Soldiers Made Me Look Good

by Lewis MacKenzie

  An hour and a half after entering the meeting, Dallaire called his headquarters and was told that a number of Rwandan VIPs “protected” by UNAMIR (a bit hard to do, if you can’t use deadly force) had been murdered, as had their families. Thirty-five of his military personnel had been captured, and anarchy reigned in the capital. His Bangladeshi troops refused to follow orders, except those originating from their capital that commanded them to not get involved or to take any risks. At around 1 PM, Dallaire proceeded to the location where Prime Minister “Madame Agathe” was supposed to be guarded by UNAMIR personnel, only to learn that she and her husband had been murdered. Still without mobile communications, Dallaire walked to the Ministry of Defence, hoping to find Bagosora, who didn’t show up until 2 PM. Bagosora indicated that he could not get into Camp Kigali (which housed his own soldiers) because of the chaos, but that he would put a force together to restore calm in the camp.

  At this stage, Dallaire phoned his HQ and was told that the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Army, primarily located in the north of the country, was preparing to move south to protect those Tutsis who had not already been slaughtered. Although the situation was completely out of control, Dallaire still held out hope that he could contribute to bringing the situation to some kind of resolution. This, in spite of the fact that two armies were squaring off with each other and that his modest force was spread over the entire country, in exposed locations, under his orders to return fire only if fired upon, and with some of them receiving directions from their capitals to “stay out of trouble.” Dallaire spent the next two hours trying to get the two army leaders, Colonel Bagosora and Major-General Paul Kagame, to speak with each other on the phone. When at last the conversation took place between Bagosora and Kagame’s representative in Kigali, nothing was achieved. It was two hours before dark. Dallaire brought up the subject of his detained solders with Bagosora, who conveniently ignored the issue.

  At 4 PM, some six hours after he first saw his soldiers being held against their will, and after the murder of many political leaders and their families, after more of his soldiers were taken hostage, after a coup by the Hutu “leader” Bagosora was evident, after the Tutsi-led army was moving to intervene, after a number of his troops refused to intervene and after a ridiculous order from the UN not to use deadly force to protect anyone, Dallaire in a quiet moment acknowledged to himself that “the path to war and slaughter was now open.”24 He decided it was time to consolidate his troops in order to ensure their safety and then for him and his troops to do what they could to protect the innocents.

  Nevertheless, there was still one more meeting to attend that day. At 6 PM, Dallaire drove to a meeting of the Crisis Committee at Camp Kigali. To his amazement, the camp displayed no evidence of the early morning chaos and was calm and orderly. Obviously someone, presumably Bagosora, was able to control the out-of-control mutineers when he wanted to. At the meeting, Dallaire was told that he should withdraw the Belgian contingent as soon as possible—anti-Belgium hate propaganda was being transmitted by RTLM, the local TV station. At long last, he blew his stack and insisted that the captive Belgian soldiers be turned over to him. Twenty minutes later, he was told that his soldiers had been found at the Kigali hospital.

  The hospital was a mere two hundred metres away. On arriving there, Dallaire was directed to a small hut at the far end of a courtyard in front of the morgue. In the hut, he came upon a scene that would haunt any commander forever: the bodies of his Belgian soldiers were stacked on top of each other like “sacks of potatoes.” Their intertwined, tattered uniforms and mutilated bloody flesh made it impossible to do an accurate body count. Initially Dallaire thought there were eleven bodies, but later it turned out to be ten.

  The critical eight hours from the time General Dallaire observed his Belgian soldiers on the ground in Camp Kigali until the issue was forcefully raised with the Crisis Committee in the very same camp warranted a mere ninety seconds in the movie version of Shake Hands with the Devil. To say that the day’s events and General Dallaire’s priorities were glossed over would be an understatement.

  The public has heaped much sympathetic praise on General Dallaire for his efforts as the force commander in Rwanda, but there has been much criticism of his leadership by members of the Profession of Arms, particularly in Canada. It is not my intention to pass judgement on the subject. This is, however, an opportunity to re-evaluate the events related to the loss of his Belgian soldiers in order to stress the importance of flexibility when determining one’s priorities as a military commander.

  Here is one way to understand military orders. Orders received by a commander in a war scenario that deal with immediate actions to be performed in the pursuit of victory are not debatable. Our nation’s participation in any war occurs as a result of Canada’s democratic process determining that it is in our national self-interest to do so. Orders received by a military commander, in the final analysis, emanate from the highest level of national decision making and must be obeyed. This interpretation will always put mission first in priority, before soldiers and self. It is worth noting that this interpretation and this determination of priorities was all that General Dallaire had ever experienced. Until his Rwandan tour of duty, he had spent his entire career training for conventional warfare on the Central Front, in West Germany, as part of the NATO forces squared off against the Soviet Union.

