I disagree with some of the following expressed opinions regarding Lt-Gen Romeo Dallaire:
Anyone care to weigh in regarding Dallaire?
Anyone care to weigh in regarding Dallaire?
Lieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire
- Thread starter earth_as_one
- Start date
According to two people I know that were posted there Dallaire could not get authorization from his masters in Ottawa to shoot anyone. BTW both suffer from serious PTSD.
Dallaire used the Belgians because they were the best trained troops at his disposal.. However, the Belgians were slaughtered when they naively lay down their weapons when promised that they would not be harmed.
Didn't Dallaire order them to lay down their weapons? Did Dallaire knowingly send the Belgians off to slaughter rather than risk Canadian lives as ES states above? Was Dallaire was responsible for their deaths?
Does Dallaire's actions during the Rwanda mission reflect poorly on Canada's armed forces and Canada itself as BruSan implies in his post above?
I guess what I am asking is do Canadians blame Dallaire for the deaths of the Belgian peacekeepers or any of the 800,000 deaths during the Rwandan genocide? Should Dallaire have a guilty conscience? Does a guilty conscience explain his personal problems following this deployment?
Does Dallaire's actions during the Rwanda mission reflect poorly on Canada's armed forces and Canada itself as BruSan implies in his post above?
I guess what I am asking is do Canadians blame Dallaire for the deaths of the Belgian peacekeepers or any of the 800,000 deaths during the Rwandan genocide? Should Dallaire have a guilty conscience? Does a guilty conscience explain his personal problems following this deployment?
I'd say "no" to all of those questions except the last one. A lot of people tend to have guilty consciences even when they haven't actually done anything wrong.
Firstly - you are trolling.
Next you should have researched things a tad
Dalaire's 2 Superiors at the UN that put up road blocks - 1 went on to become the Canadian CDS - 2 the other was Kofi Annan.
A large number of Politicans in a number of countries did squat.
Same thing happened with the Former Yugoslavia
You should have researched a tad and put more links to the atrocities.
But that was not your goal. It was to slam ES.
But that is typical for you.
Dallaire knew who to obey, and why. Africom was build body by body, lie by lie, murder after murder. It was always too important to leave to the natives.
Lt-Gen Dallaire is our most famous or infamous Peacekeeper. I'm surprised Canadians know or care so little about Dallaire. His best known mission was the part he played during the Rwandan Genocide.
In late 1993, Dallaire received his commission as the Force Commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda. Rwanda was in the middle of a genocide of the tutsi people. Brought on by the Hutu. UNAMIR's goal was to assist in the implementation of the Arusha Accords. The Hutus worked through the Rwandan army and then-president of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, and the Tutsis through the rebel commander Paul Kagame, who is the president of Rwanda today. When Dallaire arrived in Rwanda, his mandate was to supervise the implementation of the Accords during a transitional period in which Tutsis were supposed to be given positions of power within the Hutu government.
Awards:
In 1996, Dallaire was made an Officer of the Legion of Merit of the United States, the highest military decoration available for award to foreigners, for his service in Rwanda. Dallaire was also awarded the inaugural Aegis Trust Award in 2002, and on October 10 of the same year, he was inducted as an Officer in the Order of Canada.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's The Greatest Canadian program saw Dallaire voted, in 16th place, as the highest rated military figure. Several months after the broadcast, on March 9, 2005, Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson awarded Dallaire with the 25th Pearson Medal of Peace. On October 11, 2006, the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs at the University of California, Irvine awarded Dallaire with the 2006 Human Security Award.
Dallaire has received honorary doctorates from a large number of Canadian and American universities. He received Doctor of Laws degrees from University of Saskatchewan, St. Thomas University, Boston College, the University of Calgary, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Athabasca University, Trent University, the University of Victoria, the University of Western Ontario, and Simon Fraser University, and an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the University of Lethbridge. On June 1, 2006, Romeo Dallaire was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters by the Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY) in recognition of his efforts in Rwanda and afterwards to speak out against genocide. He received an ovation from the crowd for his comment that "no human is more human than any other". Senator Dallaire was named a Fellow of the Ryerson Polytechnic University, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
His book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, was awarded the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2004.
Senator Dallaire was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2002, Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec in 2005. He was granted the inaugural Aegis Award for Genocide Prevention from the Aegis Trust (United Kingdom).
Dallaire was a recipient of the Vimy Award.
As part of the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the founding of the Pugwash Peace Exchange, in 2007 General Dallaire accepted Sir Joseph Rotblat's Nobel Peace Prize.
There are elementary schools named after Dallaire in Winnipeg, Manitoba[19] and Ajax, Ontario as well as a French High school in Barrie, Ontario. Also, a street is named after him in the Lincoln Park neighbourhood of Calgary, Alberta.
Movies:
"The Last Just Man" chronicles the Rwandan genocide and features interviews with Dallaire, Brent Beardsley, and others involved in the events that happened in Rwanda.
"Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire" Inspired by the book and nominated for two Sundance Film Festival Awards, winning the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for World Cinema - Documentary and a nomination for Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema - Documentary. The film aired on CBC on January 31, 2005.
