By Laura Conrad, News Editor
Retired lieutenant general Roméo Dallaire wants to kick-off a global movement to end the use of children in armed conflict. Linked with the Child Soldiers Initiative (CSI), the first event of this movement is happening at Dalhousie.
On Oct. 26, Dallaire will visit Dalhousie to launch his new book They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children. The book is a documentation of Dallaire’s experiences with child soldiers, and his thoughts on hos to end the use of children in world conflicts.
Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, will be with Dallaire at the book launch. Together, Dallaire and Beah will highlight the seriousness of the use of children in conflict, and explain why current efforts to control this act are very weak. The event will take place at 7 p.m. in Ondaatje Hall. Nova Scotia Lieutenant Governor Mayann E. Francis and former NDP leader Alexa McDonough will also be there.
The CSI is a partnership between the Search for Common Ground, the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre, the University of Victoria and the University of Winnipeg, The Centre for Foreign Policy Studies at Dalhousie University and War Child Canada in association with UNICEF Canada.
Shelly Whitman is the deputy director of the Dal’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, and when it became the research and administrative arm of CSI, she became the project director as well. Whitman says there are a lot of different ways students can get involved with CSI and the centre.
“Students can always assist with events we hold, with smaller research matters, and just helping to get the word out,” Whitman says.
She also believes that the book launch event is a very unique opportunity for students and community members.
“To see a former commander on the same stage as a former child soldier creates a very interesting dynamic,” she says. “They came from two different areas of the world and both have the same goals.” Whitman also says the event is an opportunity to see two world class speakers and best-selling authors together.
Whitman says Halifax is a great place to mark the beginning of the book launch, in equal parts because of the activism in the city, the large student population, the military base and the partnership with the centre. She also hopes Halifax will be remembered as the city that began the movement.
“Halifax is the first place for the international launching,” she says. “We hope people will point back to Halifax as being the starting point.”
The official publishing date for Dallaire’s book is Nov. 6. The book is published by Random House of Canada.
“This book explores how I am attempting to decommission a weapon system that is itself a crime against humanity,” Dallaire says in a press release.
Tickets for the event are available through Ticket Atlantic and participating Superstores.
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