Table Of ContentFOREWORD BY SAMANTHA POWER
FORCCEO MMANDOEFTR H EU NA SSISTANMCISES IOTNOR WAND19A9, 3-1994
THE FAILURE OF HUMANITY IN RWANDA
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"EXTRAORDINWARREYN, CHILNYGR IPCO WER-M."O NTREALG AZETTE
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"Theraer ep eopilneh ighp laceasll o vetrh e,w orlwd how oulpdr efeirt i fD allaire
woulsdt opre minditnhge mo fR wandTah. ewy anht imto b uryh ism emories
with the dead Rwandans. But Dallaire refuses to go away. He is bearing
wit11esso n behalf of the lost Rwandans, but also oh behalf of those he's
never met-those in places like Darfur, Sudan, who are alive today but
who may he dead tomorrow." -from Samantha Power's Foreword
S
erving in Rwanda during 1993-94 as UN Force Commander, Lt. Gen.
Romeo Dallaire and his ,small_p eacekeep'.ng force found_ t~emselves
abandoned by the world s maJor powers m a vortex of c1v1Iw ar and
genocide. With meager resources to stem the killing, General Dallaire
managed to ·rescue thousands, but his call for more support was
unavailing, as he witnessed the murder of 800,000 Rwandans in 100
days. He returned home to Canada broken, disillusioned, and suicidal.
Shake Hands with the Devil is his gift to those he could not save: a
searing book that is both an eyewitness account of the .failure of
humanity to stop the genocide, and General Dallai're's own struggle to
find a measure of peace, reconciliation, and hope.
"Read this book and redisco\'er ... your capacity for moral outrage."
-\\fi1111ipcg Free Pre,,
"A powerful cri de coe11fro r the powerless, and a gut-wrenching description
of what really happened during those awful months ten years ago"
-'foro1110 Star
"What he witnessed, what he was incapable of stopping, would have
broken anyone. Dalla ire's condemnation of the free world is stark and
uncompromising. It is impossible to read this memoir, written in
meticulous detail, without feeling sick and without feeling rage."
. -Calgary Herald
lT. GENR.O MEDOA LLAisI RthEe highest-ranking military officer ever to suffer
openly with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), making him a moral
example for citizens of conscience and militaries worldwide. In 2002 he
received the inaugural Aegis Award for Genocide Prevention. In 2005, he is a
Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights in the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University, where Samantha Power is the executive .
director. Her 2003 book, A Problem from Hell: America· and the Age of
Genocide, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
$16.95
ISBN 0-7867-1510-3
51695>
I
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-,:
CARROLL & GRAF w
An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group
Distributed b'y Publishers Group West
Praisef or ShakeH ands with the Devil
"Shake Hands with the Devil left me shaken, ·reeling, aghast,
tormented. It is a book of astqnishing power, a narrative account of the
genocide, and the period leading up to the genocide, unsparing in its
exposure of the madness that gripped the tiny country of Rwanda ....
Lt. General Romeo Dallaire is revered by Canadians everywhere. When
I finished the book, I could understand why. 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
"Read this book and rediscover, if you have lost it, your capacity for
moral outrage." - Winnipeg Free Press
"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 (senior adviser to the African division
of Human Rights Watch),· The Gazette (Montreal)
"On the enormously important issue of Third World development and
the moral obligation of the Western world to assist the dispossessed,
Shake Hands with the Devil is a powerful cri de coeur for the powerless,
and a gut-wrenching description of what really happened during those
awful months ten years ago." -Toronto Star
"Dallaire's powerfully eloquent reconstruction of genocide [is] a haunt
ing story of evil. ... Shake Hands with the Devil should be mandatory
reading for Western leaders and citizens of every country that pays lip
service to the peacekeeping ideals and the sanctity of human life."
-The Chronicle-Herald( Halifax)
"[A] powerful story of leadership and sacrifice, of moral and physical
courage, and a deep love of humanity. In short, a story of a fine soldier
and a hero." -Edmonton journal
"Likely the most important non-fiction book to be published in
Canada this year. ... At the very least, read this book and weep for all
good men who could do nothing." -Calgary Herald
''An uncommonly courageous work, wrung from the depths of despair
and wrought in plain, forthright prose. . . . Abroad in the world, the
Canadian humanitarian needs a saint's compassion, a scholar's knowl
edge, and a soldier's strength. Bravely and passionately, Romeo Dallaire
has shown us where to start." -Literary Review of Canada
''A case study and a cry for generations to come on why the United
Nations needs reforming and how a beautiful country suffered."
-Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize
for Political Writing jury citation (Clive Doucet,
Margaret MacMillan, and Peter Mansbridge)
"[With] his humanity, his pragmatism, his complete absence of racism
and grandiosity and his passionate, dogged, global civility ... Dallaire
gives us something to believe in. That he has done so with his eyes and
heart wide open to the worst our species has to offer is a monumental
achievement. Shake Hand with the Devil delivers this remarkable man
to us." -Victoria Times Colonist( B. C.)
