Three decades after the devastating Rwanda genocide, the retired Canadian general who led the United Nations peacekeeping mission that failed to stop the killings says he is cautiously optimistic that the world is moving toward a place where such brutality will never happen again. .
But Romeo Dallaire, in an interview broadcast on Sunday The west blocktold host Mercedes Stephenson that he remains concerned about the continued presence of perpetrators and masterminds of genocide in Africa and around the world (including Canada) who have not been brought to justice.
“Unless justice is served throughout the process, there will continue to be people who will get away with this and fuel this (genocidal hatred) into the next generation,” he said. “And that’s the real concern.”
An estimated 800,000 Tutsis were killed by extremist Hutus in massacres that lasted more than 100 days in 1994. Some moderate Hutus who attempted to protect members of the Tutsi minority were also attacked and killed.
25 years have passed since the Rwandan genocide
The genocide began on April 6, 1994, when a plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana, a member of the Hutu majority, was shot down in the capital, Kigali. Tutsis were blamed for shooting down the plane and killing the president. Angered, bands of Hutu extremists began killing Tutsis and anyone who tried to protect them, backed by the army and police.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by current President Paul Kagame, eventually ended the genocide and has ruled the country ever since. Many Hutu leaders, commanders and supporters fled the country to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as other parts of Africa, Europe, the United States and Canada.
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Tensions have risen between Rwanda and Congo in recent months, with military buildups on their shared border and accusations between the two countries of supporting violent insurgents. Rwanda claims that Hutu extremists have joined the Congolese armed forces, while Congo accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23, the largest rebel group behind the violence there.
Dallaire has called the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda he led a “failure” for failing to stop the genocide, largely due to interference from the United States and other members of the UN Security Council.
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He says there is “ongoing concern” that large-scale violence or even genocide could break out again on either side, as underlying issues have not been fully resolved.
“There is a constant acceptance that if we have a truce and we can apparently fix things… then we will really have peace,” he said. “But we haven’t gotten to that, we’ve never gotten to that depth.
“There is always a lingering concern that there are (remnant) frictions that can actually regenerate the problem, and even more so when we know that there is activism that wants to do that.”
Although critics accuse the authoritarian Kagame of crushing all dissent, many also praise him for presiding over relative peace and stability while attempting to bridge ethnic divisions using legal and other measures. The government imposed a strict penal code to punish the genocide and prohibit the ideology behind it.
Since the 1994 genocide, Dallaire has testified in trials held around the world against perpetrators who have been hunted down and prosecuted for their role in the murders. These include the 2007 trial of Desire Munyaneza in Montreal, which was the first held under Canada’s War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Act.
In that trial, which lasted nearly two years, Munyaneza was ultimately convicted of multiple counts of genocide and war crimes and sentenced to life in prison in 2009. But Dallaire says Canadian officials have told him similar trials cannot be held against others. genocidal. in the country.
“The Department of Justice kept telling me that we don’t have the money to be able to do trials,” he said. “So these people still live out there.”
Rwanda pays tribute to those killed in genocide 25 years ago
Despite those obstacles to justice and peace, Dallaire says he remains optimistic that the younger “post-genocide” generation in Rwanda and around the world will ultimately steer the world away from conflict and brutality by mastering and maturing global communication. .
“They are what I call the generations without borders,” he said. “They see things on a larger scale, both climate and humanity. And they feel that, in fact, we can prosper in the future and not just continue down this path with nuclear weapons and so on, of just surviving.”
Dallaire added that women should also be in a position to exert greater influence in the male-dominated institutions and governments that have led the world until now.
“Those two bands together are going to change the face of humanity and are going to go beyond simply fighting for truces, but rather seeking lasting peace,” he said.
Officials and members of the Rwandan diaspora in Canada marked the 30th anniversary of the genocide on Sunday with a march through Ottawa, followed by a memorial ceremony.
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