Keep Genocide memory alive, says Gen Dallaire

The former head of a peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, Lt Gen (Rtd) Romeo Dallaire, yesterday said that no one in the world was interested in stopping the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, challenging Rwandans to keep the Genocide memory alive. The Canadian General, who witnessed the Genocide first hand in 1994, said this yesterday, after laying a wreath at Kigali Genocide Memorial, where he stated that the first important step is never to forget the tragedy that befell the country 21 years ago. He recalled how he struggled to convince the international community for reinforcement to put an end to the Genocide but to no avail. Instead the force was significantly scaled down at the height of the Genocide. “Stopping the Genocide was not seen as a priority, even though the world knew that this country was being wiped off the map under the watch of a UN peacekeeping mission,” Dallaire stated.The mandate for Rwandans, he said, is never to let the Genocide ‘disappear’. Never let this Genocide, that took lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent children and women, men and adults, be forgotten. So the mandate for the people of Rwanda, and the government is to make sure that the world never forgets.” “Now we look to human rights, desire for freedom, serenity and to achieve one’s ambition all over the countries in the world. Genocide is the history, in my opinion, that is alive, the ghosts here are saying ‘never forget’ which is the ambition that sacrifice for ‘Never Again”, he added. Dallaire on Monday delivered a lecture to military officers from around the region at Rwanda Peace Academy, where he recounted the dilemma he faced as force commander of a UN peacekeeping force, under whose watch over a million people were killed. He said that at the height of the Genocide, he struggled to survive with a thin force of 400 peacekeepers that had volunteered to stick with him. “Definately what was happening in Rwanda was worse by far, but the world was not interested in Rwanda,” he said, adding that as he called for reinforcement, he was told that Rwanda was of no strategic value. Those that stayed with him were African troops and they did so on voluntary basis after the UN Directorate of Peacekeeping Operations gave an explicit order for all peacekeepers to leave Rwanda, he said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Keep Genocide memory alive, says Gen Dallaire