tweeting him.

Pull your finger from up your arse Gordon and stop talking like a fucking idiot. Who advises this man before he opens his trap and sticks his foot in it once again. Invest some of the money you are planning to spend on the national database and use to get some decent intelligence you fukwit.

Excellent..

So next time, instead of huge protests, we should all twitter to stop the tw*ts in charge from taking us into a pointless and ill conceived war. Gotcha Gordy. How about a myspace page for constitutional reforms too.

Someone please take his internet away before he hurts himself.

Burning in hell

"So if we all Twitter "Gordon Must Call a General Election Now!" will it work!

Will Gordon listen?

Burn in Hull

No worse place to be."

I don´t knoe the UK seems a bit worse than hell these days.... after all its full of englishmen and Phorm...

Gordo and History

So, Gordo thinks that all he has to do is wait until public opinion is so overwhelming before he sets up a Committee to enquire into the feasibility of putting together a Court of Public Opinion that will then do its work in private and publish the results on a Bank holiday Friday in the middle of summer.

The idiot wants to go back to teaching, let him, as soon as possible.

His degree is in history, so presumably he'll teach that.

Oh wait...........

What might have been.

J.C. released from custody (filed 21/4/0031)

Today in Jerusalem, Jesus Christ (31) was released from custody. Significant speculation that he was to be crucified for his work in undermining the Roman government led to a mass Twitter campaign for his release. The Roman authorities bowed to the vox pop and eventually released him on license, with the condition that he returns to Nazareth and refrains from any overt miracle working.

The Roman Governor (P.Pilate - 57) said in a tweet today: "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy"....

Aaaaargggh!

Sorry, but this kind of nonsense just makes my blood boil.

I was driving my car on a French motorway when the news broke of the 'clashes' in Rwanda. This mainly focused on evacuations of French citizens, but did report the violence in the streets.

It took 7 weeks before the Western governments decided to react.

Don't even get me started on Darfour.

The comments of GB are an insult to every aid worker and journalist who has risked their own skin to witness and publish news of atrocities as they unfold.

Idiot.

Oh sweet irony...

Of course, the brutal Rwandan massacre was only quite as efficient as it was thanks to the ID cards the citizens were obliged to carry at the time.

70,000 dead.