They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children by Roméo Dallaire

“We have got a crime against humanity,” he said as he quietly stirred his Earl Grey tea. They can be used to run across landmines, because they are less valuable than other soldiers, and in combat, when peacekeepers or professional soldiers come eye-to-eye with a child, their moral and ethical training may cause them to hesitate for a heartbeat, giving the enemy an advantage. “Those kids, those child soldiers, are just as human, as our own.”Ĭhildren make ideal weapons, he said: they are trusting, easily indoctrinated, vulnerable, they require little food, are easily expendable and easily replaceable. “Think of how we respond to an Amber Alert,” he said in an interview in Vancouver on Remembrance Day. Dallaire hopes that our children, and the child that “survives within ourselves” will find the compassion to reach out to child soldiers, girls and boys, suffering in the developing world.ĭallaire wants “companies and battalions of youths” to take up the cause through social networks and help work toward a global consensus to end the humanitarian crisis. The world, to today’s web-savvy kids, is as small as the planet the Little Prince stands upon. He drew inspiration for the book from Antoine de St. “If they are as human as us, then why aren’t we intervening?”ĭallaire hopes his new book will reach young people and that they, in turn, will reach out “to help their peers in these countries.” “Why are those kids not as human as us?” he asked. He is also reminded that around the globe, approximately 300,000 children are engaged as child soldiers, as rebel soldiers, as sex slaves, as weapons systems in failing states and imploding nations, with no way out.

“I’m reminded of my father and father-in-law, who are veterans, but I am reminded far more of the soldiers who served with me, those who were injured, those who are still suffering, their families, the ones who were killed, the ones who killed themselves.” Remembrance Day is a tough day for the retired lieutenant-general and Liberal senator. His new book, They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children, is a painful but beautifully rendered and expertly argued examination of the humanitarian crisis of children who are forced into combat. It is young people, he believes, who can mobilize through social networks to save children who are being forced into combat in developing countries. Romeo Dallaire was in Vancouver on Remembrance Day to call Canadian youth to duty in the fight to eradicate child soldiers. Dallaire calls on youth to mobilize, eradicate use of child soldiers

They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children by Roméo Dallaire