Force commander envisions changes in modern peacekeeping

"War in the classic sense and peacekeeping in the classic sense don't seem to work," Romeo Dallaire, a former force commander of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Rwanda, said to a packed Dodds Auditorium at a lecture on Monday.

Dallaire, a retired lieutenant-general in the Canadian military, reflected on his experience in Rwanda, where he said he was largely abandoned by the international community as his forces struggled to protect innocent Rwandans. He explained that Rwanda was just one example of a broader failure of the current peacekeeping model.

The post-Cold War era has not ushered in what former U.S. president George H. W. Bush referred to as "a New World Order," Dallaire said, adding that “we are entering a New World Disorder, and we’re not sure how it’s going to work.”

Dallaire said the rise of insurgent warfare and intra-state conflict means it is now time to throw out the traditional playbook. “The other side is not playing by the rules anymore, rules that have taken centuries to build. How can you apply the classic instruments to that?” he asked.

Rather than using the classic models of peacekeeping, the international community has moved on to crisis response and management, Dallaire explained. “We have established in humanity a pecking order that wasn’t even as evident in the colonial era in how we pick and choose when to respond. In that pecking order, the lowest has been black Sub-Saharan Africa,” Dallaire said. “Inaction is an action. Trust me. No one wanted to come to Rwanda.”

The road to fixing this system will be a long one, the retired lieutenant-general asserted, noting that reforming the United Nations and the way it approaches peacekeeping is a difficult but necessary step. He cited the Responsibility to Protect concept, formally accepted by the international body in 2005, as one example of how international norms regarding human rights are progressing. The concept, which states that a country gives up its right to sovereignty if it abuses the human rights of its citizens, is a radical challenge to the traditional conception of state sovereignty.

In moving beyond the classic models of peacekeeping, it will be necessary to combine the traditionally separate spheres of military, political and humanitarian efforts, Dallaire said. “You can’t blow the place apart and then put it back together and think you’re helping,” he explained. “We’ve got to continue to push development, even in times of conflict.”

Under current constraints, neither the United Nations nor any one country can effect the necessary changes, Dallaire argued. Instead, he said, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that are able to transcend national borders may bring about the best solution. “The NGO community is becoming more and more the voice of humanity,” Dallaire said. “If we continue to strive to support the NGOs not only with cash, but with boots on the ground, they will coalesce. The NGOs will become a force that will change public opinion and public policy.”

Dallaire closed by urging students to get involved with NGOs or even consider creating their own. “You can find your place,” he said. “The NGO world is going to be the conscience of humanity. They have to coalesce. They have no borders.”