Shake Hands With the Devil by Romeo Dallaire

Author:Romeo Dallaire [Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire with Major Brent Beardsley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2005-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

I listened to the report without moving a muscle. It wasn’t shock any more at the horrific descriptions. Instead I now entered a sort of trance state when I heard such information; I’d heard so much of it over the past two weeks that it simply seemed to pile up in my mind. No reaction any more. No tears, no vomit, no apparent disgust. Just more cords of wood piling up waiting to be sawed into pieces in my mind. Much later, back in Canada, I was taking a vacation with my wife and children, driving down a narrow road on the way to the beach. Road workers had cut a lot of trees down on either side of the road and piled the branches up to be picked up later. The cut trees had turned brown, and the sawn ends of the trunks, white and of a fair size, were stacked facing the road. Without being able to stop myself, I described to my wife in great detail a trip I had had to make to the RPF zone, where the route had taken me through the middle of a village. The sides of the road were littered with piles upon piles of Rwandan bodies drying in the sun, white bones jutting out. I was so sorry that my children had no choice but to listen to me. When we got to the beach, my kids swam and Beth read a book while I sat for more than two hours reliving the events reawakened in my mind. What terrible vulnerability we have all had to live with since Rwanda.

I got to the Diplomates at about 1130. I was not optimistic about the chances of making any headway with the RGF on the ceasefire, since Bizimungu had finally taken up his appointment as army chief of staff, replacing Gatsinzi, and no one would ever call Bizimungu a moderate. Bagosora was usually ensconced in an office at the hotel that had a clear view of the lobby, where petitioners and business people lined up to see him, but he was nowhere in sight.

Bizimungu, a short, well-rounded man with an aggressive expression and a well-kept uniform, came into the lobby to greet me. His eyes were bright, even shining, but they did not project confidence nor mastery of the situation. We shook hands and spoke niceties to one another as we headed to the conference room to the left of the lobby. We settled on separate sofas; at my back was a wall of windows giving out to the hotel gardens, where Presidential Guards were patrolling. I was surprised that he met with me alone, but nothing he said to me was the least bit surprising. Sitting on the edge of the sofa in order to maintain a certain height advantage over me, he launched into a litany of complaint. He was quite annoyed that the international media and press were being manipulated by the RPF propaganda machine, making the RGF and the interim government out to be the bad guys.

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