  Orders received by commanders of multinational peacekeeping operations, most of them mandated by the UN Security Council, present a much more complex set of circumstances. Soldiers frequently and sarcastically remind themselves: “Just remember, all of our equipment was made by the lowest bidder!” There is a similar attitude regarding Security Council mandates: “Just remember, the wording of our UN mandate was the result of the Permanent Five agreeing to the lowest common denominator!” When China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States look at a threat to international peace and security through the prism of their own country’s national self-interests, they will never completely agree on everything. What follows in the pursuit of “doing something” is a mandate for the UN field commander that is laced with compromises and omissions, frequently to the point of defying interpretation. Field commanders familiar with the UN’s flawed decision-making process learn to deal with the ambiguities and to rely on their own common sense. The unattractive and unworkable alternative is to regularly ask UN headquarters for advice or direction. Better to take the appropriate action, and ask for permission—or absolution—later.

  General Dallaire, as a result of his inexperience in working with the UN, was not prepared to act on the fact that his mandate—by his own admission, and for all intents and purposes— had disintegrated by mid-morning on April 7, some thirteen hours after the president of Rwanda’s aircraft exploded and kickstarted the slaughter. Dallaire had mused on the possibility of such a development a number of times that morning, but he took no action to shift his priorities, to concentrate his forces, particularly his Belgian paracommandos, and to place his soldiers’ security first in the order of priorities. He opted for a futile attempt to perpetuate a mandate that had been overtaken by events and that was made even more implausible by the ridiculous direction from UNHQ not to use deadly force unless fired upon, no matter what the circumstances. If a Rwandan child is dragged off to be slaughtered under your very nose, so be it, the order implied.

  Even with the benefit of fourteen years of hindsight, now Senator Dallaire steadfastly refuses to acknowledge that the mission does not always come first in a commander’s priorities. There is perhaps an explanation for his inflexibility on this matter; it relates to the fate of the ten murdered Belgian soldiers. If Dallaire is permanently wedded to the view that the mission must always come first, then his Belgian soldiers’ sacrifice and the fact that he ordered no action be taken to assist them while they were being slaughtered could be both explained and justified. Acknowledging now that not immediately alerting his headquarters that he would
be mounting a rescue operation was incorrect would be a heavy burden indeed. There are those who argue, as Dallaire has, that a rescue attempt would have been suicidal. But they should realize that macho bullies who beat, torture and murder defenceless women and children become cowards when they are faced with well-trained, professional combat soldiers. If they had been ordered to intervene, there was certainly a chance that the Belgian paratroopers standing by would have got the job done; by their own accounts, they certainly wanted to try. Future Canadian military leaders should be aware that they will probably face similar dilemmas, and they too should ponder what their priorities will be and where their responsibilities will lie when the time comes.

  British General Jack Deverell, in a 2007 article titled “Can Disobedience Be a Military Virtue?” argues that in some circumstances disobedience has been not just a virtue but a necessity. General Deverell has ample qualifications to opine on the subject. He was the deputy commander of operations for Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the commander-in-chief of NATO’s Allied Forces North before retiring in 2004. He writes: “On balance, history indicates that disobedience by senior commanders was often justified and successful whereas disobedience by soldiers more often than not ended in catastrophe.” He goes on to say, “Commanders must generate trust and confidence within their structures as conflicts today are increasingly complex and dangerous—and often politically ambiguous and culturally sensitive. Most important of all, everyone in the force must understand that at some stage, in the absence of clear instruction, or in spite of orders that have been issued in good faith but overtaken by events, they may have to act independently and decisively” (my emphasis).25 I will go to my grave arguing that there are times—important times, albeit rare—when a commander’s responsibility for his or her soldiers comes before the mission. The trick is to recognize the times. Senator Dallaire, who has filled his life with good works both during his military service and since his retirement from the military, offers dangerously bad advice on this aspect of leadership when he argues to the contrary.

  22: Leadership: What It Looks Like

  “Getting people to do what they don’t necessarily want to do, and having them enjoy the experience.”

  ONE DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP

  SHORTLY AFTER MY retirement from the forces in March 1992, I fulfilled many public requests for presentations on what was going on in the Balkans. My agent, David Lavin of the Lavin Agency, took care of the logistics that required so much time to organize.

  It was close to the end of 1992 when a client of the agency requested that I make a presentation to his management team on the subject of leadership. I turned down the lucrative offer, explaining to David that it would be too embarrassing to stand in front of a civilian audience suggesting by my presence and topic: “Hey, look at me, I’m a great leader and I’m going to tell you how to be one too.” I had heard others make presentations on the subject and usually got the impression that their offerings were much too theoretical to be of real value. I’d had the same reaction when the subject of leadership was addressed in our academic military institutions. The lectures were dedicated to various leadership styles, including authoritative, participatory, collegial and the like. Although they were interesting, they didn’t really provide the listener with any practical leadership tools.

