Romeo Dallaire Quotes

#1. Money follows interest, and interest is largely driven by media attention, which is more easily captured by the drama of conflict than by peace.

Romeo Dallaire

#2. The night I flew out from Rwanda, I landed in Nairobi, and I was on my way back home, and my left side started to paralyze and remained paralyzed with pain, and the stress and so on began to appear physically.

Romeo Dallaire

#3. I was on the ground, I was in command, I had been given the mission, and I took the decision.

Romeo Dallaire

#4. I promised never to let the Rwandan Genocide die because I knew the Rwandans didn't have much power internationally and certainly didn't have the resources. I felt it was my duty having witnessed it, and having stayed to witness it, that I had to talk about it and keep it going.

Romeo Dallaire

#5. Now is the time to take up the cause of the advancement of human rights for all and the moment is yours to grasp.

Romeo Dallaire

#6. PTSD has a terminal side to it that calls for more urgency.

Romeo Dallaire

#7. Those who are mastering more and more the communications revolution, those who realize that there are no borders in the world, are the ones who are going to leap ahead.

Romeo Dallaire

#8. Kofi Annan was the U.N. Under-Secretary General for peacekeeping operations. He had the responsibilities in regards to the mounting and operation of peacekeeping missions around the world.

Romeo Dallaire

#9. Seismic change can happen over a lifetime, or in an instant.

Romeo Dallaire

#10. The first breath of air of Africa - it felt like you were in another continent - you were, you were - and it was different.

Romeo Dallaire

#11. Now, in this U.N. stuff, the commander, although he has troops, they don't really belong to him. They're loaned by the country to the U.N. to be used, but each of these countries provide a contingent commander, a senior guy who communicates directly back to his capital.

Romeo Dallaire

#12. More and more, we have been able to present the argument that recruitment of child soldiers is a social breakdown that leads to atrocities, because that's why they get them.

Romeo Dallaire

#13. The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we believe we have made it, so other people can make it as well.

Romeo Dallaire

#14. Where you are born should not dictate your potential as a human being.

Romeo Dallaire

#15. I think the only value of 'Hotel Rwanda' is the fact that it keeps the Rwandan genocide alive, but as far as content, it's Hollywood.

Romeo Dallaire

#16. Is the human condition not defined by an endless struggle to control the ego's subterfuges?

Romeo Dallaire

#17. I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.

Romeo Dallaire

#18. Are all humans human? Or are some more human than others?

Romeo Dallaire

#19. Death became a desired option. I hoped I would hit a mine or run into an ambush and just end it all. I think some part of me wanted to join the legions of the dead, whom I had failed.

Romeo Dallaire

#20. I am still suffering from my experience in Rwanda, I never know when I'm going to drive my car off a bridge, or just decide to take my life.

Romeo Dallaire

#21. If we don't harness their potential for good, their societies will continue to reap their capacity for evil.

Romeo Dallaire

#22. There was no way to laugh anymore, to love, to care, and there was a sense of guilt in having survived when others had been killed. I turned into a worse workaholic than I had already been by trying to work myself into the ground.

Romeo Dallaire

#23. I think that one of the benefits of optimism and idealism is that they lead you into things you would never have tried if you'd let yourself imagine how hard it was going to turn out to be.

Romeo Dallaire