Shaking Hands Was The Least of It

So, last night I met Romeo Dallaire. He wrote a pretty famous book called "Shake Hands With the Devil", if you haven't read it do so. Its a powerful account of the civilized world's inability to prevent monstrosities from happening. Now, some of my close friends and I have talked about the rights and wrong of the Rwanadan situation and I'm not sure there will ever be a satisfactory answer, but that's not what I'm really writing about.

So, this man, who looks like he could be my father, stands up in front of an audience of about 1,000 and tells us a horror story. I'm not talking about some Freddy Krugar scare your kids horror story, I'm talking about a real life horror story. It basically goes like this ( and for those of your who read "shake hands with the devil" this won't be new):

General Dallaire was going to northern rwanda when he and his troops came across a kid standing in the middle of the road. Now, normally when a kid is standing in the middle of the road it is to stop travellers so that one of the armies can overwhelm the travellers and either steal their shit or kill them. So, you could imagine the mood of the UN team when they saw this kid. Dallaire ordered them to stop but realizing the danger told his troops to be at the ready.

Once they stopped Dallaire approached the child ( who was about 8, the same age as Dallaire's son back home) and asked him if he was ok. With no ambush and the kid not talking much Dallaire and his troops let their guard down. They started checking the area to make sure the enemy wasnt there, and once the sweep was done the boy was nowhere to be found. Dallaire and the troops dug deeper into the underbrush to find him and discovered a village. Upon closer inspection they discovered the that the villagers had been slaughtered. They went into hut after but to find bodies. The sight was horrible, but the smell was worse...like hamburger left out in the sun for 3 days, it was the smell o rot and decay. In one of the huts they found he young boy who stopped their convoy, he was sitting in a hut with his mom, dad and sister...all of whom were dismembered...like that was his home, or rather, was still his home.

So there was Mr. Dallaire and his troops looking in on the horror of the 20th century and the best they could do was take the child to a refuge camp in a neighboring village.

I had already read this in his book, but hearing him tell this really affected me. I'm no sure if it has changed me, but I can assure you it is the most powerful talk I have attended, and definitely something to think about.