Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire

As someone who has studied the Rwandan civil war and genocide in depth, I would recommend this documentary for providing some important background that is not readily available elsewhere in the film and literature about the genocide. The events of 1993 and early 1994 immediately leading up to the outbreak of killing, are often not presented well. Here we see General Dallaire's return visits to UN installations and places where he tried to carry out his initial mission to implement the Arusha Peace Accords of '93, important pieces of the puzzle. This alone makes the film worth seeing for anyone interested in how the genocide came to happen. There is also a visit to the memorial at Bisesero, an important but lesser known locale during the genocide where Tutsi were able to resist for a long time. While the "Ghosts of Rwanda" Frontline film remains the definitive documentary about the genocide, this movie adds some valuable details.

However, the film also uncomfortably at times seemed like a promotional project or hagiography for Dallaire and his friends and colleagues rather than a truly thoughtful documentary examination of one embattled and psychically wounded commander's experiences in trying to uphold an impossible mission. Part of the "problem" is that Dallaire is clearly a determined personality (and was in 1994) and speaks pretty eloquently for himself, but we also need to "see" more cinematically and not just hear people reciting how wronged he was. We needed less talking heads and more on-the-ground footage. (Although the 1994 footage is horrific enough) The film does not exactly take a dispassionate editorial tone... it's savagely condemning of both the UN and the Belgians in particular. (Warning, don't watch this movie if you're Belgian.)

Clearly, Dallaire was a fall guy for massive UN incompetence and immoral world indifference, who deserves to have his story told. I just think it could have been told much better in documentary form.

This incredible documentary must be seen. The irony that Romeo Dallaire, the only man who actually stayed in Rwanda during the genocide, would feel the most guilt over the mass slaughter is incredible. This film needs to be seen in the context of current African tragedies. Not simply Sudan, but the LRA's child soldiers of Uganda, the gruesome and pervasive civil wars in Burundi, DRC, and the Cote d'Ivoire. These conflicts are complex and ignored by the world. See this film and become more informed on African politics which are destroying the lives of tens of thousands of human beings. There are possibilities to help, seek out large NGOs such as Oxfam, Medecins Sans Frontieres, and the Heifer Organization; or smaller, more specialized NGOs such as Care For Life. This film helps us all to realize we cannot ignore the realities of developing nations' violence and poverty. In another fantastic documentary, "Born into Brothels," one of the children says something to the effect of "I like this picture, though it is sad, we have to look at it because that is the way she lives and it is truth." If an impoverished 10-year-old can come to that realization, so must the rest of the world.

There is so much tragedy that takes place in the world involving the military and others involved in physical conflict, yet it is rare that a soldier comes forward to tell the truth. In Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, we are lucky to have not just a soldier, but a leader who took so much responsibility for the Rwandan genocide onto himself explaining through word and deed what happened there, and its meaning. This is a wonderful documentary, and a moving story about an honest man's quest to understand the difficulty and horror he experienced. It is impossible not to be emotionally moved by Dallaire's story, and the well-crafted way in which it is told.

A great documentary which tells the story of Dallaire in Rwanda during the genocide. It's amazing to see how no one responded to this crisis and yet quickly responded to what was happening in Yugoslavia. My one problem? Dallaire's roman-catholic spiritualism whereby he says he could feel "the coldness" of the "evil" men who orchestrated the genocide. There are no evil men and good men. Just men. What these men did, they did because they were human, not because the devil tapped them on the shoulder.

I'd heard about Dallaire's return to Canada and what happened when he came back. He was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and was severely depressed. At one point he wandered drunkenly through the streets of Ottawa while he contemplated suicide. He was eventually picked up on a park bench in Hull and was hospitalized. I would have been more interested in hearing about Dallaire's psyche when he returned home. This documentary is after all less about the genocide and more about Dallaire and his confrontation with what he calls "evil".

I saw Shake Hands with the Devil not long ago, on Radio-Canada, and it was a very strong counter to Hotel Rwanda, which I had seen just days earlier. It amazes how countries that stand up and decry the Holocaust, that call Iraq and Afghanistan centers of evil that must be invaded and liberated, seem to sit quietly and allow genocide to occur repeatedly throughout Africa. Whatever the reason may be - no resources or interests, an attempt to pacify mutual allies, or simple apathy because it's 'not a Western problem', it fills me with anguish to see the results. And to see CNN and the media giving Iraq and the Asian tsunami 24/7 coverage while making Rwanda and Darfur a footnote on the back pages is nothing short of horrendous.

One scene in particular really stuck with me - it's the scene during the Rwandan inquest, where a Belgian senator starts to harangue Dallaire over the deaths of a couple of Belgian peacekeepers, who he claimed could have been saved. It absolutely astounded me to see this self-righteous and self-centered man thinking about the loss of two men while nearly a million were butchered. And to blame Dallaire, who was handicapped by the UN who refused to give him support or a mandate...it boggles the mind. I didn't see the Belgian government pleading for the UN to intervene...

In Darfur it's the same situation - the UN doesn't want to intervene, so they swamp their investigation and reports in red tape, mainly because China has oil contracts with the Sudanese government and Russia has sold arms to them. It looks like the only lesson that the previous genocides of the last century has taught us, is that if there's going to be genocide, get on the side that is committing it and make sure that your interests are secured...

Bravo to Dallaire for having the courage and cojones to return to Rwanda and to give us his outstanding and this astonishing and important documentary. 9/10.