Shake hands with the devil : the failure of humanity in Rwanda / Roméo Dallaire ; with Brent Beardsley.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [545]-548) and index.

The tragic and profoundly important story of the legendary Canadian general who "watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect." Called on to serve as commander of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda, he believed that he was to help two warring parties achieve peace. Instead, he was exposed to the most barbarous and chaotic display of civil war and genocide in the past decade, observing in just one hundred days the killings of more than eight hundred thousand Rwandans. With only a few troops and his own ingenuity and courage, Dallaire rescued thousands, but his call for more support fell on deaf ears. Here he recreates the awful history the world community chose to ignore, and chronicles his own progression from confident Cold Warrior to devastated UN commander, and finally to retired general struggling to overcome posttraumatic stress disorder.--From publisher description.