Truthfully, the situation isn't easy, but it does boil down to a moral dilemna. The Hutu militias deliberately targeted Western peacekeepers because they figured when shit hit the fan they'd run away rather than hold their ground - IOTL, the Belgians did just that. Here, the Belgians go, and as pointed out the leader of the UN force in Rwanda, Major General Romeo Dallaire, calls to Ottawa. Ottawa gets intel on what is happening in Rwanda, and after puking a few times, they decide they have a duty, as the founders of peacekeeping and as good people in the world, that they cannot just let it happen. The Prime Minister publicly says that Canada cannot let it happen, and when asked what Washington or the UN thought about it, the PM tells the media that they do not care what Washington or anybody else thinks about it. An ad hoc plan goes together, with Canadian Forces airplanes, Air Canada jets and leased cargo planes from Ukraine hauling the Canadian Airborne Regiment and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infanty (PPCLI for short, the legendary Princess Pats) to Rwanda. Dallaire uses his UN forces to secure the airport, gets shot doing so but succeeds regardless. The Canadians turn up safely and immediately repulse a Rwandan attack. Over a few days, they hold their ground and supplies turn up using every cargo jet the Canadians can get their hands on.
The media has a field day, and the inaction, followed by the Canadian PM's damning comments, leads to efforts mobilizing from around the world to at the very least back up the Canadians in Rwanda. They stop the genocide, arrest several of the leaders, and try to escort aid convoys and people convoys away from the genocide. General Dallaire is shot a second time personally leading one of those convoys, but again survives. The world's public opinion forces a major response.
Canada looks like the best guy possible, taking a massive risk to go help those people, even when there was little for them to physically gain. The Canadian Airborne Regiment makes amends for its screwups in Somalia, General Dallaire goes home to a promotion and a Victoria Cross, the Canadian Forces get massive respect for taking the risk, and get their entire airlifter fleet replaced and expanded in the second half of the 1990s. The world cannot do anything but give respect to the Canadians for their courageous intervention, and a series of high-profile operations in operations later on, from the Balkans to Afghanistan to killing terrorists in Somalia, as well as bridging diplomatic gaps after 9/11, makes the Canadian Forces a revered institution and revives the notion that the Canadians are not to be messed with, but if all hell breaks loose, the incredible soldiers of the Great White North will turn up to help those who need the help.
Now, the Rwanda operation in my TL could have easily ended up in a Dieppe-size disaster - the Rwandan Army was a ragtag, incredibly undisciplined force and the militias were even worse than that, but they had huge numbers, and it took Dallaire using the men he could rely on, and taking a risk in getting the Ghanian and Tunisian forces he had to help him take the airport so reinforcements could arrive.
I agree fully. I read the book, and its quite clear that what happened in Rwanda was a scene from hell itself. I think Dallaire must have seen and felt much of the same things the guys who liberated Auschwitz must have felt, namely questioning humanity itself if its members could be as deranged as the Rwandan Hutus were. I think all of the national leaders who could have done something look back now and think "God damn it, I allowed a million people to be murdered, most of which didn't have to." Bill Clinton and Jean Chretien (Canadian PM in 1994) have said as much, Clinton calling it his greatest regret from his time in politics. I honestly wonder how the hell a man could witness all of that and manage to not eat a gun afterwards. To call those Rwandan murderers animals would be insulting to the animals.
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