I could not put this book down. I can not say it is a great read because that would take away from the importance of the story.
I felt such sadness, frustration, anger, and hopelessness all at the same time.
I feel Romeo Dallaire was far to lenient in talking about how he and his men were undermined at every turn.
The sad truth is that their are people and countries that make a lot of money from war and poverty.
This is not a condemnation of those who have placed their lives in harm's way but the lack of concern for them when they return. How could a person not be scared for the rest of their life?
This book is not an easy read but to change yourself you must look at the hard things.
The original personnel on the ground did not receive their proper due. Thank you.
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Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda Paperback – Oct. 12 2004
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Romeo Dallaire
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ISBN-100679311726
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ISBN-13978-0679311720
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EditionFirst Trade Paperback Edition
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PublisherVintage Canada
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Publication dateOct. 12 2004
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LanguageEnglish
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Dimensions15.24 x 3.28 x 22.78 cm
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Print length592 pages
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Product description
Review
“One of the year’s, if not the decade’s, most important events in Canadian publishing.”
—The Vancouver Sun
“Almost certainly the most important book published in Canada this year.”
—The Globe and Mail
“A book of astonishing power.... Here was a man who screamed into the void. No one listened, no one cared, no one heard. But he never stopped screaming. He valued every human life. He wept for every human loss. He never gave up.”
—Stephen Lewis, The Walrus
“This is a book to read — to understand what genocide means, to reflect on the failure of ‘humanity,’ and to be inspired by the courage of the few in the face of genocidal horror and international indifference.”
—Alison Des Forges, The Gazette (Montreal)
“On the enormously important issue of Third World development and the obligation of the Western world to assist the dispossessed, [the book] is a powerful cri de coeur for the powerless.”
—Toronto Star
“Read this book and rediscover, if you have lost it, your capacity for moral outrage.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
—The Vancouver Sun
“Almost certainly the most important book published in Canada this year.”
—The Globe and Mail
“A book of astonishing power.... Here was a man who screamed into the void. No one listened, no one cared, no one heard. But he never stopped screaming. He valued every human life. He wept for every human loss. He never gave up.”
—Stephen Lewis, The Walrus
“This is a book to read — to understand what genocide means, to reflect on the failure of ‘humanity,’ and to be inspired by the courage of the few in the face of genocidal horror and international indifference.”
—Alison Des Forges, The Gazette (Montreal)
“On the enormously important issue of Third World development and the obligation of the Western world to assist the dispossessed, [the book] is a powerful cri de coeur for the powerless.”
—Toronto Star
“Read this book and rediscover, if you have lost it, your capacity for moral outrage.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
From the Back Cover
“One of the year’s, if not the decade’s, most important events in Canadian publishing.”
—The Vancouver Sun
“Almost certainly the most important book published in Canada this year.”
—The Globe and Mail
“A book of astonishing power.... Here was a man who screamed into the void. No one listened, no one cared, no one heard. But he never stopped screaming. He valued every human life. He wept for every human loss. He never gave up.”
—Stephen Lewis, The Walrus
“This is a book to read — to understand what genocide means, to reflect on the failure of ‘humanity,’ and to be inspired by the courage of the few in the face of genocidal horror and international indifference.”
—Alison Des Forges, The Gazette (Montreal)
“On the enormously important issue of Third World development and the obligation of the Western world to assist the dispossessed, [the book] is a powerful cri de coeur for the powerless.”
—Toronto Star
“Read this book and rediscover, if you have lost it, your capacity for moral outrage.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
—The Vancouver Sun
“Almost certainly the most important book published in Canada this year.”
—The Globe and Mail
“A book of astonishing power.... Here was a man who screamed into the void. No one listened, no one cared, no one heard. But he never stopped screaming. He valued every human life. He wept for every human loss. He never gave up.”
—Stephen Lewis, The Walrus
“This is a book to read — to understand what genocide means, to reflect on the failure of ‘humanity,’ and to be inspired by the courage of the few in the face of genocidal horror and international indifference.”
—Alison Des Forges, The Gazette (Montreal)
“On the enormously important issue of Third World development and the obligation of the Western world to assist the dispossessed, [the book] is a powerful cri de coeur for the powerless.”
—Toronto Star
“Read this book and rediscover, if you have lost it, your capacity for moral outrage.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
About the Author
LGEN. ROMEO DALLAIRE served as commander of the 1st Canadian Division and Deputy Commander of the Canadian Army, and is now special adviser to the Canadian government on war-affected children and the prohibition of small-arms distribution. He is married and has three children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
It was an absolutely magnificent day in May 1994. The blue sky was cloudless, and there was a whiff of breeze stirring the trees. It was hard to believe that in the past weeks an unimaginable evil had turned Rwanda’s gentle green valleys and mist-capped hills into a stinking nightmare of rotting corpses. A nightmare we all had to negotiate every day. A nightmare that, as commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda, I could not help but feel deeply responsible for.
In relative terms, that day had been a good one. Under the protection of a limited and fragile ceasefire, my troops had successfully escorted about two hundred civilians -- a few of the thousands who had sought refuge with us in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda -- through many government- and militia-manned checkpoints to reach safety behind the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) lines. We were seven weeks into the genocide, and the RPF, the disciplined rebel army (composed largely of the sons of Rwandan refugees who had lived over the border in camps in Uganda since being forced out of their homeland at independence), was making a curved sweep toward Kigali from the north, adding civil war to the chaos and butchery in the country.
Having delivered our precious cargo of innocent souls, we were headed back to Kigali in a white UN Land Cruiser with my force commander pennant on the front hood and the blue UN flag on a staff attached to the right rear. My Ghanaian sharpshooter, armed with a new Canadian C-7 rifle, rode behind me, and my new Senegalese aide-de-camp, Captain Ndiaye, sat to my right. We were driving a particularly dangerous stretch of road, open to sniper fire. Most of the people in the surrounding villages had been slaughtered, the few survivors escaping with little more than the clothes on their backs. In a few short weeks, it had become a lonely and forlorn place.
Suddenly up ahead we saw a child wandering across the road. I stopped the vehicle close to the little boy, worried about scaring him off, but he was quite unfazed. He was about three years old, dressed in a filthy, torn T-shirt, the ragged remnants of underwear, little more than a loincloth, drooping from under his distended belly. He was caked in dirt, his hair white and matted with dust, and he was enveloped in a cloud of flies, which were greedily attacking the open sores that covered him. He stared at us silently, sucking on what I realized was a high-protein biscuit. Where had the boy found food in this wasteland?
I got out of the vehicle and walked toward him. Maybe it was the condition I was in, but to me this child had the face of an angel and eyes of pure innocence. I had seen so many children hacked to pieces that this small, whole, bewildered boy was a vision of hope. Surely he could not have survived all on his own? I motioned for my aide-de-camp to honk the horn, hoping to summon up his parents, but the sound echoed over the empty landscape, startling a few birds and little else. The boy remained transfixed. He did not speak or cry, just stood sucking on his biscuit and staring up at us with his huge, solemn eyes. Still hoping that he wasn’t all alone, I sent my aide-de-camp and the sharpshooter to look for signs of life.
We were in a ravine lush with banana trees and bamboo shoots, which created a dense canopy of foliage. A long straggle of deserted huts stood on either side of the road. As I stood alone with the boy, I felt an anxious knot in my stomach: this would be a perfect place to stage an ambush. My colleagues returned, having found no one. Then a rustling in the undergrowth made us jump. I grabbed the boy and held him firmly to my side as we instinctively took up defensive positions around the vehicle and in the ditch. The bushes parted to reveal a well-armed RPF soldier about fifteen years old. He recognized my uniform and gave me a smart salute and introduced himself. He was part of an advance observation post in the nearby hills. I asked him who the boy was and whether there was anyone left alive in the village who could take care of him. The soldier answered that the boy had no name and no family but that he and his buddies were looking after him. That explained the biscuit but did nothing to allay my concerns over the security and health of the boy. I protested that the child needed proper care and that I could give it to him: we were protecting and supporting orphanages in Kigali where he would be much better off. The soldier quietly insisted that the boy stay where he was, among his own people.
I continued to argue, but this child soldier was in no mood to discuss the situation and with haughty finality stated that his unit would care and provide for the child. I could feel my face flush with anger and frustration, but then noticed that the boy himself had slipped away while we had been arguing over him, and God only knew where he had gone. My aide-de-camp spotted him at the entrance to a hut a short distance away, clambering over a log that had fallen across the doorway. I ran after him, closely followed by my aide-de-camp and the RPF child soldier. By the time I had caught up to the boy, he had disappeared inside. The log in the doorway turned out to be the body of a man, obviously dead for some weeks, his flesh rotten with maggots and beginning to fall away from the bones.
As I stumbled over the body and into the hut, a swarm of flies invaded my nose and mouth. It was so dark inside that at first I smelled rather than saw the horror that lay before me. The hut was a two-room affair, one room serving as a kitchen and living room and the other as a communal bedroom; two rough windows had been cut into the mud-and-stick wall. Very little light penetrated the gloom, but as my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I saw strewn around the living room in a rough circle the decayed bodies of a man, a woman and two children, stark white bone poking through the desiccated, leather-like covering that had once been skin. The little boy was crouched beside what was left of his mother, still sucking on his biscuit. I made my way over to him as slowly and quietly as I could and, lifting him into my arms, carried him out of the hut.
The warmth of his tiny body snuggled against mine filled me with a peace and serenity that elevated me above the chaos. This child was alive yet terribly hungry, beautiful but covered in dirt, bewildered but not fearful. I made up my mind: this boy would be the fourth child in the Dallaire family. I couldn’t save Rwanda, but I could save this child.
Before I had held this boy, I had agreed with the aid workers and representatives of both the warring armies that I would not permit any exporting of Rwandan orphans to foreign places. When confronted by such requests from humanitarian organizations, I would argue that the money to move a hundred kids by plane to France or Belgium could help build, staff and sustain Rwandan orphanages that could house three thousand children. This one boy eradicated all my arguments. I could see myself arriving at the terminal in Montreal like a latter-day St. Christopher with the boy cradled in my arms, and my wife, Beth, there ready to embrace him.
That dream was abruptly destroyed when the young soldier, fast as a wolf, yanked the child from my arms and carried him directly into the bush. Not knowing how many members of his unit might already have their gunsights on us, we reluctantly climbed back into the Land Cruiser. As I slowly drove away, I had much on my mind.