"Both an exorcism and a scathing indictment .... The most important
nonfiction book of the year." -The VtincouverS un
"[This] passionate, disturbing memoir of those awful days is harrowing
reading. Tti s a savage hook. But his humanity shines through, unlike so
many others tainted by the blood of innocents." -Calgary Sun
''A story of international indifference and political failure. ... One of the
most profoundly disturbing tales of the century." -Ottawa Citizen
SHAKEH ANDS
WITHT HED EVIL
THEF AILUROEF H UMANIITNY R WANDA
LIEUTENANT·GERNOEMRAEDLOA LLAIRE
WITHM AJOBRR ENBTE ARDSLEY
CARROLL & GRAF PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK
To my family and the families of all those who served
with me in Rwanda, with deepest gratitude
SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL
The Failureo f Humani-tyi n Rwanda
Carroll & Graf Publishers
An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group Inc.
245 West 17th Street
11th Floor
New York, NY 10011
(cid:127)
Copyright © 2003 by Romeo Dallaire, LGen (ret) Inc.
Foreword © 2005 by Samantha Power
First Carroll & Graf edition 2004
First Carroll & Graf trade paperback edition 2005
Published by arra.ugemem with Random House Canada,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited.
Part of the proceeds of the sale of ShakeH ands with the Devil will go to support the work
of the LGen Romeo A. Dallaire Foundation for children.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without
written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts
in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor
may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or other, without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Trade paperback edition ISBN: 0-7867-1510-3
Hardcover edition ISBN: 0-7867-1487-5
9 8 7 6 5
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West
Blesseda re thep eacemakersfo: r they shall be
calledt he childreno f God.
Matthew 5:9
To the Rwandans, abandoned to their fate, who were slaughtered
in the hundreds of thousands
To the fifteen UN soldiers under my command who died bravely in
the service of peace and humanity
Lt. Lotin Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
1" ·Sgt. Leroy Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Cpl. Bassine Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Cpl. Lhoir Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Cpl. Meaux Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Cpl. Plescia Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Cpl. Dupont Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Cpl. Uyttebroeck Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Pte. Debatty Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
Pte. Renwa Belgium Killed in Action 7 April 94
L/Cpl. Ahedor Ghana Killed in Action 17 April 94
Pte. Mensah-Baidoo Ghana Killed in Action 9 May94
Capt. Mbaye Senegal Killed in Action 31 May94
Major Sosa Uruguay Killed in Action 17 June 94
Capt. Ankah Ghana Killed in Action 8 July 94
To Sian Cansfield, researcher, journalist and dear friend, who died
on June 1, 2002, while working so hard to tell this story
CONTENTS
Inhabiting the Horror: Foreword by Samantha Power vm
Preface xvm
Introduction 1
1 My Father Told Me Three Things 8
2 "Rwanda, that's in Africa isn't it?" 28
3 "Check out Rwanda and you're in charge" 43
4 Enemies Holding Hands 57
5 The Clock Is Ticking 80
6 The First Milestones 98
7 The Shadow Force 135
8 Assassination and Ambush 168
9 Easter Without a Resurrection of Hope 199
10 An Explosion at Kigali Airport 221
11 To Go or To Stay? 263
12 Lack of Resolution 328
13 Accountants of the Slaughter 374
14 The Turquoise Invasion 421
15 Too Much, 'loo Late 461
Conclusion 510
Glossary of Names, Places and Terms 523
Recommended Reading 545
Index 549
INHABITTHIHN( GO RROR
Once Elie Wiesel finally found a publisher for his justly celebrated
memoir Night, he became the world's best-known witness. In Night,
Wiesel writes of a Hasidic scholar named Moshe the Beadle, who in the
early 1940s lived in the town of Sighet, Transylvania. One day in 1941
Sighet herded its foreign Jews onto cattle cars and expelled them.
Moshe the Beadle, who had been teaching kaballah to the twelve-year
old Wiesel, disappeared.
Most of Sighet's foreign Jews were never heard from again, but after
several months Moshe the Beadle miraculously returned to Sighet and
told his story. He and the other foreign Jews had been transported
across the Hungarian frontier by train, picked up by lorry, and driven
into a forest in Galicia. There, they were forced to dig large graves and
then stand before the holes, as they were systematically mowed down by
German gun-fire. The Gestapo gunners threw the Jewish babies into
the air and used them for target practice.
Moshe the Beadle had been shot in the leg and survived the massacre
by playing dead. He managed to return to Sighet, and went door to door
describing the horrors of his experience and the eliminationist aims of the
Nazi attackers. But, as Wiesel wrote, "People refused not only to believe
his stories, but even to listen to them." They knew better. "What an imag
ination he has," they said. Or, "Poor fellow. He's gone mad."
When I first heard about the experience of General Romeo Dallaire,
the commander of UN forces in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, I
thought of Moshe the Beadle. In most wars it is images and artifacts that
