Interview with Roméo Dallaire

Mother Jones has an interview with retired Canadian Gen. Roméo Dallaire. Dallaire was head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda during the genocide who was prevented from having his force intervene to stop the atrocities because of the opposition of the Belgian, French and American governments. Then when he asked his forced be enlarged and given a mandate to intervene, the Security Council, on the demands of the Belgians, French and Americans, slashed the force's size by 80%. Dallaire is one of the true tragic heroes of Rwanda. His case demonstrates that "the UN" can only act if powerful member states want it to act and it's powerless if those member states want to bury their heads in the sand. The interview is worth reading if you don't know much about the behind-the-scenes of Rwanda 1994 that could've prevented the genocide if anyone outside Dallaire's mission had been willing to take even the smallest action. His account of that horrible period is called Shake Hands With the Devil.