Roméo Dallaire came to global attention for his efforts to stop the Rwandan genocide while serving with the U.N. He also received enormous praise for his book on the subject, Shake Hands with the Devil, which won a 2004 Governor General’s Literary Award. Since retiring from the military a decade ago, Dallaire’s chief mission in life has been the fight to eradicate the use of child soldiers, a practice he first encountered in Rwanda. Dallaire argues that eliminating this scourge requires nothing short of a complete paradigm shift – we need to see these children not simply as victims of abuse but as “weapons systems.” His reasoning is straightforward: if children are indeed weapons systems, it should be possible to decommission them. Read more…