Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Romeo Dallaire Reviewed by Doug Brown
Powells.com
"Most books about genocides are understandably about either the perpetrators or the victims. Readers are left to wonder what was happening elsewhere in the world, why no one tried to stop it. Shake Hands with the Devil is about the Rwandan genocide, but from the point of view of the force commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). There are many small acts of heroism in this book, but overall there are no good guys. Certainly not the Rwandese Government Forces (RGF), the Hutu army that led the genocide in concert with the Interahamwe (an extremist Hutu-power party). Not the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), the Tutsi-led rebel army that slowed their advance through Rwanda, allowing the RGF's genocide to continue in order to solidify their own power base. And not the United Nations, which comes off as immobilized by bureaucratic inertia, incapable of consensus, and thus incapable of action." Read the entire Powells.com review.