Roméo Dallaire

Lieutenant-General Roméo Alain Dallaire (born June 25, 1946) is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author and retired general. Dallaire is widely known for having served as Force Commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994, and for trying to stop a war of genocide that was being waged by Hutu extremists against Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire in 2006

Quotes

• I know there is a God, because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.
  • Shake Hands with the Devil (2003)
• I am still suffering from my experience in Rwanda, I never know when I'm going to drive my car off a bridge, or just decide to take my life.
  • When asked about life after UNAMIR
• "The possibility of starting a new program at the college — a military Cegep that would allow all officer cadets to spend two years in Saint-Jean before going to Kingston, instead of studying only in Kingston — is being considered. In the spirit of progress, would it be possible to support a principle as basic as the freedom of francophones in the Canadian Armed Forces by establishing a Cegep-style francophone bilingual military college."
  • H7860 Canadian Senator Hon. Roméo Dallaire (CMR/RMC 1969), on Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean (2007)
• I think the people in the field were magnificent. And they got the stories, and I put troops at risk to get their stories out every night. But the copy people and the editing people back home, they're the ones who put Tanya Harding on and O.J. Simpson, not the guys in the field.
  • On The Charlie Rose Show giving his opinion of the media's coverage of the Rwanda Crisis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWNS4MkSpYE
• For most countries, serving the UN's objectives has never seemed worth even the smallest of risks. Member nations do not want a large, reputable, strong and independent United Nations, no matter their hypocritical pronouncements otherwise. What they want is a weak, beholden, indebted scapegoat of an organization, which they can blame for their failures or steal victories from.
  • Shake Hands with the Devil (2003)