Dallaire in Rwanda

In 1994, the world stood by and watched the worst act of genocide since the Holocaust. Hutu militias in Rwanda armed with machetes raped and murdered approximately 800,000 Tutsis in just 100 days, while an impotent UN peacekeeping force stood by, forbidden from intervening by the UN Security Council--and by the United States in particular. The memory of 18 dead Rangers in Somalia still haunted the US foreign policy establishment. It was also an election year.

The videos from this time period are profoundly disturbing. Rivers literally flow red with dismembered bodies. Tutsi refugees beg UN troops to shoot them, so they won't die by machete when the UN withdraws. Churches are filled with the corpses of Tutsis betrayed to the militias by their own priests. French, Belgian and US troops evacuate sobbing white people from their respective embassies, while abandoned Rwandan staff look helplessly on. US spokespeople hold press conferences, where they trip over themselves to avoid the word "genocide" so they won't invoke international law that demands a response.

I distinctly remember the day I first learned about the genocide, watching a video in a Political Science class at the Air Force Academy. That hour was life-changing. Rwanda has stayed with me, haunting me, driving me, ever since. I've spent thousands of hours studying the genocide, reading about it, and writing a novel based loosely on those events. The Rwandan Genocide has become a part of me. When I grow weary of the grueling deployment rates my military career demands, when I sicken at the ugliness and horror and cynicism of war and realpolitik, when I desire nothing more than to get out of the service and buy a quiet cabin somewhere--Rwanda is one of the things that drives me on. I cling to the stubborn belief that, although military force is often abused, there are times when it is necessary to preserve life. Nowhere was that more true than in Rwanda. I care so much about "small wars", stability operations, and institutional capacity to build security, because I want to make sure we have the tools to prevent such atrocities in the future.

A handful of heroes have emerged from Rwanda. My personal favorite--a man I will strive to follow my entire life--is Canadian Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire. He was the UNAMIR Force Commander in 1994. Despite his nonintervention orders by his UN superiors and an appalling lack of support from the international community, he fought relentlessly to protect innocent lives in Rwanda, stop the killing, and alert the world to the reality of genocide. He begged for the intervention force of just 5,000 troops to stop the killing. At one point, he disobeyed orders to withdraw--a decision that saved thousands of lives. The institutions General Dallaire served failed both him and Rwanda badly, but he stretched his scant resources and authority as far as they would go to protect the innocent.

Dallaire's efforts came at an extraordinary personal price; the horrors he'd witnessed drove him through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and eventually to a suicide attempt. Thank God he failed. During his recovery, he found new purpose in writing his story--which became the book Shake Hands with the Devil. The book spent more than 135 weeks on the Canadian bestseller list. Later Dallaire became a Canadian senator, and now advocates for conflict resolution and genocide prevention and against the use of child soldiers in war.

In 2007, a feature film was released, based on Dallaire's book. It stars Roy Dupuis as General Dallaire. The movie garnered almost no attention in the US--I didn't even know it existed, until googling Dallaire's name one day--but it is fantastic. The film shows the Rwandan genocide as Dallaire saw it--caught at the cruel intersection between the people of Rwanda, Hutu leaders and Tutsi rebels, and a monstrous international bureaucracy.

The film is hard to find. You won't find it in your local movie rental store or on Netflix, and Amazon.com does not sell it directly, but I was able to find a copy through one of Amazon's affiliated vendors. Anyone with an interest in genocide or peacekeeping should watch the film. The book is excellent too--required reading for anyone wanting a look inside a UN peacekeeping operation.