By withdrawing, I had undoubtedly done the wise thing: I had avoided risking the lives of my two soldiers in what would have been a fruitless struggle over one small boy. But in that moment, it seemed to me that I had backed away from a fight for what was right, that this failure stood for all our failures in Rwanda.
Whatever happened to that beautiful child? Did he make it to an orphanage deep behind the RPF lines? Did he survive the following battles? Is he dead or is he now a child soldier himself, caught in the seemingly endless conflict that plagues his homeland?
That moment, when the boy, in the arms of a soldier young enough to be his brother, was swallowed whole by the forest, haunts me. It’s a memory that never lets me forget how ineffective and irresponsible we were when we promised the Rwandans that we would establish an atmosphere of security that would allow them to achieve a lasting peace. It has been almost nine years since I left Rwanda, but as I write this, the sounds, smells and colours come flooding back in digital clarity. It’s as if someone has sliced into my brain and grafted this horror called Rwanda frame by blood-soaked frame directly on my cortex. I could not forget even if I wanted to. For many of these years, I have yearned to return to Rwanda and disappear into the blue-green hills with my ghosts. A simple pilgrim seeking forgiveness and pardon. But as I slowly begin to piece my life back together, I know the time has come for me to make a more difficult pilgrimage: to travel back through all those terrible memories and retrieve my soul.
I did try to write this story soon after I came back from Rwanda in September 1994, hoping to find some respite for myself in sorting out how my own role as Force Commander of UNAMIR interconnected with the international apathy, the complex political manoeuvres, the deep well of hatred and barbarity that resulted in a genocide in which over 800,000 people lost their lives. Instead, I plunged into a disastrous mental health spiral that led me to suicide attempts, a medical release from the Armed Forces, the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, and dozens upon dozens of therapy sessions and extensive medication, which still have a place in my daily life.
It took me seven years to finally have the desire, the willpower and the stamina to begin to describe in detail the events of that year in Rwanda. To recount, from my insider’s point of view, how a country moved from the promise of a certain peace to intrigue, the fomenting of racial hatred, assassinations, civil war and genocide. And how the international community, through an inept UN mandate and what can only be described as indifference, self-interest and racism, aided and abetted these crimes against humanity -- how we all helped create the mess that has murdered and displaced millions and destabilized the whole central African region.
A growing library of books and articles is exploring the tragic events in Rwanda from many angles: eyewitness accounts, media analyses, assaults on the actions of the American administration at the time, condemnations of the UN’s apparent ineptitude. But even in the international and national inquiries launched in the wake of the genocide, the blame somehow slides away from the individual member nations of the un, and in particular those influential countries with permanent representatives on the Security Council, such as the United States, France and the United Kingdom, who sat back and watched it all happen, who pulled their troops or didn’t offer any troops in the first place. A few Belgian officers were brought to court to pay for the sins of Rwanda. When my sector commander in Kigali, Colonel Luc Marchal, was courtmartialled in Brussels, the charges against him were clearly designed to deflect any responsibility away from the Belgian government for the deaths of the ten Belgian peacekeepers under my command. The judge eventually threw out all the charges, accepting the fact that Marchal had performed his duties magnificently in a near-impossible situation. But the spotlight never turned to the reasons why he and the rest of the UNAMIR force were in such a dangerous situation in the first place.
It is time that I tell the story from where I stood -- literally in the middle of the slaughter for weeks on end. A public account of my actions, my decisions and my failings during that most terrible year may be a crucial missing link for those attempting to understand the tragedy both intellectually and in their hearts. I know that I will never end my mourning for all those Rwandans who placed their faith in us, who thought the UN peacekeeping force was there to stop extremism, to stop the killings and help them through the perilous journey to a lasting peace. That mission, UNAMIR, failed. I know intimately the cost in human lives of the inflexible UN Security Council mandate, the penny-pinching financial management of the mission, the UN red tape, the political manipulations and my own personal limitations. What I have come to realize as the root of it all, however, is the fundamental indifference of the world community to the plight of seven to eight million black Africans in a tiny country that had no strategic or resource value to any world power. An overpopulated little country that turned in on itself and destroyed its own people, as the world watched and yet could not manage to find the political will to intervene. Engraved still in my brain is the judgment of a small group of bureaucrats who came to “assess” the situation in the first weeks of the genocide: “We will recommend to our government not to intervene as the risks are high and all that is here are humans.”
My story is not a strictly military account nor a clinical, academic study of the breakdown of Rwanda. It is not a simplistic indictment of the many failures of the UN as a force for peace in the world. It is not a story of heroes and villains, although such a work could easily be written. This book is a cri de coeur for the slaughtered thousands, a tribute to the souls hacked apart by machetes because of their supposed difference from those who sought to hang on to power. It is the story of a commander who, faced with a challenge that didn’t fit the classic Cold War-era peacekeeper’s rule book, failed to find an effective solution and witnessed, as if in punishment, the loss of some of his own troops, the attempted annihilation of an ethnicity, the butchery of children barely out of the womb, the stacking of severed limbs like cordwood, the mounds of decomposing bodies being eaten by the sun.
This book is nothing more nor less than the account of a few humans who were entrusted with the role of helping others taste the fruits of peace. Instead, we watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect.
