Sudan a test of world’s ‘sense of responsibility

By OLIVER MOORE, The Globe and Mail

OTTAWA, March 9, 2005 — Former lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire urged international action to stop the violence in Sudan, evoking Wednesday the decade-old massacres in Rwanda to give weight to his plea.

Lt. Gen Roméo Dallaire served for 35 years with the Canadian Armed Forces. He was the Force Commander of the United Nations Mission to Rwanda. .

A peace deal has finally raised hope that the 21-year-old civil war beneath Sudan’s north and south may be over, but violence continues in the western region of Darfur. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced by fighting in that part of the country and an untold number killed.

In Ottawa, Gen. Dallaire called on the world to answer these victims’ pleas for assistance, saying that the “the spirits of Rwandans” are being joined by those killed in northern Africa.

“[They] call upon all of us to call upon our dignity and our sense of responsibility,” he said in brief remarks at Rideau Hall.

Gen. Dallaire has firsthand experience of what can happen when the world decides not to intervene. He commanded a small United Nations peacekeeping mission in East Africa and was given neither the manpower nor the mandate to be able to stop the Rwandan genocide. An estimated 800,000 people were killed in barely three months.

He frankly admits that the experience scarred him, leaving him with post-traumatic stress syndrome, and he now dedicates his time to conflict resolution studies at Harvard University. But he has retained his faith in the United Nations and on Wednesday spoke of the world body as a uniquely necessary institution.

“The UN is going through a massive change at a time when it needs incredible support … as the only transparent impartial body in the world that can lead us into assisting humanity.”

Gen. Dallaire was in Ottawa to receive the 25th Pearson Peace Medal, presented by the United Nations Association in Canada. Nancy Gordon, president of the association, said that the medal is given to a Canadian who has personally contributed to “those humanitarian causes to which Lester B. Pearson devoted his distinguished career.”

Gen. Dallaire said that the time he has spent speaking to young Canadians has shown him that the goal of a better world is widely shared.

“They feel that this country has matured and has something that it must do in the world,” he said.

“There is a sense of willingness and energy from the Canadian youth looking for someone to provide it with that vision to be able to go beyond the borders of this nation and be the country that the world expects us to be. The leader in human rights and the assistance of humanity.”