Gen Dallaire who served during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis is awarded

University President Daniele Struppa awarded the Presidential Medal, Chapman’s highest honor, to Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire Oct. 16 for his peace keeping actions  the Genocide against the Tutsis.

The Presidential Medal for Distinguished Contributions to Humanity is awarded by the president annually.

Dallaire, a former soldier and senator who was involved in a peacekeeping mission during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, has dedicated his life to humanitarian work and hopes to one day end genocides and the use of child soldiers as weapons, he said.

“How can we permit (the) 16 conflicts today where the tools being used are children between the ages of 6 and 18?” Dallaire said during his lecture in Memorial Hall. “I looked into their eyes, and saw the same thing I saw in my own son.”

The Genocide against the Tutsi was a mass ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the then government   and various militias against the Tutsi and moderate Hutus.

Dallaire said during his lecture that many of the 500,000 to 1 million killings were carried out by children, who were either soldiers or ordered by state-sponsored radio programs to kill Tutsis.

After refusing orders to evacuate himself and his men stationed in Rwanda during the genocide, Dallaire saved at least 30,000 lives through negotiations, said Director of the Rogers Center for Holocaust Education Marilyn Harran.

Dallaire and his soldiers met with the leaders of both opposition and ally forces during ceasefires to arrange the release of Hutu civilians from the Tutsi side and visa versa, he said.

“It wasn’t the handshake of another human being,” Dallaire said during the lecture, describing meeting the perpetrators of the genocide. “It wasn’t the temperature, it wasn’t the texture. It was something I could not define.”

The audience, a mix of students, staff and the general public, filled the lower floor of Memorial Hall, with several people overflowing into the balcony seating as Dallaire spoke about his experiences during the genocide.

After the lecture, there was a book signing for Dallaire’s book “Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda,” which chronicles his experiences during the genocide.

Dallaire said he witnessed the widespread use of child soldiers as weapons to carry out a genocide, which influenced him to found the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative in 2007 to end the use of child soldiers.

The Panther

UM– USEKE.RW