CBC Roméo Dallaire interview Transcription
On CBC Radio’s As It Happens, Roméo Dallaire described the scene from Kigali on April 7, 1994. Despite the violence, he was still optimistic at the time that the Arusha peace agreement could be implemented.
What is going on?
Well, I think that if you stated that all hell is breaking loose in Kigali that would be a reasonably fair statement. The country in itself and all the other regions is reasonably stable. So where we have a problem is in downtown Kigali. And the problem comes essentially during the night, that is last night. Mostly the presidential guards, as they have been identified, most of them so far, although a few members of a couple of other units, have gone on a rampage. They are killing, destroying, massacring, mutilating and a few other things. We heard reports that three military observers, UN military observers were killed and perhaps others. What is the situation with that? No. We have lost more than that. The figure has just been sent to New York. And I am really not in a position to give you a figure until they release it. But more than three? Yes, yes. I am afraid so.
Dallaire describes the mission
Well, we are a classic peacekeeping mission. And in fact being used as a very positive example of a very good peacekeeping mission in sense that it had all the tools. You had two parties that fought, they came to a peace agreement (Arusha peace agreement), they made a cease-fire, they got a DMZ (demilitarized zone), they signed formal documents and they are looking at implementing it with some of the transparency and help that the UN can provide.
Does that include the protection of civilians?
The mission is to assist the authorities in establishing an atmosphere of security so that the transitional government can come in place and then can run its mandate of 22 months. And in that we did not take on a mandate of unilaterally conducting security operations or taking on a security responsibility that is still legally in the hands of the governmental agencies.
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