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Shameless Idealists - Romeo Dallaire and Michel Chiwanine — Transcript

by Kensington TV · 3,410 words · 490 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00enormous responsibility is on the
0:02shoulders of anyone who is lucky enough
0:05to be successful perfection
0:08does not exist there's a story behind
0:11the big story
0:14life and love and meeting
0:17the difficulties
0:20[Music]
0:25the shock of the impact of what we
0:28actually seemed small but it's still
0:31risky every single person can make a
0:34difference in the world and happy
0:35birthday accounts
0:39I'm a guy who
0:41writers on story
0:43[Music]
0:45[Applause]
0:47today we meet two people who have both
0:49survived the horror of brutal wars
0:52Michele chikuwa Nene as a child forced
0:56to become a soldier romeo Dallaire as a
0:59soldier forced to break rank to save
1:02lives
1:02the atrocities they witnessed with
1:05silence most but instead they speak out
1:07for those who can't
1:09to end the plight of child soldiers to
1:12generations two very different
1:14experiences overcoming monumental
1:18tragedy they have become shameless
1:20idealists I was born in Holland and at
1:25six months I came over with my mother on
1:28a Red Cross ship through Pier 21 we
1:32lived in Quebec City for a number of
1:34years and then moved to Montreal my
1:37father was a professional soldier we
1:40used to help him with his uniform and
1:42cleaning his boots and so on we were
1:45playing with toy soldiers and playing in
1:47sand pits and building fortresses and
1:50doing great battles the Army has been in
1:54the family and fell into it there was a
1:59comfort zone being in that
2:02I was born on January 1st 1988 in a town
2:07called Benny it's in the province of
2:10South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of
2:11Congo I had two older sisters a younger
2:16sister my dad was very big in rules
2:19my house has had so many rules but the
2:22one rule that I never followed as a kid
2:24was the rule to always be home before 6
2:26p.m.
2:28my dad just loved politics but hated the
2:32corruption that was going on at that
2:34time so he chose to become a human
2:35rights activist as a result my mom on
2:38the other hand was women's rights
2:40activist so I knew I was going on
2:43especially in other countries beneath
2:45the board Congo one of the bordering
2:49countries was Rwanda a conflict between
2:53two warring tribal communities the Hutus
2:56and the Tutsis had captured
2:58international attention in the early 90s
3:00as the threat a civil war spread the
3:04United Nations stepped up its
3:06peacekeeping efforts and called on roméo
3:08Dallaire to lead its Rwandan mission I
3:11landed
3:14The ministers made me feel that they
3:17felt I could help them but Rwanda was
3:20quickly escalating into a level of
3:21violence that would test general
3:24Dallaire in ways he could never have
3:25imagined the situation was getting worse
3:29and the rebels were getting stronger in
3:32the north borders and we knew that they
3:36had plans for doing mass murders so it
3:40was absolutely crucial to get those
3:41weapons out of their hands and stop the
3:44training of the militia and so I simply
3:47dictated the cable that essentially said
3:50to the UN we must stop the distribution
3:53of weapons we've got to get at the
3:56people who are creating these caches and
3:58so in 36 hours I will be launching my
4:02first operation
4:04we went into high gear planning only
4:07seven hours later to get the fastest
4:09cable I ever got from you and saying it
4:11was outside of my mandate and I was not
4:13authorized to do it getting an answer
4:16from the UN saying I'm not allowed to do
4:18it put me in a quandary in regards to
4:22the future of the mission
4:24that pushed my loyalty to my uniform and
4:28to my mission to a limit that I had
4:30never ever imagined possible
4:33there was a great sense of the situation
4:37going catastrophic and I certainly know
4:40I'm not gonna sit there and just blindly
4:43obey the procedures and processes and so
4:46I fought the UN at about the same time
4:50as violent chaos reigned in Rwanda
4:53Michele chikuwa Nemeth was a five year
4:56old boy living a normal childhood in the
4:58Congo passing time with his best friend
5:01Kevin I went to play soccer with Kevin
5:04and a lot of my friends in a soccer
5:06field as I'm running around I saw an
5:09army truck
5:11and the army truck stopped and army
5:14trucks these soldiers got out of them
5:16heard a gunshot going off in the
5:18background and right away we all fell on
5:20the ground when I heard this huge voice
5:23telling us to stand up and all the kids
5:25did then they shoved us into the trucks
5:27forcefully and they drove away when we
5:31got to the camp they divided us from the
5:33youngest to the oldest and they put us
5:35into wines
5:37I think dawn to my friend Kevin and they
5:39pulled him away from me then they
5:41grabbed a cloth and they put it over my
