I came across this
article about UVic conferring an honourary degree to Lt.Gen Romeo Dallaire.
For those who don't know, Romeo Dallaire was the commander of the UN peacekeepers in Rwanda. The
wikipedia and the
CBC has pretty good write ups about this. This is the man who saw the Rwandan genocide start, and he asked the UN for reinforcements. Instead of immediately sending resources and troops, the UN withdrew a large number of its forces.
From the Wikipedia:
This was the starting point of the Rwandan Genocide. Dallaire ordered ten Belgian soldiers (whom he considered his best men) to protect the new prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana. The soldiers were intercepted by Hutu extremists and taken hostage, after which Madame Agathe and her husband were killed. Later that day, the Belgian soldiers were found brutally murdered. Belgium was outraged that Dallaire had put its soldiers in such danger, and promptly withdrew its forces.
Seeing the situation in Rwanda deteriorating rapidly, Dallaire pleaded for logistical support and reinforcements of 2,000 soldiers for UNAMIR. The UN Security Council refused, several journalists laying blame on a gunshy US President Bill Clinton's administration which refused to provide requested material aid after the failed US efforts in Mogadishu, Somalia. The Security Council further voted to reduce UNAMIR down to 260 men.
Following the Belgian withdrawal, Dallaire consolidated his contingent of Canadian, Ghanian, and Dutch soldiers in urban areas and focused on providing areas of 'safe control'. His actions are credited with directly saving the lives of 20,000 Tutsis. There is speculation that Dallaire's forces deliberately sabotaged equipment to slow their UN-mandated withdrawal from the combat zone.
As the massacre progressed, the UN Security Council backtracked on its position and voted to establish UNAMIR II with a strength of 5,500 men. Several French and UNAMIR II contingents started arriving in Rwanda in June 1994.
The genocide, now known to have been brutally and efficiently organized months before, lasted for 100 days, leading to some 936,000 deaths, and over two million people being displaced internally or in neighbouring countries.
Rwanda is probably one of the West's greatest failures, as it could have prevented it. But countries were not willing to sacrifice their sons and daughters as there was no strategic importance in Rwanda. This is the day that the world lost faith in the peacekeepers of the West.
In either case, this is one of the reasons why I am very skeptical of the UN. Even now, a smaller scale genocide is happening in
Darfur, and the UN is doing the same thing. They're saying genocide isn't happening. In the event that the UN declares that genocide is happening, its member states are obligated (by treaty) to intervene. Instead, the UN has said that massacres have occured in Darfur, where over 180,000 people have died, and 2 million people have been forced out of their homes. Why do we stand idle while politicians argue over semantics of whether this is technically genocide or not?
I think the best quote I heard about Darfur was this, "Why must we wait until the movie Hotel Darfur to come out before the West will start caring about Darfur?" This is a reference to a movie that recently came out called
Hotel Rwanda which covers the genocide. I'll cover Darfur in detail another day.
In either case, I applaud Romeo Dallaire for fighting to save people in Rwanda even when it was against orders. Thank you for representing Canada overseas. You deserve that honourary degree Mr. Dallaire.
