"My story is not a strictly military account nor a clinical, academic study of the breakdown of Rwanda. It is not a simplistic indictment of the many failures of the UN as a force for peace in the world. It is not a story of heroes and villains, although such a work could easily be written. This book is a cri de coeur for the slaughtered thousands, a tribute to the souls hacked apart by machetes because of their supposed difference from those who sought to hang on to power. . . . This book is the account of a few humans who were entrusted with the role of helping others taste the fruits of peace. Instead, we watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect." - Gen Romeo Dallaire

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Raymont tells the searing, emotional journey of Canadian Lt-General Romeo Dallaire, whose controversial command of the U.N. peacekeeping mission to Rwanda in 1994, led to his own life tragedies as he dealt with the psychological fallout of witnessing a genocide he was powerless to stop.

After nine years of mental torture, reliving the horrors daily and more than once attempting suicide, Romeo Dallaire told his story of what happened in Rwanda, in his extraordinary book Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. The General pulls no punches in his condemnation of top UN officials, disloyal Belgian troop commanders and senior members of the Clinton administration who chose to do nothing – as he pleaded each day for reinforcements and revised rules
of engagement.

Raymont obtained documentary rights to General Dallaire’s book and exclusive access to follow him during his first return trip to Rwanda, In April 2004.

The Genocide
The International Community Who Watched