It was an absolutely magnificent day in May 1994. The blue sky was cloudless, and there was a whiff of breeze stirring the trees. It was hard to believe that in the past weeks an unimaginable evil had turned Rwanda’s gentle green valleys and mist-capped hills into a stinking nightmare of rotting corpses. A nightmare we all had to negotiate every day. A nightmare that, as commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda, I could not help but feel deeply responsible for.
In relative terms, that day had been a good one. Under the protection of a limited and fragile ceasefire, my troops had successfully escorted about two hundred civilians -- a few of the thousands who had sought refuge with us in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda -- through many government- and militia-manned checkpoints to reach safety behind the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) lines. We were seven weeks into the genocide, and the RPF, the disciplined rebel army (composed largely of the sons of Rwandan refugees who had lived over the border in camps in Uganda since being forced out of their homeland at independence), was making a curved sweep toward Kigali from the north, adding civil war to the chaos and butchery in the country.
Having delivered our precious cargo of innocent souls, we were headed back to Kigali in a white UN Land Cruiser with my force commander pennant on the front hood and the blue UN flag on a staff attached to the right rear. My Ghanaian sharpshooter, armed with a new Canadian C-7 rifle, rode behind me, and my new Senegalese aide-de-camp, Captain Ndiaye, sat to my right. We were driving a particularly dangerous stretch of road, open to sniper fire. Most of the people in the surrounding villages had been slaughtered, the few survivors escaping with little more than the clothes on their backs. In a few short weeks, it had become a lonely and forlorn place.
Suddenly up ahead we saw a child wandering across the road. I stopped the vehicle close to the little boy, worried about scaring him off, but he was quite unfazed. He was about three years old, dressed in a filthy, torn T-shirt, the ragged remnants of underwear, little more than a loincloth, drooping from under his distended belly. He was caked in dirt, his hair white and matted with dust, and he was enveloped in a cloud of flies, which were greedily attacking the open sores that covered him. He stared at us silently, sucking on what I realized was a high-protein biscuit. Where had the boy found food in this wasteland?
I got out of the vehicle and walked toward him. Maybe it was the condition I was in, but to me this child had the face of an angel and eyes of pure innocence. I had seen so many children hacked to pieces that this small, whole, bewildered boy was a vision of hope. Surely he could not have survived all on his own? I motioned for my aide-de-camp to honk the horn, hoping to summon up his parents, but the sound echoed over the empty landscape, startling a few birds and little else. The boy remained transfixed. He did not speak or cry, just stood sucking on his biscuit and staring up at us with his huge, solemn eyes. Still hoping that he wasn’t all alone, I sent my aide-de-camp and the sharpshooter to look for signs of life.
We were in a ravine lush with banana trees and bamboo shoots, which created a dense canopy of foliage. A long straggle of deserted huts stood on either side of the road. As I stood alone with the boy, I felt an anxious knot in my stomach: this would be a perfect place to stage an ambush. My colleagues returned, having found no one. Then a rustling in the undergrowth made us jump. I grabbed the boy and held him firmly to my side as we instinctively took up defensive positions around the vehicle and in the ditch. The bushes parted to reveal a well-armed RPF soldier about fifteen years old. He recognized my uniform and gave me a smart salute and introduced himself. He was part of an advance observation post in the nearby hills. I asked him who the boy was and whether there was anyone left alive in the village who could take care of him. The soldier answered that the boy had no name and no family but that he and his buddies were looking after him. That explained the biscuit but did nothing to allay my concerns over the security and health of the boy. I protested that the child needed proper care and that I could give it to him: we were protecting and supporting orphanages in Kigali where he would be much better off. The soldier quietly insisted that the boy stay where he was, among his own people.
I continued to argue, but this child soldier was in no mood to discuss the situation and with haughty finality stated that his unit would care and provide for the child. I could feel my face flush with anger and frustration, but then noticed that the boy himself had slipped away while we had been arguing over him, and God only knew where he had gone. My aide-de-camp spotted him at the entrance to a hut a short distance away, clambering over a log that had fallen across the doorway. I ran after him, closely followed by my aide-de-camp and the RPF child soldier. By the time I had caught up to the boy, he had disappeared inside. The log in the doorway turned out to be the body of a man, obviously dead for some weeks, his flesh rotten with maggots and beginning to fall away from the bones.
As I stumbled over the body and into the hut, a swarm of flies invaded my nose and mouth. It was so dark inside that at first I smelled rather than saw the horror that lay before me. The hut was a two-room affair, one room serving as a kitchen and living room and the other as a communal bedroom; two rough windows had been cut into the mud-and-stick wall. Very little light penetrated the gloom, but as my eyes became accustomed to the dark, I saw strewn around the living room in a rough circle the decayed bodies of a man, a woman and two children, stark white bone poking through the desiccated, leather-like covering that had once been skin. The little boy was crouched beside what was left of his mother, still sucking on his biscuit. I made my way over to him as slowly and quietly as I could and, lifting him into my arms, carried him out of the hut.
The warmth of his tiny body snuggled against mine filled me with a peace and serenity that elevated me above the chaos. This child was alive yet terribly hungry, beautiful but covered in dirt, bewildered but not fearful. I made up my mind: this boy would be the fourth child in the Dallaire family. I couldn’t save Rwanda, but I could save this child.
