Shake Hands with the Devil

In his Conclusion, Dallaire reflects upon the story of the three-year-old orphan he found. He wonders, “What has happened to him, and the tens of thousands of other orphans of the genocide? Did he survive?” (510). Dallaire also reflects on how he met child soldiers and “bush wives” in Sierra Leone who were being reintegrated into society, but it was clear that if they did not find a “promising future in a country that could sustain peace” (511), they would return to a world of violence. The girls and women were badly hurt. Many were infected with HIV/AIDS, had medical problems caused by rape and early childbirth, and could not have normal relationships with their children. For Dallaire, these cases of trauma speak to the urgency of preventing other humanitarian crises, as “[t]hese disordered, violent and throwaway young lives […] are the best argument to vigorously act to prevent future Rwandas” (512).

Dallaire admits that scapegoating was rampant, with people blaming the UN as an “irrelevant, corrupt, decadent institution that has outlived in usefulness or even its ability to conduct conflict resolution” (512) or the governments in the Security Council, especially France and the United States. Others blamed the media, NGOs, peacekeepers, and Dallaire himself. However, Dallaire argues against the impulse to find blame, arguing, “we need to study how the genocide happened not from a perspective of assigning blame [. . .] but from the perspective of how we are going to take concrete steps to prevent such a thing from happening again” (513).

Still, Dallaire asserts that if UNAMIR had received sufficient support during the first week, they could have stopped the genocide and the resumption of civil war. At the same time, he blames himself: “I was unable to persuade the international community that this tiny, poor, overpopulated country and its people were worth saving from the horror of genocide—even when the measures needed for success were relatively small” (515).

Dallaire argues that the problem he faced—and that still faces the question of international humanitarian aid—is that the priority of humanitarian missions is determined by national self-interest and risk. When First World nations do intervene, they step around the UN for the sake of their own ends, rather than work with the UN to determine the best approaches to resolving the crisis.

Finally, Dallaire points out that the perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide and the 9/11 attacks in the United States are basically the same: alienated young men who felt they were deprived of a future. “Human beings who have no rights, no security, no future, no hope and no means to survive are a desperate group who will do desperate things to take what they believe they need and deserve” (521). The solution lies in finding a major shift in the priorities of governments and people in general. Dallaire concludes by calling for people to “put the good of humanity above the good of our own tribe” (522).