Shake Hands with the Devil - Romeo Dallaire - Part 5 of 10

2020 Reading Challenge - Day 196

July 15, 2020

Book 55 - Shake Hands with the Devil
Roméo Dallaire
 Part 5 - pages 210-268 (e-book)
Reading Time - 60 minutes

Reading the next two chapters in this book, I kept gearing myself up for the start of the genocide... And while there was no major killing, no genocide... it was the start of the genocide, which began long before there were massacres.

Chapter 9 - Easter without a Resurrection of Hope

As march flowed by, it was clear that both sides were digging in and that arms were still flowing across the border. On top of that, Dallaire still had problems with logistics, communications, vehicles and helicopters, not to mention troops. The Bangladeshi troops were only there to gain experience. Their army chief of staff had visited in February and told Dallaire that he needed to make sure all of those men made it home safely.

In mid-March, Dallaire went home for a two week leave, stopping in at the UN on his way back. It was clear that the growing crisis on Rwanda was on the back-burner, overshadowed by Yugoslavia, Mozambique, Haiti, Cambodia and Somalia. The US wanted the mission pulled out if the BBTG was not installed within the next two weeks. Essentially, the United States was willing to pull the mission out of the country and let it sink back into civil war and chaos.

When Dallaire arrived back in Rwanda on March 31, the BBTG was still not installed, mostly because the President had insisted on including an extremist political party into the agreement. The RPF was not pleased and refused to attend the installation. Things were beginning to fall apart and Dallaire had only 40-60 rounds/soldier which wouldn't last long in a sustained fire fight. But no country seemed to care that the country was headed for civil war.

As Dallaire noted: "The people of Rwanda were not an insignificant black mass living in abject poverty in a place of no consequence. they were individuals like myself, like my family, with every right and expectation of any human who is a member of our tortured race."

On Easter Sunday, Dallaire was still trying to broker talks for the BBTG installation. His helicopter flew over a village as crowds gathered for Easter Sunday services. A week later, those same devout Christians would become murders and victims, and the places of prayer, sites of calculated butchery.

The UN Security Council granted the mission a six week extension at which point the mission would be "reviewed" (i.e. pulled). Their decision confirmed for all Rwandans that the world didn't give a damn about Rwanda. And when the killing started, every nation, with the exception of Canada, declined to reinforce his mission. In April and May, Canada supplied two Hercules aircraft to the mission, as well as excellent staff officers and military observers.

Chapter 10 - An Explosion at Kigali Airport

On April 6, the president's plane crashed near Kigali airport. The Prime Minister was next in line but all of the moderate politicians had gone into hiding and the extremist ones had disappeared.

A Crisis Committee of army officers took control of the country due to the uncertainty and Dallaire wondered if their actions did not constitute a coup. The army officers said that the Prime Minister did not enjoy the confidence of the Rwandan people and was incapable of governing the nation.

The Presidential Guard carried out attacks and assainations and the army officers professed themselves unable to control them. Barricades were set up the Presidential Guard and UN vehicles were often prevented from going through. Officials at the UN repeatedly stressed to Dallaire that he could only fire if fired upon and was not to use weapons to prevent crimes against humanity, even though that was allowed under the rules of engagement.

The next day, Dallaire sought out the military officers again in a meeting at Camp Kigali (army base). On his way there, he saw some of his soldiers on the ground but the driver refused to stop. He would later learn that ten Belgian soldiers were executed at Camp Kigali that day, the same soldiers who had been guarding the Prime Minister, who was also executed at a UN compound earlier. Kigali's "hate radio" had been broadcasting inflammatory statements which said that the Belgians had shot down the President's plane.

Dozens of Rwandans came to the UN compounds, seeking refuge and many more phoned for help. Dallaire tried to send out patrols to bring desperate civilian staff and moderate politicians back to their buildings but was hampered by some of his own troops. The Bangladeshis were ineffective and disobeyed orders, having orders from Dhaka (capital of Bangladesh) to avoid all risk.

Dallaire was ordered not to take sides, not to try to coalesce the moderates... it was up to the Rwandans to sort things out themselves.

This is an extremely hard book to read... not that it's not readable... it is... it's just hard to read about a slow motion train wreck and know that 800,000 human beings lost their lives because some bureaucrats deemed their lives to be worthless. Ten Belgian soldiers were executed... and that prompted the Belgians to pull their entire contingent. The Bangladeshis were not far behind. Dallaire would be left with 250 soldiers (more or less) to be a witness to the horror that was to come.