Roméo Dallaire on the Genocide in China

By Andrew Quist

In a recent interview on CBC News, retired Canadian senator and lieutenant-general in the Canadian Armed Forces Roméo Dallaire urged nations to take action to pressure China to stop the genocide against the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority in northwest China.

Dallaire has a unique perspective on genocide. He was the commander of UN forces during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. At the time, Dallaire pleaded for permission to intervene to prevent looming genocidal attacks against the Tutsis but was prevented from acting by UN officials.

Recounting the “blatant similitude” between the Rwandan genocide and China’s treatment of Uyghurs, Dallaire called upon Canada and other nations to come together to pressure China politically and economically.

Dallaire believes nations ignore genocides and mass atrocities because of self-interest and because they don’t value foreign lives:

“It’s as if the abuse of human rights, because it’s far away, because it’s hidden in some obscure corner we know nothing of, it’s as if it doesn’t hold credibility.” Dallaire emphasized that we are all equally human, and all human lives matter.

He noted that there is a panoply of measures nations can take to deter genocide and mass atrocities. One step to pressure China would be to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Given the amount of prestige that hosting the Olympic games brings, participating in the Olympics in a country that is perpetrating an ongoing genocide is to implicitly condone the atrocity.

Photograph of Roméo Dallaire by Michelle Campbell, CC BY-SA 4.0