Canadian retired Lt Gen Romeo Dallaire will today deliver a lecture on peacekeeping at Rwanda Peace Academy (RPA) in Musanze District. Gen. Romeo Dellaire. Dallaire, who is a retired member of the Canadian senate, was in Rwanda two decades ago where he led a peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (Unamir), and is credited with having made several attempts to have the mission empowered to stop the Genocide in 1994. According to a statement signed by Col Jill Rutaremara, the director of the academy, Dallaire’s lecture will be under the theme, “Contemporary Peacekeeping Operations: Challenges, Prospects and Lessons Learnt.” “It will be delivered to students of the Rwanda Defence Forces Command and Staff College, Senior Command and Staff Course 03 - 2014/2015 at Rwanda Peace Academy,” the statement reads in part. In addition to being a regional peacekeeping training institution, the RPA that is collocated with the Rwanda Defence Force Command and Staff College trains the students of the Senior Course of RDFCSC in the area of Peace Support Operations (PSO). Rutaremara said the academy has in the past partnered with the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers’ Initiative to conduct regional courses on the “Prevention of Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Armed Conflicts.” While in Rwanda, Dallaire will meet some government and military officials. He will also visit Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre, Gisozi, as well as the RDF Command and Staff College. The retired General is in the country at the invitation of the Ministry of Defence. Dallaire’s cables to his superiors at the UN headquarters in New York requesting for reinforcement in terms of personnel and equipment, as well as a combat mandate of Unamir to be able to contain the Genocide, went unheeded and was forced to look on as over a million Rwandans were killed. He recounts much of his experience in Rwanda in his book, Shake Hands with the Devil. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