Before I had held this boy, I had agreed with the aid workers and representatives of both the warring armies that I would not permit any exporting of Rwandan orphans to foreign places. When confronted by such requests from humanitarian organizations, I would argue that the money to move a hundred kids by plane to France or Belgium could help build, staff and sustain Rwandan orphanages that could house three thousand children. This one boy eradicated all my arguments. I could see myself arriving at the terminal in Montreal like a latter-day St. Christopher with the boy cradled in my arms, and my wife, Beth, there ready to embrace him.
That dream was abruptly destroyed when the young soldier, fast as a wolf, yanked the child from my arms and carried him directly into the bush. Not knowing how many members of his unit might already have their gunsights on us, we reluctantly climbed back into the Land Cruiser. As I slowly drove away, I had much on my mind.
By withdrawing, I had undoubtedly done the wise thing: I had avoided risking the lives of my two soldiers in what would have been a fruitless struggle over one small boy. But in that moment, it seemed to me that I had backed away from a fight for what was right, that this failure stood for all our failures in Rwanda.
Whatever happened to that beautiful child? Did he make it to an orphanage deep behind the RPF lines? Did he survive the following battles? Is he dead or is he now a child soldier himself, caught in the seemingly endless conflict that plagues his homeland?
That moment, when the boy, in the arms of a soldier young enough to be his brother, was swallowed whole by the forest, haunts me. It’s a memory that never lets me forget how ineffective and irresponsible we were when we promised the Rwandans that we would establish an atmosphere of security that would allow them to achieve a lasting peace. It has been almost nine years since I left Rwanda, but as I write this, the sounds, smells and colours come flooding back in digital clarity. It’s as if someone has sliced into my brain and grafted this horror called Rwanda frame by blood-soaked frame directly on my cortex. I could not forget even if I wanted to. For many of these years, I have yearned to return to Rwanda and disappear into the blue-green hills with my ghosts. A simple pilgrim seeking forgiveness and pardon. But as I slowly begin to piece my life back together, I know the time has come for me to make a more difficult pilgrimage: to travel back through all those terrible memories and retrieve my soul.
I did try to write this story soon after I came back from Rwanda in September 1994, hoping to find some respite for myself in sorting out how my own role as Force Commander of UNAMIR interconnected with the international apathy, the complex political manoeuvres, the deep well of hatred and barbarity that resulted in a genocide in which over 800,000 people lost their lives. Instead, I plunged into a disastrous mental health spiral that led me to suicide attempts, a medical release from the Armed Forces, the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, and dozens upon dozens of therapy sessions and extensive medication, which still have a place in my daily life.
It took me seven years to finally have the desire, the willpower and the stamina to begin to describe in detail the events of that year in Rwanda. To recount, from my insider’s point of view, how a country moved from the promise of a certain peace to intrigue, the fomenting of racial hatred, assassinations, civil war and genocide. And how the international community, through an inept UN mandate and what can only be described as indifference, self-interest and racism, aided and abetted these crimes against humanity -- how we all helped create the mess that has murdered and displaced millions and destabilized the whole central African region.
A growing library of books and articles is exploring the tragic events in Rwanda from many angles: eyewitness accounts, media analyses, assaults on the actions of the American administration at the time, condemnations of the UN’s apparent ineptitude. But even in the international and national inquiries launched in the wake of the genocide, the blame somehow slides away from the individual member nations of the un, and in particular those influential countries with permanent representatives on the Security Council, such as the United States, France and the United Kingdom, who sat back and watched it all happen, who pulled their troops or didn’t offer any troops in the first place. A few Belgian officers were brought to court to pay for the sins of Rwanda. When my sector commander in Kigali, Colonel Luc Marchal, was courtmartialled in Brussels, the charges against him were clearly designed to deflect any responsibility away from the Belgian government for the deaths of the ten Belgian peacekeepers under my command. The judge eventually threw out all the charges, accepting the fact that Marchal had performed his duties magnificently in a near-impossible situation. But the spotlight never turned to the reasons why he and the rest of the UNAMIR force were in such a dangerous situation in the first place.
It is time that I tell the story from where I stood -- literally in the middle of the slaughter for weeks on end. A public account of my actions, my decisions and my failings during that most terrible year may be a crucial missing link for those attempting to understand the tragedy both intellectually and in their hearts. I know that I will never end my mourning for all those Rwandans who placed their faith in us, who thought the UN peacekeeping force was there to stop extremism, to stop the killings and help them through the perilous journey to a lasting peace. That mission, UNAMIR, failed. I know intimately the cost in human lives of the inflexible UN Security Council mandate, the penny-pinching financial management of the mission, the UN red tape, the political manipulations and my own personal limitations. What I have come to realize as the root of it all, however, is the fundamental indifference of the world community to the plight of seven to eight million black Africans in a tiny country that had no strategic or resource value to any world power. An overpopulated little country that turned in on itself and destroyed its own people, as the world watched and yet could not manage to find the political will to intervene. Engraved still in my brain is the judgment of a small group of bureaucrats who came to “assess” the situation in the first weeks of the genocide: “We will recommend to our government not to intervene as the risks are high and all that is here are humans.”
My story is not a strictly military account nor a clinical, academic study of the breakdown of Rwanda. It is not a simplistic indictment of the many failures of the UN as a force for peace in the world. It is not a story of heroes and villains, although such a work could easily be written. This book is a cri de coeur for the slaughtered thousands, a tribute to the souls hacked apart by machetes because of their supposed difference from those who sought to hang on to power. It is the story of a commander who, faced with a challenge that didn’t fit the classic Cold War-era peacekeeper’s rule book, failed to find an effective solution and witnessed, as if in punishment, the loss of some of his own troops, the attempted annihilation of an ethnicity, the butchery of children barely out of the womb, the stacking of severed limbs like cordwood, the mounds of decomposing bodies being eaten by the sun.
