If young Canadians want to make the world a better place, the first thing they can do is exercise their right to vote, Senator Romeo Dallaire told a gathering of Yukon College students and staff last Friday.

"The balance of power in our democracy is in those under 30 years old," he implored. "You have the power ... (and) individual votes are absolutely essential for your future."

The 62-year-old retired brigadier general and former commander of the UN Assistance Force for Rwanda, used the UN's failure to halt the genocide there, in which more than 800,000 people were butchered, to make his point.

"This is a world where we are continuously tested in ethical, moral and legal dilemas in regards to the application of human rights," said Dallaire.

"How is it possible that human beings would actually contemplate the outright elimination, destruction, of another group of human beings because of their race, ethnicity, their religion or tribalism, or maybe simply power?"

And in April of 1994, the fragile African state of Rwanda, emerging from a deadly civil war, was plunged into the depraved reality of just such a possibility.

After its then-president Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down, Hutu extremists used the assassination as a pretext to go on a killing spree, executing with impunity opposition Tutsis and Hutu moderates across the country.

As European forces withdrew and the United States - still reeling from its failed mission in Somalia the year previous - refused to intervene, Dallaire's meagre UN contingent of Canadian, Tunisian, Ghanaian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani peacekeepers made a futile attempt to stave off disaster.

While attempting to negotiate safe passage of both Hutus and Tutsis behind the lines of their own combatants, Dallaire came face-to-face with evil, as he wrote off in his 2003 book, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.

"I remember approaching one of the extremist militia leaders, the hand of the devil, I met. And I asked him, 'How is it possible that you're ordering people to do this?' and he had blood splattered on him," Dallaire recalled.

"And he turned to me ... and he said, 'Who the hell do you think you are?'"

The militia man then went on a tirade about "white troops" wiping out African villages to scare others into producing more rubber to further colonial machinations, right up until the Second World War.

"Then he said to me, 'And how many black Africans were involved in the Holocaust again?'" continued Dallaire.

"So we don't necessarily have the lessons to give them, but we should be maybe attempting to assist them in preventing them going down these catastrophic routes."

In spite of humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict and other parameters for human conduct, which have taken centuries to evolve, extremism and terror know no bounds, said Dallaire

"Even during the cold war, the Russians and us knew we had to work within these conventions," he added.

"But in this era which we find ourselves, one side is not playing by those rules."

Dallaire then spoke of Canada's contribution to international law that the UN adopted; the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a doctrine obligating the international community to intervene when a nation abuses the human rights of its people, or if its government cannot stop such abuses.

Unfortunately, the UN has shown little ability to enforce R2P and the doctrine has essentially remained talk without action.

While Dallaire stopped short of advocating unilateral intervention, reminding the crowd of the U.S. war in Iraq and its fallout, the senator said Canada could still play a meaningful role in preventing global crises.

"We are part of the nine most powerful nations in the world ... that means we have to do more than taking care of our own needs," he said, adding Canada is not living up to its role as a leading middle power.

"The problem is we are not playing to that level. We are underestimating who we are; we are underestimating our potential."

With the Oct. 14 federal election looming, Dallaire ended his speech by lauding our democracy and hammering home its absolute necessity.

"Your future is not like my future was ... the pace of change is massive, so if you're not involved now with how to shape the future, you'll have to live with the consequences of that future," Dallaire insisted.

"What is extraordinary with this country is we can shape the future, we have that power and potential ... if we did not have politicians, we would have anarchy or we'd have dictators."