5:44eyes and at this time they kept laughing
5:46they grabbed my hand and he said they're
5:49gonna make us part of their army 1994 as
5:54the Rwandan Civil War tore through the
5:56country roméo Dallaire broke ranks with
5:59his superiors at the United Nations in a
6:02desperate attempt to save civilians from
6:05genocide
6:06I even broke the orders because they
6:10were immoral if the logic was the world
6:14could handle eight hundred thousand dead
6:16one its who couldn't handle four hundred
6:18fifty dead blueberries there was
6:20something fundamentally erroneous in the
6:23moral references of that and that's what
6:26drove us to stay those who would suffer
6:30would be the civilian population be they
6:33child soldiers were used by the the
6:36different factions or the general
6:39population who are abused turned into
6:41refugees internally displaced often
6:44raped no food no water dying of cholera
6:48so it may have been a legal order but it
6:50was absolutely immoral we were running
6:54out of food we ran out of fuel
6:57we had one phone working no water and
7:01completely isolated and surrounded and
7:05so there was a sense of abandonment that
7:08ultimately we simply would be written
7:12off
7:14however we'll stay to at least save one
7:18witness to be able to tell the world
7:21afterwards what had happened many of the
7:25paramilitary that Dallaire and his UN
7:27forces had to face were mere children
7:30forcibly conscripted to the cause across
7:35the border from Rwanda and Congo this
7:38was the faith but five-year-old Michele
7:40chikuwa Nina his best friend Kevin they
7:45grabbed this knife and they grabbed my
7:46left hand and they slashed it and it's
7:49so much pain I screamed for them to let
7:51go of my hand as I'm bleeding
7:52and they kept laughing then one of them
7:55came and they grabbed this thing called
7:57Brown Browner's it's a mixture of
7:58cocaine and gunpowder at that time I
8:00didn't know what it was and they said he
8:02was gonna make me feel better
8:03and they rubbed this into the wound he
8:06was so painful and I could feel my body
8:08just pounding I couldn't understand
8:11what's going on and I started to cry and
8:13I'm screaming for help against so dazed
8:17I didn't know what I was going on that
8:19they told me to put my hands up as I did
8:22they dropped an ak-47 in my hand all the
8:25time I didn't know what it was he
8:27grabbed my hand and my finger and I put
8:30it on the trigger and they kept yelling
8:32at me to shoot and getting louder and
8:34louder and this time with the influence
8:36of his drugs and so much going on I
8:38pulled the trigger and as I dropped the
8:42gun on the ground they took off the
8:43blindfold
8:45so I looked in front of me and saw a
8:48pool of blood just flowing in front of
8:50me and Kevin was lying there and he
8:53looked at me he didn't say anything but
8:55he just smiled and a tear fell down his
8:57right cheek and it was then that I
9:01realized when his face dropped in the
9:02ground that he had died I relived that
9:06moment every day and try to find a way
9:09to not see that face falling on the
9:12ground and that tear haunted by his
9:16actions Michelle now lived in complete
9:19fear and felt totally abandoned we were
9:24told when our families would never like
9:26us again for having killed our friends
9:28so this was gonna be our only family and
9:30I mean for many times during the night
9:32sweet this is what we thought this is
9:34our life this is what it was gonna be
9:36like but there was also this fear that
9:38tomorrow I'm gonna be the next one put
9:40in front of the kids and shot and killed
9:42[Music]
9:44looking at a child soldier who's got a
9:46rifle find it on your nose you're not
9:49looking at his eyes as much as first of
9:51all you're looking at the muzzle of that
9:52rifle
9:53but then when you do see the eyes they
9:56are under a lot of pressure from their
9:58peers probably not
10:00all their fatigue and maybe some drugs
10:03or alcohol so on influencing them
10:06you see panic but there's an
10:09unpredictability there that you don't
10:13necessarily see in a professional
10:14soldier and that unpredictability makes
10:17the child soldier that much more lethal
10:20but no matter how hard his captors tried
10:24to control him Michelle was determined
10:26to get home we were eventually told
10:30we're going to be deployed to this
10:31village and his village it had food he
10:34had gun supplies and we needed all of
10:36the stuff to survive so when the kids
10:39were running through I just stayed in
10:41one spot and waited for the other kids
10:42to go through and eventually I saw a
10:45signal for the kids to attack
10:48and then you say hey people screaming
10:50gunshots going off and hand grenades and
10:52things I kind of have her screaming for
10:54help
10:54I asked when I started looking around to
10:56try and make sure if there's a way for
10:57me to run in the opposite way and I ran
11:00across this clearing of trees I remember
