Product Description

On the tenth anniversary of the date that UN peacekeepers landed in Rwanda, Random House Canada is proud to publish the unforgettable first-hand account of the genocide by the man who led the UN mission. Digging deep into shattering memories, General Dallaire has written a powerful story of betrayal, naivete, racism and international politics. His message is simple and undeniable: "Never again." When Lt-Gen. Romeo Dallaire received the call to serve as force commander of the UN intervention in Rwanda in 1993, he thought he was heading off on a modest and straightforward peacekeeping mission. Thirteen months later he flew home from Africa, broken, disillusioned and suicidal, having witnessed the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in only a hundred days. In "Shake Hands with the Devil", he takes the reader with him on a return voyage into the hell of Rwanda, vividly recreating the events the international community turned its back on. This book is an unsparing eyewitness account of the failure by humanity to stop the genocide, despite timely warnings. Woven through the story of this disastrous mission is Dallaire's own journey from confident Cold Warrior, to devastated UN commander, to retired general engaged in a painful struggle to find a measure of peace, reconciliation and hope. This book is General Dallaire's personal account of his conversion from a man certain of his worth and secure in his assumptions to a man conscious of his own weaknesses and failures and critical of the institutions he'd relied on. It might not sit easily with standard ideas of military leadership, but understanding what happened to General Dallaire and his mission to Rwanda is crucial to understanding the moral minefields our peacekeepers are forced to negotiate when we ask them to step into the world's dirty wars.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17573 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

The Sunday Times
'indisputably the best account of the whole terrible Rwandan genocide'

About the Author
Romeo Dallaire joined the Canadian Army in 1964. A three star General, he served as Deputy Commander of the Canadian Army and later in the Ministry of Defence. General Dallaire was medically released from the armed forces in April 2000 due to posttraumatic stress disorder and is now special adviser to the Canadian government on war-affected children and the prohibition of small arms distribution. In January 2002, he received the inaugural Aegis Award for Genocide Prevention in London.

Customer Reviews

Read it and feel guilty
Absolutely terrifying! Nothing less can be described when it comes to narrowing down the content of this tale by a soldier of the UN. Having had close contact with people who have actually been through this holocaust I was astonished at the reactions of the world! Or rather the lack of response or interest in hundreds of thousands being killed, mutilated, raped, tortured and even God cannot describe what other horrors...General Dallaire has gone through hell himself being there and having seen it all, and as a member of a world community, who did not care at all what went on at that time it is an indictment which strikes deeply. Rwanda was only third or fourth in priority of the UN missions and the grievances and daily hardships the few brave men and women of the UN mission in Rwanda had to cope with did not receive a fraction of the credits from the superiors in the UN and from the world that they deserved. Sad but true, and this story cannot be told by anyone who has not been there, it is extraordinaryly told with passion, strength and a sense of details that can only make the reader weep from the heart.

The best of men in the worst of times
After buying this book, it took me months before I could face reading it. I was prepared for an unredeemingly depressing experience. But I am very glad I finally took a deep breath and got started. I finished within a week. It is a terrific read, as well as being a highly authoritative account of what happened. Of course the Rwanda story is truly shocking and Gen. Dallaire's experiences of being a pawn in the international game, with millions of lives at stake and the UN out to lunch, are indeed depressing. But he has managed to turn this nightmare into an inspiring book: first, because the situation would have been even worse without him and his men on the ground; second, because his telling the story may make it less likely that such a disaster will happen again; third, because a man who has endured so much can come through it to tell the story so fairly and calmly; fourth, because even amidst so much savagery he shows that not all is lost and there is still a glimmer of humour and a deep love between him and his comrades who - despite being marooned by the international community - know they are doing the right thing.

In my view, Dallaire was a modern Schindler, and no less worthy of our appreciation. Read his book.

A difficult subject well treated
For many reasons, this book had to be written. Not only was it said to be theraputic for the man destroyed by his mission in Rwanda, it strikes me that it is necessary for the broader public to revisit this moment in history with the kind of detail put forward here. Although this account gives less insight to the history that made the genocide possible than other books, such as "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families" by Philip Gourevitch, it forces the reader to confront the assumptions generally made about UN missions, and about how the UN operates in general. It is difficult to deal with the subject matter as one reads it, but the style makes even the details and names easy to grasp. It is worth the effort to comprehend the horror, if only to join M. Dallaire in saying "never again".