Shake Hands With The Devil

Thirteen months after Lt-Gen Romeo went to serve as force commander of the UN intervention in Rwanda in 1993, he flew home broken, disillusioned and suicidal, having witnessed the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans. This book takes us on a return voyage into the hell of Rwanda, recreating the events the international community turned its back on.

THE NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD

'Indisputably the best account of the whole terrible Rwandan genocide.' R. W. Johnson, Sunday Times

'Angry, accusatory and extremely moving.' Caroline Moorhead, Spectator

When Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire received the call to serve as force commander of the UN mission to Rwanda, he thought he was heading off to Africa to help two warring parties achieve a peace both sides wanted. Instead, he and members of his small international force were caught up in a vortex of civil war and genocide. Dallaire left Rwanda a broken man; disillusioned, suicidal, and determined to tell his story.

An award-winning international sensation, Shake Hands with the Devil is a landmark contribution to the literature of war: a remarkable tale of a soldier's courage and an unforgettable portrait of modern warfare. It is also a stinging indictment of the petty bureaucrats who refused to give Dallaire the men and the operational freedom he needed to stop the killing. 'I know there is a God,' Dallaire writes, 'because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.'

'Read Roméo Dallaire's profoundly sad and moving book.' Madeleine Albright, Washington Post