This book is nothing more nor less than the account of a few humans who were entrusted with the role of helping others taste the fruits of peace. Instead, we watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect.
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- Publisher : Vintage Canada; First Trade Paperback Edition (Oct. 12 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 592 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0679311726
- ISBN-13 : 978-0679311720
- Item weight : 658 g
- Dimensions : 15.24 x 3.28 x 22.78 cm
-
Best Sellers Rank:
#61,151 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10 in Rwandan History
- #17 in Africa Textbooks
- #160 in Politics in Government
- Customer Reviews:
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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
442 global ratings
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Reviewed in Canada on February 7, 2018
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Reviewed in Canada on July 16, 2020
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Being born in the 90's I wasn't too familiar with the conflict in Rwanda. This is an excellent book that details out the different conflicts and factions in the genocide in Rwanda. While the book, to me, didn't really gain speed until half-way through, the first half explains the origin story of Lt. Gen Dallaire which proves vital later in the story. It is, at times, a long read as there's a lot of information and abbreviations for different groups of people and organizations. I strongly recommend for anyone wanting to learn more of this crisis.
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Reviewed in Canada on February 20, 2018
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An amazing journey. Take care reading as this book gets dark, take time to pace yourself. I could feel myself becoming a bit more depressed reading this, so i took a small break be for finishing it. The world can be an ugly place so please make sure you are ready before you jump in. Loved the book though and can't wait to reread it.
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Reviewed in Canada on May 26, 2020
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It was a hard book to read as I got so frustrated with all the bs General Delaire has to endure. A tragic situation where the world failed Rwanda.
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Reviewed in Canada on September 22, 2010
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This book was a real eye opener for me. When I finished it, I immediately ran out and got all the books I could on the suggested reading list inside, and then got even more on the subject. "Shake Hands With the Devil" was the most shocking thing I ever read, both for its account of the genocide, and that I had never heard anything about it, or Dallaire, a true Canadian hero, though I was in high school during the genocide. That this horror wasn't major news was horrifying in itself. That the world knew everything and did nothing, has completely altered my perceptions about everything I thought I knew.
Thank you, Dallaire, for your efforts in Rwanda, and thank you for battling your demons and writing this book, so that eyes could be opened, in the hopes that humanity will step up in the future and not see this repeated again.
Thank you, Dallaire, for your efforts in Rwanda, and thank you for battling your demons and writing this book, so that eyes could be opened, in the hopes that humanity will step up in the future and not see this repeated again.
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Reviewed in Canada on March 7, 2021
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Hard to read but an insight to the genocide in Rwanda and the frustrations of Dallaire to help these people.Part of Canadiam military history
Reviewed in Canada on September 6, 2014
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Excellent writing considering the brevity of the subject and I highly recommend. It begins with a brief look at the Dallaire history and then moves forward to Mr. Dallaire's growing up years and finally his role in Rwanda. The majority of the book is spent on his personal experiences in Rwanda for the short time Mr. Dallaire was there. Fascinating. Horrific. Devastating. Compassionate.
Just read it.
Just read it.
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Reviewed in Canada on June 13, 2018
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Amazing story or another Canadian Hero trying to work in a corrupt world community. Ethical, moral and legal have been his guiding principals. His story took a toll on him and his family. I know very few persons who could of done what he did. Thank you General/Senator for your service
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shuttie27
5.0 out of 5 stars
Harrowing but a necessary read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2018Verified Purchase
I read this book following a trip to Rwanda, and having met some old friends there who both lost relatives in the genocide. I realised that I knew very little about it.
This is a harrowing but gripping read. To be honest, I began to wonder whether General Dallaire was as right all the time as he makes out, but I guess he was. The United Nations is presented for what it is: a bumbling collection of national self-interests, with some well-meaning personalities whose best intentions are thwarted by bureaucracy and by those national self-interests.Only Belgium and France were willing to take any responsibility, for motives of their own. Canada was willing but impotent. Britain did what it does best - guard its own interests and remain otherwise cynically uncommitted. The USA - well, suffice to say that Dallaire quotes one (unnamed) US diplomat as saying that, for the USA to be able to justify putting lives on the line to stop the carnage, there would have to be a ratio of at least 85,000 Rwandan deaths to one US military casualty. Nice. Rwanda has no natural resources that the major powers want to get their hands on. Of course, when it was all over each country wanted the world to know how its actions had stopped the genocide.
You would hope that the Rwanda experience would prevent such a tragedy happening again. Recent events in Myanmar, Congo, Syria, and so many other places in the world just show that nothing has been learned. Plus ca change.
This is a harrowing but gripping read. To be honest, I began to wonder whether General Dallaire was as right all the time as he makes out, but I guess he was. The United Nations is presented for what it is: a bumbling collection of national self-interests, with some well-meaning personalities whose best intentions are thwarted by bureaucracy and by those national self-interests.Only Belgium and France were willing to take any responsibility, for motives of their own. Canada was willing but impotent. Britain did what it does best - guard its own interests and remain otherwise cynically uncommitted. The USA - well, suffice to say that Dallaire quotes one (unnamed) US diplomat as saying that, for the USA to be able to justify putting lives on the line to stop the carnage, there would have to be a ratio of at least 85,000 Rwandan deaths to one US military casualty. Nice. Rwanda has no natural resources that the major powers want to get their hands on. Of course, when it was all over each country wanted the world to know how its actions had stopped the genocide.
