Dallaire to speak at free Remembrance Day event
KITCHENER — Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire, who has been recognized worldwide for his work advocating for the rights of children to be safe from participating in war, will speak at a free event in Kitchener on Remembrance Day, Sunday, Nov. 11.
The event, which marks 100 years since the signing of the armistice that ended the First World War in 1918, is hosted and produced by Centre in the Square, the city-owned concert hall.
Also featured during the evening will be music from the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Grand Philharmonic Choir, and the Ceremonial Band of the Waterloo Regional Police Service.
And a multimedia presentation, spearheaded by Centre in the Square general manager Rob Sonoda, will showcase local veterans retelling their stories, filmed at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.
The Nov. 11 event starts at 5:30 p.m. Although it is free, each participant must have a ticket.
Tickets are available on a first come, first served basis, starting Nov. 5 at the Centre’s box office, 101 Queen St. N. in Kitchener.
Dallaire, 72, had a distinguished military career for four decades.
In the 1990s he was appointed force commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda during the 1994 genocide there.
Although the United Nations did not intervene, and withdrew its peacekeeping mission during that massacre of nearly a million people in 100 days, Dallaire and some others remained in order to protect those who sought refuge.
He later revealed that he had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from the horror that he witnessed.
Today, Dallaire is a human-rights advocate who raises awareness of the mental and physical injuries sustained by veterans.