Shake Hands With The Devil (DVD)
Directed by: Peter Raymont

Having seen Hotel Rwanda recently, I decided to pick up this DVD, part of the “Document Collection” line of documentaries, ignorantly thinking Romeo Dallaire was the Canadian played by Nick Nolte in the aforementioned film. I’m pretty damn sure now he’s not, but I certainly don’t regret watching this movie. This is the story of Romio Dallaire, an accompaniment to his book of the same name, as he returns to Rwanda to remember his time serving as head of the failed UN mission there in 1994.

The movie includes plenty of archive footage of a younger Dallaire dealing with the media then, but is mostly a camera simply following him around as he tells his story, all while visiting important places involved in the genocide.

The film was done for the CBC so as you can expect, its not very showy and at time its actually slow, but around halfway through, the full impact of Dallaires story really starts to hit home. Dallaire, while viewed as a hero by many, is riddled with guilt about the mission, always feeling he could have done more, and extremely bitter that the world did not come to help. At one point in the film, he goes to speak ata university, and tells them the full truth: They were not rescued because they were blacks in a country with no strategic value, with a population the west thought was too high anyways. This illicits a shocked reaction from the crowd. You’d figure they already know all this, so the shock must be that someone from the West actually came out and told them it.

Aside from some stories of how horribly Dallaire took it personally (he was once picked up drunk under a park bench in Hull after coming home), Dallaire is mostly used as a means to drive along the story of what exactly happened in Rwanda. Many different people are essentially, and justifiably, blamed for how things came to be. Such as the Catholic Church, with a massive influence in the country, who did not come out and condemn what was going on. Such as the Belgians, who basically separated the country into Hutu and Tutsi in the first place with quack craniology, and ran with their tail between their legs from Rwanda when other countries did not join, leaving Dallaire with less than 500 people to keep the peace. The French and the US also get their share of the blame, as deep cynicism is expressed about Bill Clinton’s visit to Rwanda where he gives a If only I knew this was going on” sort of speech. Then there is the apathy of the American public, as at the same time the Rwandan genocide is occurring, the US is instead enthralled with the OJ Simpson case.

Dallaire’s claims about the Rwandans not being treated by the West as real people are backed up when a Belgian senator uses a media event to viciously attack Dallaire personally, holding him responsible because Belgians died there, as if the deaths of the soldiers vastly outweigh the massive numbers of dead from the genocide. It’s an incredibly angering moment, watching someone so callous and uncaring of what happened blame a good man when in reality he did all he could. Footage is shown of the 10 year anniversary memorial of the genocide, and no important world leaders showed. Canada and the US only sent lower level government representatives. Its incredibly shameful, and Sudan is proof that this sort of unwillingness to face reality will cause these atrocities to keep happening. Apparently we’re all too busy catching up the Michael Jackson trial.

Romio Dallaire’s story is ultimately a sad one. His wife calls him her Canadian hero, but he is too scarred to recognize the good he did, and will likely carry the pain of his experience until he dies. — Goon

SCORE: