Shake Hands with the Devil

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Foreword

Preface-Introduction

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Dilemma of Moral Culpability

The dilemma of moral culpability—or who is responsible for preventing atrocity and to what degree—extends throughout Shake Hands With The Devil. In addition to interrogating the scope of responsibility of the UN and foreign powers with the means to intervene, Roméo Dallaire questions whether he himself bears any responsibility for the Rwandan Genocide. As Samantha Power notes in her foreword, Dallaire felt “guilt,” mainly for the deaths of the troops under his command. One striking incident was the demise of 10 Belgian soldiers, who were captured and killed in the initial riots and mass killings that began the Rwandan Genocide. Dallaire wonders:

My troops had died, not in the defence of their respective nations and citizenry but in the defence of decency and human rights. Was this the true price of peace? Was it an expense that the families, friends and governments of my blue berets were prepared to pay? (261).

Here, Dallaire parses the difference between what an individual or organization can do and what they are ethically compelled to do. Although Dallaire feels a personal moral conviction to apply manpower and resources to stem the bloodshed in Rwanda, he allows for the possibility that foreign powers and individuals may not feel that their lives should be the currency with which that peace is bought. During the Rwandan Genocide, Dallaire was constantly called upon to make difficult decisions not only about who to help and how to allocate aid, but at what cost. As he writes, “Some days you make decisions and people live, other days people die” (281). In one situation, UNAMIR rescued some survivors, but the decision to save them brought the hiding locations of others to the attention of the militia, who killed them. Dallaire notes this terrible paradox, writing: “These were the kind of situations that absolutely haunted us: by going to help we sometimes imperilled those we hoped to save” (396). This dynamic illustrates how an individual can be responsible for great harm, even when they act with the best intentions. This unfortunate reality is part of what leaves Dallaire unresolved in his emotions about his role in what happened in Rwanda.

For Dallaire, the matter of difficult moral choices dovetails with his argument that, in order to help prevent future genocides, human rights this new century must:

[Become] the Century of Humanity, when we as human beings rise above race, creed, colour, religion and national self-interest and put the good of humanity above the good of our own tribe. For the sake of the children and of our future. (522)

However much Dallaire may question his own decisions, he writes with certainty about what needs to be done to address violence in the future.

Bureaucracy Versus Humanitarian Aid

Throughout Roméo Dallaire’s involvement with UNAMIR, he is often at odds with the bureaucrats in charge of logistics and the diplomatic and political sides of the mission. In particular, Dallaire often complains about the decisions made by the formal head of UNAMIR, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, and by Per Hallqvist, the Chief Administration Officer in charge of allocating supplies and funds. In Dallaire’s recounting, bureaucracy and abstracted politics were not only obstacles to securing humanitarian aid, but directly contributed to the development of the disastrous situation that required humanitarian aid at all.

Dallaire’s problems with bureaucracy predate his time with UNAMIR, whether it was having to advocate for bilingualism at his military college or his anger at failing to convince the Canadian government to raise Canada’s military budget. During his time in Rwanda, Dallaire and his staff are constantly restricted by a lack of resources and funding allowed to them by either the bureaucrats at UNAMIR or back at the UN headquarters in New York. Sometimes Dallaire is simply deprived of information, either by his superiors, by the Rwandan political community, or by the nation states involved with Rwanda. At one point, discussing how the French kept him out of the loop during their Operation Turquoise, he writes about having to work in a “void of information” (438). The lack of moral and ideological support for his mission creates a lack of material support, leaving him with few resources to prevent atrocity and exacerbating the difficulty of the decisions he must later make.

Sometimes, Dallaire suggests that he believes there are more sinister and selfish motives behind bureaucratic decisions that prioritize funding. For example, he writes critically about how the “comfortable” furniture in the U.S. military headquarters in Rwanda was a “demonstration of the priorities and capabilities of an imperial force” (487). It was not a matter of whether or not the United States (or other nations) could afford to fund efforts in Rwanda, but a matter of where they chose to spend money and for whose benefit. Elsewhere, Dallaire writes about how he surprised Hallqvist by turning down a Mercedes and a “comfortable” house for more modest alternatives, behavior apparently very unlike other high-ranking UN representatives.

However, Dallaire overall presents the bureaucrats working for the UN as well-meaning, such as Kofi Annan, whom Dallaire describes, despite their differences, as “decent to the core” and “genuinely, even religiously, dedicated to the founding principles of the UN” (50). Dallaire presents the problem with bureaucracy not so much as a problem with corruption and greed, but with poor planning, the prioritizing of self-interest by governments, and the failure of different agencies to cooperate and coordinate.

Causes of Genocide

Shake Hands With The Devil does not directly address the long-term historical and political causes of the Rwandan Genocide, but the question of why the Rwandan Genocide happened is an undercurrent through much of the text. Dallaire presents some of the clearer reasons for the genocide, such as “colonial discrimination and exclusion” (513) and how the “expulsion and persecution of the country's Tutsis sowed permanent seeds of discord” (47). Dallaire is also clear in blaming some of Rwanda’s leadership, such as Colonel Bagosora, or forces like the RTLM radio station, which Dallaire describes as “Rwandan hate radio” (142). Dallaire’s aim is not to offer a theory of how and why any genocide occurs, but to illustrate that it is possible to predict and recognize the warning signs of humanitarian crisis, and to exhort people and governments to actively monitor for these warning signs and intervene to prevent genocide.

Still, Dallaire does invoke some of the more abstract reasons for genocide in his conclusion. Citing not only the Rwandan Genocide but also the 9/11 attacks in the United States, Dallaire blames the rage he sees in people, especially people who have been dispossessed, have suffered from tyranny or hunger or environmental disasters, or have been deprived in some way of economic security: “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). Dallaire emphasizes that genocide is not a spontaneous event resulting from frenzy or acute political or ethnic tensions, but as the violent result of long-lasting, worsening conditions with historical and cultural motive that are enabled by political and humanitarian failure. Dallaire sees that what drives the rage of disenfranchised or oppressed groups is a “lack of hope in the future” (522). Only by providing such hope—proactively and inclusively—can mankind prevent future genocides from taking place.