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In 1994, genocide swept Rwanda. The world watched, and for the most part did nothing as 800,000 people died. General Romeo Dallaire knows the horror of Rwanda first-hand. He headed a UN peacekeeping mission to Rwanda at the time of the massacres. In a report on the genocide for the Organization for African Unity, Stephen Lewis and his colleagues found that of the major players, the only hero in the story was Romeo Dallaire. Throughout the genocide, the general appeared on the CBC Radio program As It Happens. Night after night, he and Michael Enright talked about what was going right and what was going wrong. In May of this year, the two met face to face for the first time. This is an edited version of their conversation.
Michael Enright: You retired officially in the middle of April.
General Romeo Dallaire: Yes.
Are you on the path of finally getting out of the clutches of Rwanda? Is it receding at all?
No, for a variety of reasons. There are continuous commissions going on at which I've testified. And there is a more profound study underway which requires far more in-depth responses, and I have not yet been able to sit down and tell all of my story, which I think had a significant impact on the overall affair. But, lastly, I'm still testifying in front of the international tribunal, where the two major players will face trial this fall ...
The alleged war criminals?
Yes, I'll be going back to Africa to testify a second time.
What about emotionally? How are you handling things?
Well, the emotions, in a classic post-traumatic stress disorder, you live ... a wave of very hyper-reactions which could be violent, and then go to depths of depression that lead you to consider options like suicide.
Are you on medication?
I am taking fifteen pills a day. Two of them are just to protect my stomach from all the other pills. But for this injury, there is no established medication. And so it is a continuous exercise by the psychiatrist, trying to build the right state of mind so that you are just stable enough to permit the therapist to work with you and also not create scenarios at home...