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Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of…
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Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (original 2003; edition 2004)

by Roméo Dallaire (Author), Samantha Power (Foreword)

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1,6953210,197 (4.26)67
This book has taken me a while to finish because of its complexity and its subject matter which is the 1994 civil war in Rwanda where 800,000 citizens were killed in a few months. The author, Canadian General, Romeo Dallaire, was the head of the UN peace keeping force who tried to maintain the peace between the minority Tutsis and the majority Hutus. The Tutsis, displaced for years in Uganda were trying to regain their territory while the Hutus, with the support of the French, were attempting to remain in charge. The Arusha Accord was a complex peace agreement meant to alleviate the refugee problem and define the governance model through free elections. The Rwandese Patriotic Front (RFP) was the Tutsi dominated, disciplined military movement raised in Uganda led by Paul Kagame. It eventually became the government after the civil war. The Rwandese Government Forces (RGF) less disciplined contained factions that were murderous, drunken hotheads who were clearly responsible for much of the genocide.
Dallaire was caught in the middle of this political, military, humanitarian crisis which unfolded in the spring of 1994. Although he was strongly supported by Canadian, African and some European peacekeepers, his
real fight was with the intransigent bureaucrats at the UN in Manhattan.
After his return to Canada in 1994, Dallaire was haunted by memories and images of the barbarity he had witnessed and suffered from PTSD and suicidal thoughts. He makes some very important comments in the final chapter about the role of peacekeeping today and what the lack of human rights and choices does to the next generation caught up in the repression, poverty and brutality of tyrants. ( )
  MaggieFlo | Nov 19, 2017 |
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Showing 1-25 of 31 (next | show all)
This book is in your face raw. I read this for a book review in university and it ended with me writing my most passionate and well thought essay of that span. What happened in Rwanda was devastating and Dallaire pulls no punches in describing it to you. It seems like a very emotional and well thought out account of what happened during his time and his reasonings for his actions while in command. It would be impossible to try and understand the mental anguish he would have gone through day in and day out.

