Political Assassination: History Forever Changed

President Anwar al Sadat of Egypt was the first Arab leader to set foot on Israeli soil. He made an historic speech in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, and offered peace to the Arab's long standing enemy. But the Islamic brotherhood "Gamat Islamaya" saw him as a traitor. Carrying the Koran along with their automatic weapons they murder him during a military parade in 1981. What could have been?

Mahatma "High-souled" Gandhi was one of the world's greatest civil rights leaders. He won independence from Britain for India and Pakistan by non-violent means. Yet he died by violent means, gunned down by Nathuram Godse who felt Gandhi gave too much to Pakistan. Strained relations between India and Pakistan, Hindu and Muslim, remains. War a constant threat.

In 1973 General Pinochet leads a military coup d'etat against democratically elected President Salvador Allende. He refuses to negotiate and addresses the Chilean people one last time. When the air force starts bombing the Presidential Palace, he tells his supporters to surrender, and refusing this choice for himself, commits suicide. Includes interviews with friends and guards who were present.

In 1968 Martin Luther King was at the height of his popularity. He had mobilized the black masses of America against apartheid and won Civil Rights concessions. But Lyndon B. Johnson and the FBI turned out to be his enemy. MLK was assassinated with a perfect shot. The search immediately centered on James Earl Ray, an escaped prisoner. But there are many that insist Ray was just the fall-guy.

Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the newly independent Congo, was a hero to his fellow Africans but a communist threat to the West. Within months of becoming Prime Minister, Lumumba was ousted in a military coup, inspired by the West. Patrice Lumumba was killed by members of the Belgian Secret Service. Desire Mobutu would become Congo's military dictator for the next thirty years.

For twenty-five years, to "save the country from communism", French authorities committed horrible war crimes: more than 300,000 people were deported, tortured and executed. Felix Moumie, anti-colonialist, had to disappear and his movement had to be eliminated, at any price. This documentary looks critically at France's dirty war in Cameroon as well as the reaction to Moumie's death by poison.

It was 1968 and senator Bobby Kennedy was running for President of the United States. The people adored him, but the political establishment and big business saw him as a threat. He championed the poor and wanted America out of the Vietnam War. While at the Ambassador Hotel, Arab immigrant Sirhan Sirhan shot him down. It's believed to be the 1st terrorism stemming from the Arab Israeli conflict.

For many years Roberto Calvi was the Vatican front man in a secret operation to transfer money to Poland, supporting the Solidarity trade union in its anti-communist uprising. But suddenly a tax inspection revealed a huge hole in Calvi's accounts. Before he could tell his side of the story he was found hanging beneath the arches of Blackfriars Bridge in London. What would have been revealed?

Lord Mountbatten, cousin to the Queen of England, celebrated navel hero, last Viceroy of India, the man who supported Mahatma Gandhi's bid for independence. The Irish Republican Army wanted Britain out of Northern Ireland. Mountbatten's boat was blown to pieces by an IRA bomb, killing him and three others. The IRA then killed 18 British soldiers on what would later become known as Bloody Monday.

During the Cold War, the power blocs of the East and West vied to control the vast mineral resources of the former Belgian colony, the Congo. The KGB supported the central government while the CIA installed a puppet President in the south. The Swedish Secretary General of the United Nations for the first time engaged blue helmeted UN troops. Then his plane crashed in mysterious circumstances.

A true man of the people, Sweden's Prime Minister, Olof Plame, was as uncompromising with the White House as he was with the Kremlin. At exactly 11:21 pm, in the heart of Stockholm, Palme was shot dead as he walked home without bodyguards, as was his habit. Today the murder remains unexplained. The police investigation has followed all leads: CIA, KGB, and far-right international organizations.

Burkina Faso, Africa, October 15, 1987. Automatic gunfire breaks the evening's silence and kills President Thomas Sankara. Sankara had lost all sense of reality and was leading the Revolution into chaos. It needed to be "rectified". But who really was behind his "rectification" and why? Dark forces from France, the former colonial power, envying neighbor states, wealthy business interests?

In April 9, 1948, despite strong social tensions, US general Marshall opens the 9th Pan-American conference in Colombia's capital Bogota. Jorge Gaitan, the popular opposition leader and fierce opponent to the Colombian oligarchy, is shot dead. The aftermath? Two days of riots that left 5,000 dead and a guerrilla war with FARC only now just ending. History forever changed.

Pim Fortuyn was a political outsider and reformist poised to be the next Prime Minister of Holland when on May 6, 2002 he was gunned down in the street. Today there is still unease that the killing may not simply have been the act of a lone gunman, but that he had responded to the climate of hate whipped up by the political establishment who were reluctant to give up their long-held grip on power.

Since its independence in 1947, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has been torn between civil rule and military dictatorship. The first civilian to take power was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto but just six years later he was hanged. His daughter Benazir ultimately became Prime Minister only to be exiled. With support from Washington, she returns to Pakistan but this time she doesn't make it out alive.

Son of a peasant worker, Rafic Hairiri built an immense empire. He served twice as Prime Minister of Lebanon, resigning during the second stint to protest the overpowering influence of the Syrian government on his country. Sadly, a car bomb killed "Mr. Lebanon" and many other people. Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah are suspected but not proven, marking the beginning of the Cedar Revolution.

In 2003, an explosion destroyed the UN peace mission headquarters in Baghdad, causing mass carnage. No one expected this. Were they not the very people attempting to return sovereignty of Iraq to its people? Did terrorists ignore reality? This compelling documentary looks at the events as they unfold and invites us to reflect upon the roles that UN can, and should, play in today's world politics.

As in the case of MLK and Gandhi, Malcolm X will remain in the pantheon of the civil rights movement. And like them, he was assassinated. Shot dead in the presence of his wife and children. His killers were defenders of the "Nation of Islam," but who the commissioners were, has never been established. This is an introspective look at Mr. Little's contributions and contradictions.

Matthew Goniwe was a leading opponent of South Africa's separatist Apartheid policies. His brutal murder by security forces signaled the beginning of the end of the racist ruling regime and helped pave the way for the election of Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first democratic president. This documentary allows viewers to perceive the oppression of Apartheid and how it broke the lives of many.