  But the requests for leadership presentations started to pile up, and I began to think that perhaps I did have something to offer after all. I spent a good week coming up with ideas on how to make a presentation on the subject less arrogant and provide some practical and useful leadership advice.

  Frist, I needed a definition, and it had to be short and simple. I came up with: “Leadership is getting people to do what they don’t necessarily want to do, and having them enjoy the experience.” It seemed to me that in the business world, where most of the requests were coming from, when sales were up, the stock market booming, budgets adequate and the workers happy, you could put a monkey in charge. Leadership was essential only when there were problems and challenges, and that was most of the time.

  The example I would use to make the point regarding a leadership non-challenge for the monkey was based on a fictitious event, but one that almost happened to me in 1977. At that time, the rotation schedule for the six-hundred-man Canadian units serving on six-month tours of UN peacekeeping duty in Cyprus was less than rigid. Our battalion was scheduled to start its tour in late April of the following year; however, there were rumours in early December that we might have to deploy in a few weeks’ time—over four months ahead of schedule—because of a diplomatic crisis for Canada on the island. I would “recall” for my leadership audience an imaginary talk I’d had with my soldiers as they gathered around me on the parade square in Calgary at –25°Celsius: “You have all heard the rumours, and I can confirm they are true. Cyprus is an idyllic island in the eastern Mediterranean. It is home to both Greek and Turkish Cypriots. They don’t get along, and the Turkish Cypriots in the north and the Greek Cypriots in the south are separated by a demilitarized zone running between their two communities. We will man the section of that zone that runs through the middle of the capital, Nicosia. Now, I’m going to have to work your butts off 24/7, but only for twenty-eight days out of thirty. During the other two days, you can go anywhere you want on the island. Having done two previous tours in Cyprus, I can share with you that there is a large topless beach on the south coast of the island, occupied by large numbers of young Swedish female tourists during the winter months.” This would not be a leadership challenge! In fact, the only challenge would be to get out of the way as the soldiers stampeded to the airport. The reader will appreciate that I’ve described this scenario only to make a point. Soldiers would never, well almost never, react this way in real life.

  Having defined leadership, it would be important for me to describe what it looks like.

  In 1982, when I was a foreign student (an “international fellow”) at the one-year course conducted at the United States Army’s War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, I spent the year studying the process designed to produce U.S. foreign and complementary defence policies.

  Well into the course, and designed to give us an interesting break from the academic routine, there was a one-week elective. We could choose to visit just about anywhere or anything in the United States, providing it had some relevance to what we were studying—logistics, management, organizational experiments, decision making and so on. Some students decided to spend their days at Fort Knox, investigating how the nation’s gold reserves were managed, while others joined the New York City Transit Authority to observe how an organization larger than the Canadian Forces operated.

  One of my friends on the course was a U.S. colonel who said, “Let’s spend our time with the New York police force at a precinct in Harlem. I’ve done a bit of research, and the one we should visit has had more murders within its precinct borders last year than all of your Canada put together. Only one of the murders involved a victim who actually lived in the area; all the rest happened within the drug community that came and went during the night.”

  Our time with the precinct was pretty depressing. Even the police officers saw themselves as part of a “revolving door” system. Users and pushers would be arrested, and since there were no rehabilitation programs for users, they would be back on the street the following day. Pushers could afford good legal support, so they were only a day or two behind the users in getting back on the street.

  On the final day of our stay, the precinct held a smoker for us to say goodbye. In those days, “smoker” was an accurate description. The room where it was held was filled with plainclothes undercover policemen whose cloud of cigarette smoke was the consistency of Bay of Fundy fog.

  I was in the middle of a conversation with a fit, young, probably thirty-five-year-old detective when he started to recount a story that I vividly recall to this day: “When I was assigned to this precinct three years ago, I decided that u
nlike most of my colleagues I would move my family into the area. We rented a tenth-storey apartment just down the street from here. Just a week ago my wife and two children, one eight and the other twelve, were in the elevator with me on the way to our floor after we’d done some shopping. The elevator stopped, a scruffy individual got in, and when he saw me—perhaps recognized me, I’ll never know—he pulled out a pistol and shot at me, and missed!”

  “Missed you in the elevator?” was the best I could come up with.

  “Yes,” he continued. “And a split second later I shot him three times, and killed him in front of my family.”

  By this time I was searching for something bordering on intelligent to say but could only come up with: “Do you get extra pay serving with this unit?”

  “No, I make the same as someone with my rank and seniority directing traffic in downtown Manhattan,” he replied with a hint of frustration.

  Digging my hole deeper, I asked, “Look, Detective, one of your colleagues told me less than five minutes ago that you’d just asked for a two-year extension with this precinct. In God’s name, why?”