This is a must read for everyone. ( )
  Acilladon | Jul 30, 2023 |
A first hand account of one man's descent into darkness. While Mr Dallaire isn't a writer he still manages to have the reader right beside him. If you want to know about Rwanda debacle this is the book. ( )
  charlie68 | Jun 13, 2022 |
A compelling account of the genocide in Rwanda ( )
  dacejav | May 16, 2022 |
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. ( )
  mvblair | Feb 9, 2022 |
Very deep and impactful read, I had to stop reading as it was just too much. It was such a letdown in humanity that it impacted my own mood. Very well written, and you can feel the frustration he was facing in the midst of this humanitarian disaster. I hope this type of event never re-occurs. ( )
1 vote sjh4255 | May 4, 2021 |
I wrote about it in my blog here. Please go there to read my notes. All I can add to what I wrote is that this is definitely a must-read. ( )
1 vote bloodravenlib | Aug 17, 2020 |
Dallaire was a Canadian peacekeeper sent by the UN as commander of the peacekeeping effort in Rwanda a few months before the genocide in 1994. It was very interesting (and extremely frustrating at times) to read about what happened from this perspective. It was the perspective of the people on the ground who were trying with what (very) little resources they had (not nearly enough) to find peace in the country before the genocide and civil war broke out. ( )
  LibraryCin | Sep 9, 2018 |
I found this book very hard to read, not due to the gruesomeness of the events that occurred, but because this book is a very detailed account of Dallaire's mission to Rwanda, which began 9 months or so before the genocide begins. As such, there is a lot of things I found really boring...and frustrating. Frustrating for the most part because of the bureaucratic nonsense that Dallaire was up against every single day of the mission. This is worst than anything Kafka could have come up with.
The intro and first few chapters were really great. The next 2-300 pages I found difficult to get through, since nothing but bureaucratic headaches and dealing with idiots were occuring. The last 1-200 pages were really great, and the last chapter was fantastic. If not for the importance of this book, I would have given it 3/5 stars. ( )
  weberam2 | Nov 24, 2017 |
This book has taken me a while to finish because of its complexity and its subject matter which is the 1994 civil war in Rwanda where 800,000 citizens were killed in a few months. The author, Canadian General, Romeo Dallaire, was the head of the UN peace keeping force who tried to maintain the peace between the minority Tutsis and the majority Hutus. The Tutsis, displaced for years in Uganda were trying to regain their territory while the Hutus, with the support of the French, were attempting to remain in charge. The Arusha Accord was a complex peace agreement meant to alleviate the refugee problem and define the governance model through free elections. The Rwandese Patriotic Front (RFP) was the Tutsi dominated, disciplined military movement raised in Uganda led by Paul Kagame. It eventually became the government after the civil war. The Rwandese Government Forces (RGF) less disciplined contained factions that were murderous, drunken hotheads who were clearly responsible for much of the genocide.
Dallaire was caught in the middle of this political, military, humanitarian crisis which unfolded in the spring of 1994. Although he was strongly supported by Canadian, African and some European peacekeepers, his
real fight was with the intransigent bureaucrats at the UN in Manhattan.
After his return to Canada in 1994, Dallaire was haunted by memories and images of the barbarity he had witnessed and suffered from PTSD and suicidal thoughts. He makes some very important comments in the final chapter about the role of peacekeeping today and what the lack of human rights and choices does to the next generation caught up in the repression, poverty and brutality of tyrants. ( )
  MaggieFlo | Nov 19, 2017 |
This is a hard book to read but an important one, because Gen. Dallaire opens his heart and shows us the failure of the United Nations in Rwanda. There are tales of heroism and happy outcomes, but much of the book documents the impact lack of concern among the major powers had on the people of Rwanda. He also calls out those countries which did send troops but tied the hands of the commanders. ( )
  nmele | Sep 7, 2017 |
Loved the book, a little confusing when talking about the different fighting parties, but quickly learned who was who. Makes you think about what people will do to one another. Felt for the author having his hands tied because of red tape. ( )
  youb | Sep 18, 2014 |
A book you will not soon forget, nor should you. One can get a little bogged down in the details and endless UN acronyms but Gen. Dallaire does not ignore the horrific realities of the situation and tells the story with a mix of outrage and factuality that you cannot but end up admiring him as human being and a General. And a great Canadian! Very, very little BS. As an American perhaps I feel a little guilty as he lays quite a load of blame for the genocide on the U.S. Possibly it is deserved. It makes me think we ought to have a branch of the military specifically assigned for international peacekeeping. The 'regular' armed forces are meant to defend the U.S., but this international force would be 100% trained and targeted for such operations. If it were volunteer then perhaps the aversion to using our military to defend people overseas would be less. Of course if they got into trouble, next thing you know the regular military would be involved. No easy answers that is for sure. I did quibble with his concluding analysis in which he blamed nearly all of the rage of 3rd World youth on poverty and lack of opportunity, even lumping the September 11 attacks with that. The fact is those men were nearly all from one of the richest countries on earth, Saudi Arabia. Written in 2003 I cannot really fault General Dallaire for failing to see radical Islam as the new force of evil in the world. But combining that renewed force with the very real problems he does elucidate makes me very pessimistic indeed. ( )
  PCorrigan | Sep 13, 2014 |
Extremely heartbreaking, yet you come out of it feeling more optimistic than ever.

I read Dallaire's book for a class on International Intervention. I already made an analytical book report for my professor on it. Thus, here, putting aside the aspiring peacekeeper self for a while and switching back to a mode of being the common reader, I would only highlight my personal impression.

What's most striking about it is that it's full of memorable characters and episodes that are not necessarily always bleak. Some details are even comical; there are the cowardly Bangladeshi troops, Dallaire’s aide-de-camp who was crazy about animals and kept all sorts of pets, or how unusual request came to UNAMIR from the military genius Paul Kagame for help finding ten members of his extended family hiding in Kigali seven weeks into the genocide – ‘How was it possible that he, the bitterest foe of the extremists, still had surviving family in this extremist-controlled ghost town?’ These episodes might pose as insignificant to other readers, but to my mind, they are all faithful accounts of our lives, they render Dallaire’s narration very real, convincing that Rwanda is not just another case study, and above all serve as reminder of the human dimension of the whole process. In effect, it greatly resonates with Dallaire’s principal message on how humanity should be the main force behind international intervention.

