Shake Hands with the Devil Paperback – Illustrated, December 21, 2004

I feel like one simply cannot understand the depth and width of the Rwandan Genocide if they have not read Shake Hands With The Devil. Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire is a key figure in the tragedy which unfolded there. While many people can offer insight he was one the only people who sat at the intersection of it all.Dallaire met nearly all the key players many times; he travelled across lines and boundaries seeing different perspectives; he conversed with the innocent, the evil, the helpless, the bystanders, the politicians, the media, the entire spectrum of international players and of course, the men themselves who committed the worst genocide of our generation. He quite literally looked in the eye of mass murderers as they had the fresh blood of slaughter on their clothes. He Shook Hands With The Devil.The totality of this book can be summarized as frustration and futility. Despite clear communication with the world of the tragedy unfolding before his and his observers eyes, nobody wanted to act. Dallaire begged, pleaded, demanded, extorted, and warned the powers at the table for action. Action that he was in a position to employ to save hundreds of thousands of lives but the world ignored him. Ignored Rwanda. Ignored the promise they make after every single genocide and ethnic cleansing: “Never again”. Yet, that’s what they did.Dallaire can offer an insight no other observer of this tragedy can because of the uniqueness of his role in the event. If you want to truly grasp how easily this could’ve been a different story then you really need to read this powerful story. It reads in the controlled and factual prose of a professional military man and the matter-of-fact reporting creates a sense of deeper pain when the image of professional soldier cracks and his humanity and soul bends under the absolutely impossible strain of witnessing an entire people being culled like animals.I recommend this book and understanding the lessons of Rwanda. It will happen again and in fact the blades of slaughter are being sharpened again in several parts of the world, now.

In 1994, between April 7 and July 15, nearly one million innocent people were killed in the Rwandan Genocide. Subsequent wars in the region killed more than five million people. The genocide was planned years in advice, perpetrated by racist nationalists bent on removing Tutsis from the planet. In "Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda," Roméo Dallaire convinces readers that these tragedies were easily preventable, but dithering politicians and bureaucrats all over the world watched in disinterest.The book is compelling. Having read extensively for academic and personal reasons about the genocide, I knew many of the details listed below, so Dallaire's book had been sitting on my shelf unread for almost 15 years. I wish I had read it sooner because it is Dallaire and his military subordinates - not international aide groups or politicians - who were the international witnesses to these crimes.The book moves quickly because it reads like a daily journal. Although it can be very disturbing and depressing given the nature of the genocide, there are moments of manic highs, too. It is emotional and frustrating because readers will be able to quickly identify with Dallaire's heart. He is effuse in praising his his-working aides and does not hold back at offering his personal assessments of the people who impede his work.Dallaire's book, dedicated to victims, including the soldiers killed under his command, details his negotiations to stop the genocide and his actions during the genocide to bring an end to it. Assigned to Rwanda as part of a United Nations team in the summer of 1993 in order to help implement a peace agreement between the standing government and an incoming rebel army, he saw firsthand that a humanitarian crisis was coming. His documented pleas for help from New York, Paris, Nairobi, Geneva, Washington DC, and London in the first part of the book were willfully ignored as he and his small team of military observers shuttled around the country trying to avert the disaster. He was denied requests for funding for communications equipment, rations for his soldiers, office space, and even simple soccer balls to replace the banana-leaf balls used in refugee camps.Extremist politicians on the government side began openly looking for a way to instigate the attack that led to the genocide. Their wish was granted when their moderate president's plane went down, probably from their own missile. Even after this catalyst, Dallaire's team's cries for help continued to be ignored. The bulk of "Shake Hands with the Devil" documents the daily routine of these brave observers who were abandoned by the UN and their supporting states. The book presents awful images and stories of the genocide and the people whom the UN also abandoned.Dallaire asked for only 5,000 troops in order to save the country, but he was denied time and time again as bureaucrats and politicians in cities around the world took weekends off and justified his cries by telling him that the UN doesn't work quickly. That time was dizzying, destructive, and counter-productive when the French finally arrived to establish camps that protected runaway génocidaires, those responsible for openly slaughtering Tutsis in churches, orphanages, hamlets, and checkpoints in cities. By that time, nearly a million people had been cut down with machetes. The génocidaires rearmed themselves in the international refugee camps, leading to the subsequent Congo Wars.In the last, shortest section of the book, Dallaire offers suggestions for improving how governments respond to humanitarian crises outside their borders. His suggestions are reasonable. In the case of Rwanda, simple support for implementing the peace agreement would have been enough. Unfortunately, as we have seen time and again, from Sudan to Myanmar to Wester China, the international community, including national capitals, relief organizations, and the UN, refuse to use the needed fiscal and physical muscle in order to save lives."Shake Hands with the Devil" has an extensive index and a glossary of terms and names, although Dallaire's easy-to-read style reminds readers of who he is meeting and working with, so there is little reason to consult it.