Roméo Dallaire, a retired Canadian military general who served as Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda in 1994 on Thursday paid tribute to victims of the genocide against the Tutsis by laying a wreath at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.
The Canadian General is in Rwanda to attend the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, an organisation that trains security organs (military and police) on preventing the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
The initiative brings the security sector perspective to the issue of child soldiers by providing sector members the training and tools necessary to prevent the recruitment of children as soldiers worldwide.
While touring at genocide memorial located at Gisozi, a hill overlooking Kigali city, the retired general learned more about the history of the genocide against the Tutsis, its causes, reality, consequences and the journey towards reconciliation and rebuilding over the last 25 years.
After the defeat of the government in Kigali in July 1994, millions of Rwandans flocked to DRC, among them a large number of genocide masterminds and perpetrators.
More than a million people lost their lives during the genocide in Rwanda amid indifference from the United Nations and the rest of the international community.
The UN ignored repeated pleas from General Dallaire to reinforce and allow his relatively small peacekeeping force to engage the genocide machinery, but the former responded only by withdrawing the bulk of the blue helmets instead.
In 2007, Dallaire founded the ‘Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative’, a global partnership with the mission to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
CU/as/APA