Peux ce que veux. Allons-y.
(When there's a will, there's a way. Let's go.)
( )
  aviechu | Mar 14, 2014 |
The fascinating and heart rending account of the genocide in Rwanda, as told by Gen Romeo Dallaire who headed the peace keeping mission sent without sufficient manpower, supplies and transportation. An inside look at bureaucracy at its worst. ( )
  CarterPJ | Jun 19, 2013 |
Romeo Dallaire is a true Canadian hero - sent into an untenable sitaution in Rwanda in 1994, Dallaire was forced to bear witness to a genocidal massacre whose scope was almost beyond the capacity of the modern North American mind to countenance. With brutal honesty about not only his frustrations and fears, but about his own limitations, Dallaire puts before the Western world a stark picture of the results of our superficial, high handed and ill conceived approach to modern warfare on one of the world's most unstable areas. Through courageous and candid revelations, and after battling personal demons of alcholism and depression as a result of his experience, Dallaire challenges all Canadians, indeed, all citiizens of the modern world, to re-examine the meanings of humanity, mercy, and peace and to examine how governments and individuals alike can - in fact must - contribute to how we might still, ultimately, prevail over conflict. ( )
3 vote puckrobin | Apr 17, 2011 |
This is an absolutely stunning insider's look at the travesty of the Rwanda genocide and the United Nations mission led by General Romeo Dallaire.The book explores two stories. The first being General Dallaire's personal journey from a strong, confident warrior to the broken, suicidal man he became upon his return to Canada. A man consumed by the guilt and the horror of a genocide that very well could have been prevented had his warnings to the United Nations been heeded and had he been given the resources he required.The second story is that of the genocide itself and the refusal of the world to recognize the atrocities that were being committed and the UN's complete failure to act in any constructive way to stop it. Both stories are interwoven masterfully as we see the brave General's refusal to abandon his mission and the people of Rawanda in the face of overwhelming odds and his countless attempts to make the world pay attention. He repeatedly risks his own life in pursuit of that goal.This is a profoundly important piece of modern history that needed to be brought to the fore for so many reasons, and General Dallaire does that in this wickedly honest, no holds barred biography. It was both haunting and captivating, and above all, it was honest.General Romeo Dallaire is a forgotten hero who deserves to be remembered for all he tried to do in the face of overwhelming odds. It is a rare person capable of such a feat.Read this book... you will never forget it. ( )
3 vote uh8myzen | Apr 17, 2011 |
Of all the books I've read in my life, this one is one of my all time FAVORITES! The rest of the world ignored the genocide in Rwanda, but he stayed and did everything possible to save lives. This is a must read for anyone interested in Rwanda. I didn't stop crying for days after I finished, because of the international indifference of a country in crisis, and the over 800,000 lives lost in 100 days. There is a documentary of the same name in whuch he goes back to Rwanda for the 10th anniversery in 2004 (It won an award in Sundance 2005) ( )
2 vote bookalover89 | Feb 10, 2011 |
Poorly written, incondite, self-justifying pap. ( )
  rscotts | May 19, 2009 |
It will open your heart, haunt your mind, and touch your soul. ( )
1 vote friartuck1 | May 10, 2009 |
There is nothing simple about this book. Despair is a reasonable response to it. Yet using it as a teaching resource to show the consequences of selfishness and apathy may help ensure that the experience described is not repeated. Hope born out of despair? ( )
3 vote TomMcGreevy | Oct 18, 2008 |
When a friend who was familiar with General Dallaire noticed "Shake Hands with the Devil" sitting on my coffee table asked me what I thought of the book, I could only respond that I felt it was a book that every human should read. The language used is straightforward, Dallaire hides nothing. Not his failures, nor the failures of others. He praises those whom he feels deserve praise, even when he might have doubted them earlier in the conflict. He describes in an almost day to day fashion the progress of thie UN Mission for Rwanda, lays bare each political quagmire, every unimaginable slaughter, and tells you about the horrors of the genocide the way you might hear it from an uncle. And that ring of honesty makes the account all the more horrifying.

In reading this book, I have come closer to understand what it is to be heroic, and am left with nothing but genuine admiration for the men and woman that served with Roméo Dallaire. At the same time, I am left with bewilderment at the process that led to this end. It doesn't make sense how humanity could fail so utterly. And I think that is exactly the sort of thing that needs to linger at the back of every persons mind who must make decisions that determine the welfare of others. ( )
4 vote christopher.fedak | Jun 6, 2008 |
Disturbing, eye-opening account of the Rwanda massacre in the early nineties. Especially revealing concerning the UN response and a stark reminder on top of the Holocaust of the depravity humanity is capable of. Has relevance to today's war on terror, and why we need alternatives that go beyond a military response. The best book (fiction or non-fiction) I read all year. ( )
3 vote Cecrow | Jan 7, 2008 |
This seemed to me to be a cathartic writing for General Dallaire. He wanted to explain his failures in Rwanda, some of which he accepted as his fault, but most of which he blamed on the American refusal to enter a war in which they had no vested interest. An interesting read, but not the best source of information about the Rwandan genocide. ( )
4 vote bung | Nov 3, 2007 |
I started this book 2 years ago, and am still making my way through it. I find that I cannot read more than a chapter at a time without the horror getting to me, and i have to put it down for a spell. This is an absolutely fantastic book that highlights the inadequacies of the United Nations, and as the subtitle states: the failure of humanity ( )
2 vote marcLeroux84 | Oct 19, 2007 |
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