Romeo Dallaire

A light in the darkness

I tried to save Rwanda from its genocide by leading a UN peacekeeping force. I witnessed so many brutal killings and have been dedicated ever since to stop any brutal genocides. During the genocide I lead a small force of UN troops dedicated to helping end the massacre. We were a strong force after we had seen how many bodies had been piled up on the side of the streets, in churches, and in stadiums, but we kept moving forward. I continued to urge the rest of the UN to send the forces necessary to halt this slaughter of people, yet they continued to refuse and refuse until it was too late to save all those poor Tutsis. This lack of reinforcements in time caused my peacekeeping mission to fail. My job had been reduced to talking with the Hutu extremists and attempting to convince them not to carry out with more of their gruesome plan. I did my best to persuade the leaders to stop, but my best was not enough. Eventually, I was given the authority, after conducting several unauthorized actions, to preform arms caches, or to takeaway weapons from both sides of the alleged civil war. I knew what was going on, but I was still under orders to remain neutral throughout the operation, but since a large majority of my information came from the Hutu side that would be difficult to follow. I carried out a few of these before new information had been revealed, the genocide had begun. I worked to get a battalion to fight to land in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, but the troops I asked for came fewer and later than I had requested. I did eventually get 1500 of the 5000 troops I demanded to receive, but when they arrived it was far too late to prevent the deaths of nearly 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. When my troops did arrive we were able to destroy many roadblocks set by the Hutu extremists designed to revoke transportation of Tutsis attempting to move south, towards us, and we were finally able to go onto the offensive and put an end to all these brutal murders. We were able to protect the Tutsi race from extinction