You would hope that the Rwanda experience would prevent such a tragedy happening again. Recent events in Myanmar, Congo, Syria, and so many other places in the world just show that nothing has been learned. Plus ca change.
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Richard
5.0 out of 5 stars
An important perspective
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2021Verified Purchase
Dallaire's account of his time in Rwanda is an exceptionally important one. Covering the time from his arrival in Rwanda amidst peace talks until his departure towards the end of the civil war, the book provides vital details of the failings, prejudices and betrayals that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of tutsis in the Rwandan genocide.
Dallaire begins with a short autobiographical account of his career before he arrived in Rwanda. Following his appointment, the overarching theme of the book is the repeated failure of the United Nations. Dallaire seeks to give a sense of the sights, smells and sounds of the horror, and in this he succeeds, but more than that what he brings across is how preventable the tragedy was.
One would be forgiven for thinking the author is seeking to avoid blame. Dallaire lays out the problems he experienced as commander - lack of personnel, lack of resources, lack of authority - the ease with which all sides were able to ignore the UN contingent is abundantly clear throughout. When signs of genocide being prepared became apparent, the UN completely failed to intervene, bogged down in the domestic politics of its members and a bureaucratic mindset.
His description of the genocide itself is harrowing, even if it is still characterised by a slight detachment, likely a defence against the post traumatic stress that Dallaire describes having experienced. The scale of the murders, and their brutality, are nonetheless entirely clear. Overall, this is an important and accessible book, on a topic that desrves a great deal more recognition than it gets from the wider public.
Dallaire begins with a short autobiographical account of his career before he arrived in Rwanda. Following his appointment, the overarching theme of the book is the repeated failure of the United Nations. Dallaire seeks to give a sense of the sights, smells and sounds of the horror, and in this he succeeds, but more than that what he brings across is how preventable the tragedy was.
One would be forgiven for thinking the author is seeking to avoid blame. Dallaire lays out the problems he experienced as commander - lack of personnel, lack of resources, lack of authority - the ease with which all sides were able to ignore the UN contingent is abundantly clear throughout. When signs of genocide being prepared became apparent, the UN completely failed to intervene, bogged down in the domestic politics of its members and a bureaucratic mindset.
His description of the genocide itself is harrowing, even if it is still characterised by a slight detachment, likely a defence against the post traumatic stress that Dallaire describes having experienced. The scale of the murders, and their brutality, are nonetheless entirely clear. Overall, this is an important and accessible book, on a topic that desrves a great deal more recognition than it gets from the wider public.
OGHENEKOME OGOWEWO
5.0 out of 5 stars
This has been a very harrowing tale that should wake us up
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2018Verified Purchase
The time of apathy expressed by the human race especially by those appointed to tell us the truth as it is happening should be over. This is now time for us to smell the coffee and be empathetic towards out fellow man. Romeo Dallaire captured accurately the failings of humanity and what happens at war, especially civil war when brother turns on brother and neighbours tear one another apart in the name of revenge. This must not happen again but unfortunately, it seems to be rearing its ugly head in different countries again in Africa. I advise anyone who has not read this book to do so, especially Africans since it seems as if the devil has come to sit comfortably in our continent. We have to push the devil out by having and showing love for one another especially our enemies by being forgiving, for if we do that we heal ourselves.
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Rockape4241
5.0 out of 5 stars
DVD
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2015Verified Purchase
I bought the book after watching the DVD of the same name. Dallaire had a continual an uphill struggle throughout his tour of duty in Rwanda, and despite all of the problems he and his UN troops and staff faced, none of it compares to the lack of urgency and responsibility shown by the people who put him in Rwanda in the first place. As an organisation, the UN is a joke. It is filled with political creatures who seem to want the power and money but are not prepared to deal with the worlds so-called problems. The only time that this body has been effective was in Korea in the early 1950's when maybe its ideals were a bit more realistic post WW2. Since then it has demonstrated it's inability to deal with genocidal situations; be it in Africa or in the former Yugoslavia, where the Dutch peacekeeper's were unable to stop the massacre of Muslims in the Srebnica area.
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Edward B. Crutchley
5.0 out of 5 stars
A riveting book by a Canadian hero
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2012Verified Purchase
Although the savagery of the 100-day Rwanda genocide in 1994 tempts one to consign it as something that could only have occurred on the Dark Continent, the underlying problems that set it in motion could have existed anywhere where attitudes had been allowed to become so polarized, people feared so much for their security, and the situation allowed to so degrade.
