By Jackie Bonasia
Roméo Dallaire is a peace hero by a variety of standards. He is not only a praised human rights advocate, but is a UN advisor, former Canadian Senator, and author. In terms of advocacy, Dallaire focuses on the prevention of mass atrocities and child soldiers. Dallaire is the founder of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldier’s Initiative. The mission of the foundation is to completely eradicate the recruitment and use of child soldiers (childsoldiers.org) because Dallaire believed strongly that, “Where you are born should not dictate your potential as a human being”.
Most notably in his career, General Dallaire was appointed Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda prior to and during the 1994 genocide. General Dallaire provided the United Nations with information about the planned massacre, but in the end, he could not prevent any casualties because permission to intervene was denied, which forced the UN to retract their peacekeeping systems. However, General Dallaire and other soldiers decided to disobey the command to withdraw and remained in Rwanda to protect those who sought refuge with the UN forces. His actions during the mission have been documented in films and books. Dallaire even has his own memoir: Shake Hands with the Devil: the Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2004 and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing awarded by the Writers’ Trust of Canada. It provided the basis for an Emmy Award-winning documentary as well as a major motion picture of the same name; and, has been entered into evidence in war crimes tribunals trying the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide (romeodallaire.com).