After writing his book, Shake Hands with the devil, Romeo Dallaire has come back to Rwanda ten years after the tragic events of the Rwandan genocide. As he is brought back to the place where he saw brutal murders and dead bodies everywhere ten years earlier, Dallaire is swept away at how much Rwanda has changed to a peaceful place where Tutsi and Hutu can live together. Dallaire meets with people who lost their entire family because of the genocide as well as gives lectures at stadiums and press conferences. I think this was a very strong story as you get to see the man who had the most responsibility to save the Rwandan people and see how the people of Rwanda treat him with such respect and admiration. His lecture at the stadium was also very honest as he fully said that the imperial powers of the world didn’t care about Rwanda and didn’t care about blacks, which they let die without any remorse.
The film was also showed what the locations Dallaire was visiting looked like 10 years before thanks to footage during the genocide, this footage really put what Dallaire must have been feeling in perspective as we were able to see what he saw. It was also very interesting to see how the leader of the Red cross group that was stationed in Rwanda during the genocide though of Dallaire. He showed that people who were trying to help out Tutsis during the time like Dallaire, saw him as a hero and a leader, while at the same time some people blamed him for what happened. I was shocked that the Belgian man at the press conference was blaming Dellaire for what happened to the Belgian peacekeepers, as this was highly inappropriate as it was an event to commemorate the lost lives of the Rwandan people. The fact that the Belgian man was yelling at Dallaire made me really angry as his country was responsible for the civil wars, and they ignored Dallaire’s fax that warned that Belgian peacekeepers were going to be killed, yet they blamed Dallaire.
In conclusion I believe this was a very powerful documentary as it did show how he is very distraught for allowing the genocide to continue. Also it was very powerful for us to be able to see his first time back to Rwanda and how he felt being back in the place where he failed to save almost a million people. The fact that he can live day by day after such a tragedy shows how strong he really is, as he did do everything he could to help but was given no support by the UN. I really enjoyed this film and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who knows about what Dallaire did in Rwanda, so I am going to give this documentary a 9 out of 10.
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