Romeo Dallaire and his modest team on the ground were able to sniff out fairly early who the bad guys were and what they were up to, but somehow nobody outside Rwanda really seemed to want to know. The French, who had previously mentored and supported the baddies, and still furtively maintained some advisors among them, overtly (I choose my word carefully) caught on too late, towards the end, when they put into action operation Turquoise to try to protect their retreating protégés. Belgium, who had once ruled the country, had the best equipped troops on the ground but fled at first blood. Most other nations, even those present in Rwanda, failed their duties, with the notable exception of Ghana and Tunisia whose troops exhibited such bravery and professionalism. It is a damning account of how elements of the large institution that is the United Nations managed to work nine to five in every sense of the term while the Tutsi population was being slaughtered by an astonishing ten thousand a day. Such attitudes might yet be explicable if the UN had been overwhelmed with resources, but Romeo Dallaire never ceases to describe the poor and often shoddy resources at his disposal, and this would make you think that more people in New York and elsewhere, as well as politicians closer to the epicentre, would have stood up to be counted with better result.
And then you realise that it may not be as simple as that. If every UN commander on the ground were to have the resources that he felt he needed, his troops would be much more likely to get drawn into the fray and become another belligerent. It is made clear that this risk was foremost in the minds of those in New York. Fortunately, in stating his case, Dallaire avoids this becoming a trap. He shows that he never asked for excessively large means to do his job, and instead refers to a number of specific missed opportunities that could have critically altered the course of events that followed. Too many of the misses appear due to inadequate decision making by the UN at critical times rather than resources. I started this book expecting it to be a condemnation of Kofi Annan and his team, who proved to be excessively cautious and unprepared to make the necessary moves when these opportunities arose. Dallaire chooses to avoid this, but why on earth did Annan not go to Rwanda himself? Why on earth did no-one at the UN get the sack?
Dallaire seems to belatedly wake up to the potential role of the media in helping his situation. It may be simply due to the way that he structured his book, but key items such the evil RGF propaganda radio station, RTLM, and on the other side the positive help he got from Mark Thomson of the BBC and the publicity-savvy Bernard Kouchner, only appear half way through the story, once the killings had already been going on for weeks. Impossible to understand is why the RTLM radio that influenced the genocide so much was allowed to continue. It urged Hutus to seek out Tutsis; at one time it even encouraged the assassination of Dallaire himself. Dallaire briefly explains how he personally did not have the means to jam or destroy it, but surely its transmissions were being listened to by countries on the UN Security Council, especially France and America. They did nothing until the body count reached 800,000, perhaps more, by which stage even one of the Americans calculatingly hinted that his country might have accepted the loss of 10 of their (absent) peacekeepers' lives. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has since gone to work to nail the direct culprits. Certain key people outside Rwanda decided not to follow through, even though they must have been aware of what was happening. For the sake of the future they should be asked to account for their inaction; making apologies is not enough.
Romeo Dallaire and his modest team on the ground were able to sniff out fairly early who the bad guys were and what they were up to, but somehow nobody outside Rwanda really seemed to want to know. The French, who had previously mentored and supported the baddies, and still furtively maintained some advisors among them, overtly (I choose my word carefully) caught on too late, towards the end, when they put into action operation Turquoise to try to protect their retreating protégés. Belgium, who had once ruled the country, had the best equipped troops on the ground but fled at first blood. Most other nations, even those present in Rwanda, failed their duties, with the notable exception of Ghana and Tunisia whose troops exhibited such bravery and professionalism. It is a damning account of how elements of the large institution that is the United Nations managed to work nine to five in every sense of the term while the Tutsi population was being slaughtered by an astonishing ten thousand a day. Such attitudes might yet be explicable if the UN had been overwhelmed with resources, but Romeo Dallaire never ceases to describe the poor and often shoddy resources at his disposal, and this would make you think that more people in New York and elsewhere, as well as politicians closer to the epicentre, would have stood up to be counted with better result.
And then you realise that it may not be as simple as that. If every UN commander on the ground were to have the resources that he felt he needed, his troops would be much more likely to get drawn into the fray and become another belligerent. It is made clear that this risk was foremost in the minds of those in New York. Fortunately, in stating his case, Dallaire avoids this becoming a trap. He shows that he never asked for excessively large means to do his job, and instead refers to a number of specific missed opportunities that could have critically altered the course of events that followed. Too many of the misses appear due to inadequate decision making by the UN at critical times rather than resources. I started this book expecting it to be a condemnation of Kofi Annan and his team, who proved to be excessively cautious and unprepared to make the necessary moves when these opportunities arose. Dallaire chooses to avoid this, but why on earth did Annan not go to Rwanda himself? Why on earth did no-one at the UN get the sack?
Dallaire seems to belatedly wake up to the potential role of the media in helping his situation. It may be simply due to the way that he structured his book, but key items such the evil RGF propaganda radio station, RTLM, and on the other side the positive help he got from Mark Thomson of the BBC and the publicity-savvy Bernard Kouchner, only appear half way through the story, once the killings had already been going on for weeks. Impossible to understand is why the RTLM radio that influenced the genocide so much was allowed to continue. It urged Hutus to seek out Tutsis; at one time it even encouraged the assassination of Dallaire himself. Dallaire briefly explains how he personally did not have the means to jam or destroy it, but surely its transmissions were being listened to by countries on the UN Security Council, especially France and America. They did nothing until the body count reached 800,000, perhaps more, by which stage even one of the Americans calculatingly hinted that his country might have accepted the loss of 10 of their (absent) peacekeepers' lives. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has since gone to work to nail the direct culprits. Certain key people outside Rwanda decided not to follow through, even though they must have been aware of what was happening. For the sake of the future they should be asked to account for their inaction; making apologies is not enough.
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