11:04running there and getting so scared that
11:07I don't know where I'm going
11:08I started to cry and scream for my dad's
11:11name as I'm running and at night I would
11:14like sleep on the trees being scared and
11:16cold
11:18I just knew had to be home that was that
11:20was only it eventually I realized that I
11:24was next to a village where my family
11:26was I was thankful that the person who
11:29was next to the store where I ended up
11:30knew my family and took me back I told
11:34my mom and dad what I'd went on and my
11:36dad told me never to say anything that
11:38not to worry he will take care of me and
11:40I lived on my house for a very long time
11:42lives never went outside I when he
11:44stayed in my house
11:45I mean after being child soldier for so
11:49long the just experience of being there
11:52and the things I've been killed Kevin
11:54having seen that the kids being killed I
11:57don't think any kid can process that
12:00whole experience in general and I never
12:02did every night that break up and I'd
12:06see blood on my hands I wake up
12:09screaming because I'm thinking the
12:11soldiers are gonna chase me there
12:12there's so much fear and every day it
12:15was a different challenge and for the
12:18longest time I always thought the kids
12:20all kids around the world went through
12:22something similar
12:25by late 1994 roméo Dallaire and Michelle
12:29Chico Nene had returned to their homes
12:31in Canada and Congo their struggles were
12:35not over
12:37there's a rebel group that came through
12:39my Taliban either call themselves the
12:40movement for the liberation of Congo so
12:43they went and he killed the mayor they
12:45killed his kids and his family they
12:48killed most of the politicians in Beni
12:50trying to destabilize the whole town so
12:53my father started to write a lot of this
12:55article is to send them to the
12:56international media so that the United
12:58Nations who had given the mandate to
13:00Rhonda to come into Congo so they they
13:03would stop this and eventually they
13:05hated my father along with the other
13:07activists in many and they kidnapped him
13:09and they tortured them
13:12for about seven months we didn't hear
13:14from them and we had thought that my
13:16father died and we had given up hope we
13:19had actually started preparing a funeral
13:20friend along with six other activists
13:23but one day they got word that Michele's
13:26father and his colleagues were being
13:28held close by my dad survived and I mean
13:32a few months later we had to help them
13:34escape to Uganda for exile and then the
13:38rebel soldiers came to my house to look
13:40for him when I started here in gunshots
13:43and ten miles and I heard my mom in the
13:45kitchen screaming for help God heard
13:47Vicki and Vivian and my two older
13:49sisters screaming for help as I got to
13:52the stairs and I look back in the Siravo
13:55soldier with a gun pointed straight to
13:56my head and he took me down to the
13:58kitchen where I saw a lot of the tapes
14:00and the articles my father had been
14:02writing about this war all being burn
14:05time we live in
14:05[Music]
14:07took me to the kitchen English I saw my
14:10mom and my two older sisters then one of
14:13the rebel soldiers approached me with a
14:14pistol and they put it in my right eye
14:16and they told me that if I close my eyes
14:18that they would shoot me
14:20and they grabbed the keys at the end and
14:23my mom and they threw them on the ground
14:24and my mom is screaming for me to help
14:26her but I can't move and that 10 years
14:29old they forced me to watch them being
14:31raped but tried to stop them and I tried
14:36to grab on the soldiers to knock on my
14:38mom and I tell tried to punch him away
14:40and they're looking at me they're
14:43laughing and they knocked me over and
14:46they shot me onto a wall with a machete
14:48they tried to cut my throat so they
14:50could kill me but they looked at me and
14:53they grabbed my face and they slashed my
14:55left cheek where I still have a scar and
14:57as I'm bleeding they said the reason why
14:59we're doing this is because your dad
15:01chose to stand up against us the reason
15:03why we're doing this is because we want
15:06you to remember what happened here today
15:08and they let me go and eventually they
15:11left after they were done and I went to
15:14my mom to ask her what to do but she was
15:16just curled up on the ground in tears
15:19with their village no longer safe
15:22Michelle his mother youngest sister
15:24refused to stay in the December 1998 my
15:28family arrived in northern Uganda in a
15:30refugee camp my dad had already been
15:33settled there and was waiting for us to
15:35arrive
15:36is a very difficult life moving there
15:39very very difficult because you never so
15:41hope everybody was just trying to fend
15:43off and it's their life while Michele
15:46and his family had escaped to a new kind
15:48of hell romeo Dallaire also found
