The Security Council voted, in fact, to decrease UNAMIR forces to 260 (although they later reversed themselves-after it was already too late). Dallaire focused on establishing areas of "safe control," and by doing so, saved about 20,000 Rwandans. But the wholesale massacre continued, and by the end of 100 days 936,000 Rwandans had been killed.

             Dallaire blamed himself for everything that had happened. On the day when he mixed alcohol with drugs, he was found underneath a park bench in Ottawa, and the police took him to the hospital (Allen, 2002). It was after this terrible episode that he decided to try writing. In a sense the decision to write was a decision to save himself from what had happened to him. He began to write a book about the experience of genocide. His audience was the world, which needed to know what had really happened there. He found it painful to give shape to his experiences by writing them down, but it helped him to put the park bench and the post-traumatic stress disorder behind him. He states, "I actually think it's having relived that year in Rwanda and the four months of the genocide through writing the book. I mean, I actually had to relive it. You can't write it unless you relive it" (CBC News In-depth web site). Reliving traumatic experiences in order to write about them is therapeutic.

             Part of his traumatic memories involved near-unbearable ethical dilemmas. For example, he had learned to see the enemy as "devils," that is, no longer human beings. After all, they had mercilessly slaughtered 936,000 human beings. How do you negotiate with the devil, he struggled? Perhaps it is better to take out your gun and shoot him between the eyes. But at the same time he wanted peace for the people that were left. The conflict was so great that at one point in negotiations he says, "I wasn't sure if my hand would go take my pistol out or would move to shake their hand.