In late 1993, Dallaire received his commission as the Force Commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda.

Rwanda was in the middle of a civil war between the extremist Hutu government and a small Tutsi rebel faction.

When Dallaire arrived in Rwanda, his mandate was to supervise the implementation of the Accords during a transitional period in which Tutsis were supposed to be given positions of power within the Hutu government.

There were early signs that something was amiss when, on January 22, 1994, a French DC-8 aircraft landed in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, loaded with ammunition and weapons for the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR).

The Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Army told Dallaire that since the munitions were ordered before Arusha, the UN was not allowed to detain the shipment, and displayed paperwork showing that the weapons had been sent by Belgium, Israel, France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Egypt.

In addition to the arms deliveries, troops from the Rwandan government began checking identity cards which identified individuals as Hutus or Tutsis.

The ten Belgian UN Paracommandos had been intercepted by the Rwandan government forces (FAR), taken to a military camp as hostages, and murdered there.

[10] Seeing the situation in Rwanda deteriorating rapidly, Dallaire pleaded for logistical support and reinforcements of 2,000 soldiers for UNAMIR; he estimated that a total of 5,000 well-equipped troops would give the UN enough leverage to put an end to the killings.

Dallaire's staff—including the U.N.'s unarmed observers—often relied on its U.N. credentials to save Tutsis, heading off Interahamwe attacks even while being outnumbered and outgunned.

As the massacre progressed and press accounts of the genocide grew, the U.N. Security Council backtracked on its position and voted to establish UNAMIR II, with a strength of 5,500 men in response to the French plan to occupy portions of the country.

By August, the French had handed their portion of the country to the RPF, giving Kagame effective control of all of Rwanda.

As revealed through testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the genocide was brutally efficient, lasting for a total of 100 days and leading to the murder of between 800,000 and 1,171,000 Tutsi, Hutu moderates and Twa.

The Genocide ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front gained control of Rwanda on July 18, 1994, though recrimination, retribution, and criminal prosecutions continue to the present day.

Dallaire has been criticized by retired Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie for protecting UN soldiers when 10 Belgian paratroopers were killed on duty.

[19][17] The Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, during an interview, states that "...Dallaire was insulting in his comments and whose cowardice was demonstrated by a lack of responsibility when the situation required leadership on his part".

[20] In his book, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, General Dallaire details his decision to send 10 soldiers to protect the Prime Minister during the "apocalyptic" first hours of the genocide.

In 1998 he was assigned to Assistant Deputy Minister (Human Resources – Military) and in 1999 was appointed Special Advisor to the Chief of the Defence Staff on Officer Professional Development.

The testimony was critical to the outcome of the trial, and in December 2008 Bagosora was convicted of genocide and for the command responsibility of the murders of the 10 Belgian Peacekeepers.

"[23] He later worked as a Special Advisor to the Canadian Government on War Affected Children and the Prohibition of Small Arms Distribution, as well as with international agencies with the same focus, including child labour.

He is a great proponent of the concept of institutionalism, and, in 2004–2005, he was a fellow at the Carr Center For Human Rights Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

[25] Later that month, on September 29, 2006, he issued a statement urging the international community to be prepared to defend Bahá'ís in Iran from possible atrocities.

He was a Fellow of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In a 2004 opinion article published by the New York Times, Dallaire called upon NATO to intervene militarily alongside African Union troops to abort the genocide in Darfur.

"[27] In October 2002, the documentary The Last Just Man was released, which chronicles the Rwandan genocide and features interviews with Dallaire, Brent Beardsley, and others involved in the events that happened in Rwanda.

McGaw's song points squarely at the indifference and failure of the United Nations surrounding the Rwanda genocide.

In 1996, Dallaire was made an Officer of the Legion of Merit of the United States, the highest military decoration available for award to foreigners, for his service in Rwanda.

Several months after the broadcast, on March 9, 2005, Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson awarded Dallaire with the 25th Pearson Peace Medal.

In June 2006, Dallaire was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters by the Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY) in recognition of his efforts in Rwanda and afterwards to speak out against genocide.

General Dallaire planted a tree at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Accra, Ghana in 2007 at the invitation of the Commandant, Major-General John Attipoe.