15:51himself back home struggling to keep his
15:54demons at bay so we come back from those
15:58missions significantly affected
16:01psychologically by the extremes that
16:04we've lived by what you see what you
16:06participate in and what you can't do
16:09anything about creates an inability to
16:13sleep and often even pushes you to
16:18extremes like trying to stop the pain by
16:21taking away your life and the theory of
16:26the time was don't worry about it
16:29with time and hard work it'll all
16:31disappear well on the contrary
16:35the shock of the impact by what you
16:38actually seen and smelled and touched it
16:41stays with you and it wasn't going away
16:48in January 2004 two extraordinary events
16:52took place romeo Dallaire testified at
16:55the International Criminal Tribunal for
16:57Rwanda to help convict Colonel Te'o Nest
17:00a beggar surah for genocide for the
17:03killing of 10 Belgian peacekeepers in
17:05fact at one point yesterday I had the
17:09sense of the smell of the slaughter in
17:13my nose and though Michelle chikuwa'
17:15nene and his family were mourning the
17:17loss of his father they also received
17:19life-changing news and in 2004 after the
17:24death of my dad the UNHCR and
17:26Immigration Canada give us a one-way
17:29ticket to come to Canada and I'll never
17:31forget it
17:32generally 21st 2004 one of the happiest
17:35days of my life because I remember
17:37getting on the plane and thinking that
17:39never again will I have to look back in
17:42fear that I'm gonna get killed I'm so
17:45lucky and blessed to be where I am today
17:46but that keeps me smiling that I'm able
17:48to go to school I mean University I mean
17:52University students I've never even
17:53thought that was ever possible
17:55it's so incredible that I have this
17:57opportunity I can't help but smile
18:00in the years since the Civil War Daler
18:02has worked tirelessly to share his story
18:04and fight injustice we both want to
18:08eradicate the use of child soldiers and
18:11so we're coming at it from from the two
18:13sources we should be involved improve
18:16not only stopping these conflicts that
18:18are still going on but actually get
18:20really involved in trying to prevent
18:22them from them going catastrophic and
18:24the recruitment to start in the first
18:26place
18:27Daler has taken action speaking out as a
18:30soldier of peace at the youth
18:32empowerment event we do I want to tell
18:36you a story I was at a barrier during
18:38that genocide where they slaughtered
18:42over 350,000 young people under the age
18:46of 15 the barrier was manned by child
18:49soldiers boys and girls
18:5240% of child soldiers are girls it been
18:55abducted and drugged up and
18:57indoctrinated and they were armed
18:59because there's too many weapons in the
19:01world and they are in the hands of these
19:03children and so I stopped my vehicle and
19:06I opened the door and it's about 13
19:09year-old boy with his eyes huge rammed
19:13an ak-47 machine gun right in my face
19:16and as I saw him trying to decide
19:19whether he's gonna pull the trigger and
19:21blow my head off
19:23or not he spotted the chocolate bar in
19:27my hand and he stopped are you more
19:31human than them then how come we're
19:35letting 250,000 of your peers your ages
19:40being ripped out of the schools
19:42out of their homes drugged up armed and
19:45used to kill maim and keep Wars going
19:49why is that one of the reasons is we
19:53don't hear your voices enough you're
19:56their peers it's up to you get involved
20:00get your boots dirty get out there
20:05Michelle finally came to terms with his
20:07own past through work he's done with
20:10free the children or a very very long
20:12time I never wanted to tell this story I
20:15wanted to just bury it and forget about
20:17it I've come to accept as I grew older
20:20that this is my story and this is my
20:23life and I can't hide it it is part of
20:25who I am it's incredible to see how
20:28deeply kids empathize with Michelle's
20:31experience as he interacts with them and
20:33tells his story
20:36cities with my education with my
20:38memories and with my story that I
20:40realized that I couldn't be more than
20:42just one student that I can be somebody
20:45to create change in my own community and
20:47also around the world I'd look up in the
20:50crowd and you see the impact of the
20:52story and you see people putting your
20:54face on the numbers that they hear every
20:56single day and I think that's one of the
20:59most important aspect is putting your
21:01face to the numbers thank you
21:04their actions are taken then my story
21:08has no meaning
21:09I bring the story of somebody who lived
21:11it you bring in experience for somebody
21:13who saw it and a dilemma what do you do
21:16when you're faced with this experience I
21:18think it's very insightful
21:24[Music]
21:29[Applause]
21:30[Music]
21:52[Music]

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