Dallaire: Does last week’s creation of a Southern Sudanese state point to secession as the solution to other African conflicts?

By: /
19 July, 2011
By: Roméo Dallaire
Canadian Senator and retired Lieutenant-General

During the Rwandan genocide, I was at one point convinced that both sides were posturing on the battlefield to essentially split the country in two and create a Cyprus type of situation. Although not the best option, it might have been a reasonable interim option as the country as a whole catches its breath after a civil war, patches its wounds after the genocide, and permit a possible political evolution to some sort of federation. The fly in the ointment was that the Hutu side would have had to be the moderates I was negotiating with, and not the extremists who were running the genocide.

So separation into two states is a possibility, but not an essential or only solution.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter