Shake Hands with the Devil

The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

By: Romeo Dallaire

Narrated by: Marcel Jeannin

A brave, unforgettable first-hand account of the Rwandan genocide by a man almost literally haunted by the dead and by the spectre of his mission's failure. Marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of this horrific event, this edition includes a new note from Roméo Dallaire.

Serving in Rwanda in 1993, LGen. Roméo Dallaire and his small peacekeeping force found themselves abandoned by the UN in a vortex of civil war and genocide. With meagre resources to stem the killing, General Dallaire was witness to the murder of 800,000 Rwandans in a hundred days, and returned home broken, disillusioned and suicidal. Shake Hands with the Devil is his return to Rwanda: a searing book that is both an eyewitness account of the failure of humanity to stop the genocide, and the story of General Dallaire's own struggle to find a measure of peace, reconciliation and hope.

Grasping story

The horrors of the genocide broken down in a clear manner allowing to transport the complexity into the listeners mind. An on Site Account of one of the largest failures of the international community in recent times.

A fascinating book by a modern hero.

I had always wanted to read Dallaire’s book after having watched the movies Shake Hands with the Devil and Hotel Rwanda, and was delighted to find it on Audible.

Dallaire’s story is gripping and at the same time, fatiguing due to the continuous cycle of the human atrocities and bureaucratic nonsense. The difficulties he and the UN Force in Rwanda faced were beyond that which most of us could ever imagine and deal with and yet his commitment to his duty and altruistic big-picture view is admirable. He persisted where lesser beings would have capitulated. Nevertheless, I appreciated his self-criticism, bluntness,

His story raises even further my esteem for Dallaire and piece keepers in general. Gen. Dallaire has personally paid a high price for his involvement, as soldiers sometimes do, in the service of humanity and for a people who are of an entirely different nationality, race and culture to his own. I wish Gen. Dallaire a continued purposeful and satisfying life and a joyful retirement- you truly deserve it, General.

Excellent depiction

Great depiction of the Rwandan genocide. It makes you desperate hearing how things unfolded and how the international community failed to act.