Retired Lieutenant-General, Quebec Senator, author and humanitarian Romeo Dallaire was in town for the Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide and took time to speak to the Tribune about the horrors of Rwanda and what we can do to stop genocide.
Given our history of failing to prevent genocide, what structural changes could be made to the world order, perhaps even to the United Nations, in order to efficiently stop them?
That is the essence of what we're working on. We have barely been able to handle the crises that we have faced. Either we didn't address them going in and let them kill each other or we mishandled it or we got in late, so we are a whole world apart yet from preventing these things from happening. [But] do we have anybody working on prevention?
In sovereign states, not just international agencies, we could always turn to [the North American Trade Organization] and say, "NATO, you go beat these guys up so they don't shoot each other. " Those are the lowest rung responses. It's all the other responses-the diplomatic, the economic, the cultural, the religious-that you need to meet at early stages to prevent them from creating friction which ultimately goes to conflict and genocide. It's in that area that we've got to do a lot more work by investing political capital, informing people-even 60 years after the Holocaust that's nearly new.
To what extent should Western arms dealers be held accountable for the scale of the violence in the region? For example, in your book, Shake Hands with the Devil, you recalled a Belgian soldier saying "business is business, and the business of Belgium is arms." How do you respond to this?
If you look at the arms industry in the developed world, first of all, the bulk of them are produced by the five permanent members of the Security Council. Ironic? Secondly, they all produce them through companies that are licensed, so these companies operate within the legal frameworks of their countries. By exception, you'll have a rogue outlet but the vast majority of the weapons are produced legally.
However, it's where they go after that: What is the follow through? For example an AK-47 is good for 100 years. However, when the military doesn't need them anymore after 20-25 years they ask, "What do we do with them? Do we destroy them or do we sell them to a country that doesn't have money for new weapons?"
Now there's a lot of effort that has been done for the reduction of the proliferation of small arms with the UN and other countries. However, we have not seen from the big countries the same desire that non-weapon producing countries-and Canada is a very small player in regards to producing weapons-but we are not seeing the will to bring in far more demanding regulations.
In your book, you often mention the United Nations. At one point, you referred to it as "swamped and sinking under the dead weight of useless political sinecures, indifference and procrastination." How has your opinion of the UN changed from before and after the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda?
Being seconded to it for a year, that gave me enormous insight to the organization and, watching it evolve since then, I would contend that the arguments I present in the book are far more focussed on the member states that make up the U.N. They actually use so much "double talk"-as an example, they'll give me a mandate with some tight milestones to go out and do my job, but the same countries are in the financial committee and they're saying we don't care, there's no money. So there are disconnects within the structure but the disconnects are not purely the internal workings of the UN created by the UN bureaucracy. It is created by the nation states, who fiddle and use it often to the UN's detrimentÂ-meaning they'll use it as a whipping horse or show that they are goodwill, but really, behind the scenes they don't really give a damn or they don't want to do it.
How can young Canadians help you in your post-Rwanda mission? And what can they do to convince parliament that action is needed in Darfur and future conflicts?
I don't think that the youth of the nation really realize the power they have. You can say, "I've got 40 per cent of the electoral possible votes which are not tapped into and I can move it towards you if you do this, this and that." If you don't get that sort of response, nothing precludes you from creating a party of your own. And with that amount of vote power, you could get that damn party in!
The political dimension of the democratic process is a critical component of it and there is an enormous amount of power in your hands to influence that and to influence your future five years down the road. If anybody wants to do anything in the areas I think about, look at nuclear disarmament, look at sexual exploitation of Aboriginal children and people, look at the Arctic. Pick a bunch of these things and say "Hey-that's achievable and we can do it." Secondly, one of the best instruments to harass the political structure is public opinion, yes, but also the NGO community. Help coalesce the NGO community into something that is more cohesive than all of the rest. So join it-with cash, brain power, boot power and mouth power and get out there. So ultimately what I'm saying is become activists. I mean, get out there.
-Compiled by Matt Campbell
and Alli MacIsaac
2008 Woodie Awards
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