In 2004, PBS Frontline featured a documentary named The Ghosts of Rwanda. In an interview conducted for the documentary and recorded over the course of four days in October 2003, Dallaire said: "Rwanda will never ever leave me. It's in the pores of my body. My soul is in those hills, my spirit is with the spirits of all those people who were slaughtered and killed that I know of, and many that I didn't know...."
The 2004 film Hotel Rwanda featured a Canadian Forces colonel assigned to UN peacekeeping based on Dallaire, played by Nick Nolte. Dallaire is quoted as saying that neither the producer, nor Nolte himself, consulted with him before shooting the film. He said further that he did not agree with Nolte's portrayal, but did think that the film was "okay."
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No $hit Sherlock. What an amzing deduction. Was the clue my references to his post at the opening of this thread?
Another goal is to determine if any Canadians will defend or at least express an opinion regarding Lt-Gen Dallaire?
Let me put it in context. It was a cut and paste from a thread about the US soldier who allegedly went AWOL in the middle of the night to gun down unarmed civilians. He killed innocent men, women and children including babies. ES and others intimated that this person isn't that different than Dallaire.
I disagree.
New paint, fat tires, loud mufflers racing stripes and a busty blond up front, you can make a poorly used vehicle look like the real deal. Some Africans said whomever was guarding the airport and the presidents plane were ordered to stand down to facilitate his assasination. Anyway Washingtons US military trained African got the office shortly later and everything has been peachy since.
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Not doing too well are you? In the slamming part.
No no no... you're fiiiibbiiiing! (said as one would speak to a pouting child)
I did not compare the US Soldier to Dellaire at all. Please show me where.
Funny how you have to lie...just because you got fed your own medicine.
What I was saying was... everyone has bloody hands. Canadians included. You all aren't simply angels of mercy and above it all. There are plenty of atrocities and military incompetence over seas for both countries. It was a fellow countryman of yours that brought up Dellaire.
Then if you respect Dallaire - you should have posted proper links so people could see what, when where and how the whole world stood by and did nothing.
Told the complete story - But that is not you.
So your respect of this man is as usual highly suspect
Your Thread is just for trolling purposes.
Now back under the bridge Buckey. Back I say.
The problems are many it appears, first Canadian authorities at the time would not give him
permission to shoot anyone? In a war zone no less. The UN is such an upstanding group,
they will show up and sit there in insufficient numbers while the killing goes on.
Dallaire didn't have many options, he used the best troops at hand, there would be little point
in sending troops not sufficiently trained, and by the way why would supposedly untrained or
unsuitable troops be in a war zone?
Dallaire is a scapegoat for the UN, for Canadian politicians and even the military. What they
should have done was opened up on the savages committing murder. Oh I forgot even the
entire UN force was under manned. I think we as an international society must understand,
when we send people in to keep the peace, we need to send sufficient numbers, we need to
send well equipped and trained troops and we need to give them the freedom to act in these
difficult situations. Yes if they see large groups just killing people they should have the right
to fire on them to rescue those being murdered. Peace keeping is not just smiling at everyone
and giving them chocolate, its about protecting the most vulnerable and sometimes that means
being in conflict.
Why the hell do we have peace keepers under UN Command if they are not allowed to engage
in keeping the peace? If it was you in that position what would you have done? Its fine to be
critical but when given the circumstances what would you have done. Most of us would have
been discovered because the enemy could hear our knees knocking together.
permission to shoot anyone? In a war zone no less. The UN is such an upstanding group,
they will show up and sit there in insufficient numbers while the killing goes on.
Dallaire didn't have many options, he used the best troops at hand, there would be little point
in sending troops not sufficiently trained, and by the way why would supposedly untrained or
unsuitable troops be in a war zone?
Dallaire is a scapegoat for the UN, for Canadian politicians and even the military. What they
should have done was opened up on the savages committing murder. Oh I forgot even the
entire UN force was under manned. I think we as an international society must understand,
when we send people in to keep the peace, we need to send sufficient numbers, we need to
send well equipped and trained troops and we need to give them the freedom to act in these
difficult situations. Yes if they see large groups just killing people they should have the right
to fire on them to rescue those being murdered. Peace keeping is not just smiling at everyone
and giving them chocolate, its about protecting the most vulnerable and sometimes that means
being in conflict.
Why the hell do we have peace keepers under UN Command if they are not allowed to engage
in keeping the peace? If it was you in that position what would you have done? Its fine to be
critical but when given the circumstances what would you have done. Most of us would have
been discovered because the enemy could hear our knees knocking together.
Are you trying to tell me that the Canadian and Belgians in the UN Force were not trained? That the Rwandans were better?
If the order was givien the Canadian forces at whatever number would have tooled everyone in their front... just as the Belgians would have.
You just need the b***s to do it.
THEN Dellaire would have been a hero.
And if you don't have "permission" and take the initiative not a word would have been said. The Rwandan Army would have been busy ducking than hacking.
You cut yourself too short. Why do you think the enemy would be fearless and you would have your knees knock in fear?
I said:
"ES and others intimated that this person isn't that different than Dallaire."
Yes it was:
And you added:
Implying Dallaire sent the Belgians off to be slaughtered.
I agree, ES is winning this debate regarding Dallaire's character and actions so far.