Oct 17, 2007
OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other world leaders will have "blood on their hands" if they fail to press ahead with global efforts to halt murderous conflict in Darfur, Gen. Roméo Dallaire says.
Senator Dallaire joined opposition MPs and activists who used Parliament's reopening yesterday to showcase their call for Canada to provide more aggressive leadership in the long-frustrated search for peace in western Sudan. Dallaire, the retired Canadian Forces officer who led United Nations troops in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide there, accused Harper of abandoning Canada's role as "a leading middle power in the world. "We have sort of disappeared from the map in regards to advancing the concept" of world responsibility for genocide or ethnic cleansing in sovereign states, he said, referring to the Canadian-created and UN-accepted doctrine known as the "responsibility to protect." The United Nations has approved sending a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for Sudan next year but there's a lack of commitment of troops from UN members and security is deteriorating in Darfur.
Read the article in full at The Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/News/article/267684