Meritorious Service Medal award winner to speak about Rwandan genocide
The Genocide Intervention Network-St. Thomas Chapter invites the campus and community to a talk by Maj. Brent Beardsley, member of the U.N. Mission for Rwanda before and during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Beardsley served as the operations manager for fellow Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, force commander, and later collaborated with Dallaire on the book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2003), which won numerous prizes.
In 1995 Beardsley was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his heroic personal actions in Rwanda. In 2004, Beardsley testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, in the trial against a suspected mastermind of the Rwandan genocide, former army colonel Theoneste Bagosora, for genocide and crimes against humanity.
The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, in Room 100, McNeely Hall, St. Paul campus. The talk is sponsored by the Genocide Intervention Network-St. Thomas Chapter and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Teaching and Learning Center.
For more information about the national Genocide Intervention Network, visit its Web site. For information about the St. Thomas chapter, contact student president Sarah Hogan or faculty adviser Dr. Ellen Kennedy.
