A bureaucrat, not a soldier

Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian army general who presided over the UN’s disastrous mission in Rwanda that resulted in the murder of some 800,000 innocents, has once again shown his true calling.

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In testimony before a parliamentary subcommittee on human rights, Mr. Dallaire claimed that the United States and Canada were morally equivalent to al Qaeda because of plans to try Canadian Omar Khadr before a military tribunal at Guantanamo, Cuba, rather than rehabilitating him to Canada. Dallaire insisted that Khadr, who was 15 years old when he allegedly killed an American Army medic, was a child soldier and should be rehabilitated into Canadian society as quickly as possible. In his testimony Mr. Dallaire claimed that his experience in Rwanda in 1994 has made him an expert on child soldiers. If Dallaire’s experience in Rwanda is a measure of his avocation, then he is a bureaucrat and not a soldier, as his focus was on the mission rather than on those who served under his command. And assigning blame to the US also isn’t something new to Dallaire’s repertoire. After the massacre in Rwanda, Dallaire looked to lay the blame everywhere, but where it rightfully belonged. "I blame the American leadership, which includes the Pentagon, in projecting itself as the world policeman one day and a recluse the next," Dallaire said. "In fact, vulgarly stating in the General Assembly three weeks before the Rwandan genocide and civil war started, I mean, president Clinton saying in the General Assembly that through his Proposition 25 that Americans would go only if it was in their self-interest.” What would Mr. Dallaire have had the Americans do; act counter to their self-interest? Had the US taken action in Rwanda the usual charges of racism would have been bandied about as a white nation felt it necessary to solve a black country’s problems. A similar situation is unfolding right now in Darfur over which all the supporters of multilateralism are agonizing, while hundreds of thousands are murdered. Clearly the correct action would be to invade and stop the killing, but the threat of being accused of racial insensitivity is certainly preventing that from happening. And the killing continues. While serving in Rwanda, Dallaire was under the command of the UN department of peacekeeping operations, which was headed by Kofi Annan. Dallaire knew of the impending disaster and sought authority from Annan to take preemptive action against those plotting the genocide. The request was denied. Any General worth his salt would then have taken steps to protect his troops. In failing to take the necessary action, 10 of Dallaire’s men were massacred attempting to secure the safety of Rwanda’s prime minister. There is no doubt that Mr. Dallaire suffered tremendous emotional trauma during his tenure as commander of the UN peacekeeping contingent in Rwanda. It must pose a great deal of difficulty to live with the knowledge that nearly one million human beings were butchered while you stood helplessly by. Having lived through such a travesty one would think that Mr. Dallaire’s faith in organizations such as the UN would be shaken. But apparently not, given his insistence then that the US was responsible for the Rwandan massacre and this week’s claim that the US and Canada are the moral equivalent of al Qaeda. One wonders where Mr. Dallaire’s concern for Omar Khadr was prior to his becoming a Liberal senator. Since Khadr has been in custody for five years and the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has been in power for only two of those five years, where was Romeo Dallaire’s concern for this “child soldier” when the Liberals were in power? Once again Romeo Dallaire has shown that he is a bureaucrat and not a soldier by following the party line. Whether that line is to take no action against genocide in Rwanda or comparing his own country to people who strap explosives to a 14-year-old retarded girl and blowing her up by remote control in a dense crowd, it’s clear that the party line takes precedence over right and wrong.