Running Time: 90 & 52 mins
Year: 2007

synopsis

In 100 days – between April 6 and July 16, 1994 – an estimated 800,000 men, women and children were brutally killed in the obscure African country of Rwanda. The victims – many horrifically hacked to death with machetes – were Tutsi, and the moderate Hutus who supported them.

Canadian Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire was mandated by the UN with keeping that peace, but unsupported by the Security Council, his soldiers were unable to stop the genocide. After ten years of mental torture and more than once attempting suicide, Roméo Dallaire poured out his soul in an extraordinary book.

Shake Hands With The Devil is a cri de coeur. In it, the General pulled no punches in his condemnation of top UN officials, expedient Belgian policy makers and senior Clinton administration officials who chose to do nothing as Dallaire pleaded for help.

Dallaire is convinced that, with a few thousand more troops and a mandate to act pre-emptively, he could have stopped the killings. His impotence, at a time of extreme crisis, preys on his conscience still. In April 2004 – the 10th anniversary of the genocide, Dallaire revisits the killing fields that haunt him. This documentary chronicles that visit.

Credits

Director Peter Raymont
Produced by White Pine Pictures in association with The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Société Radio Canada,
with the financial participation of The Rogers Documentary Fund, The Canadian Film or Video Tax Credit, The Canadian Television Fund