Paul Rusesabagina

Paul Rusesabagina
Born 15 June 1954
Murama, Ruanda-Urundi, Belgium
Nationality Rwandan (Hutu)
Spouse(s) Esther Bamurage (divorced)
Tatiana Rusesabagina (1989-present)
Awards Presidential Medal of Freedom
Immortal Chaplains Prize for Humanity
Wallenberg Medal of the University of Michigan
National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award
Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize from The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice

Paul Rusesabagina (born 15 June 1954) is Rwandan humanitarian who; while working as a hotel manager, hid and protected 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees during the Rwandan Genocide. None of those refugees were hurt or killed during the attacks. He was the assistant manager of the Sabena-owned Hôtel des Mille Collines after he was the manager of the Hôtel des Diplomates, both in Rwanda's capital of Kigali. During the genocide he used his influence and connections as temporary manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines to shelter Tutsis from being slaughtered by the interahamwe militia.

Rusesabagina's efforts were the basis of the Academy Award-nominated film Hotel Rwanda (2004), in which he was portrayed by American actor Don Cheadle. He currently lives in San Antonio, Texas with his wife, four children, and two adopted nieces. Rusesabagina founded the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation to fight for global human rights.[1]

Birth and career

Rusesabagina was born to his Hutu father and Tutsi mother in Murama, Rwanda. He had eight other siblings and was neither the oldest nor the youngest. It was common to have mixed families despite conflicts between Hutu and Tutsi; like other families, Paul and his family did not care about their supposed differences.

Rusesabagina's parents sent him to school in a town near Gitwe; a school that was run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. By the age of eight he could read and speak French, and by thirteen he could read and speak English.

By the end of his teenage years, Rusesabagina wanted to pursue his interest in the church attending seminary to become a minister. He also became interested in the daughter of the African pastor of a Seventh-day Adventist Church, Reverend Sembeba. Her name was Esther, and on September 8, 1967 they married and he began attending the Faculty of Theology in the nation of Cameroon to become a minister.

In December 1978, he, his wife, and two children moved to Kigali. While there, a childhood friend, Isaac Mulihano, invited Rusesabagina to apply for work at the Milles Collines where Mulihano worked and where there was an opening. He excelled at the hotel, and was later sent to Switzerland and Brussels where he learned more about cuisine, bookkeeping, courtesy, payroll management, how to plan institutional goals, and how to hire and fire workers. However, his constant work kept him apart from his wife Esther. They legally separated in 1981 and he was allowed to have complete custody of their three children: Diane, Lys, and Roger.

In 1987, he was invited to a wedding where he met Tatiana, the maid of honor and a Tutsi nurse in Ruhengeri. Rusesabagina obtained a favor from a frequent customer of the Milles Collines, a Minister of Health, to obtain for Tatiana a transfer to a job at Central Hospital in Kigali. Tatiana and Paul married two years later and she adopted his children. Later, they had a son, Tresor.

In 1992 Paul Rusesabagina was promoted to assistant general manager of the sister hotel of Milles Collines named Diplomates Hotel; these hotels were owned by the Swiss-Belgian Sabena conglomerate.

The Rwandan Genocide

In Rwanda, while Paul was receiving education in Nairobi, Switzerland, and Brussels, the Hutu-dominated government of President Juvénal Habyarimana faced pressure from a Tutsi-led rebel force as they tried to maintain their power. Machetes were ordered and brought to the capital and given to the Interahamwe; while Tutsi were being discriminated against, a rumor brought on by a radio station RTLM explained that the Tutsi wanted to kill all the Hutus.

On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana's plane was shot down by surface-to-air missiles as it approached the Kigali airport for landing. On board the plane with Habyarimana were the President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Rwandan army chief of staff Déogratias Nsabimana, and Colonel Elie Sagatwa, the head of presidential security. The wreckage landed in the garden of the presidential palace and all on board were killed.[2][3] The Rwandan Genocide started on April 6, 1994. On April 7, 1994 the Presidential Guard assassinated Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana along with many other ministers, namely those from political parties different from that of the assassinated Habyarimana and those slated to play important roles in the transitional government that had been planned for instatement on April 8. Ten Belgian UN peacekeepers were also killed.[2] Interhamwe hunted down Tutsi and began killing them at the start of the genocide. Though Rusesabagina was Hutu (his father was Hutu and his mother Tutsi), his wife Tatiana was a Tutsi and his children considered mixed. Due to this, he was unable to escape from the war zone with his family.

When the violence broke out, Rusesabagina brought his family to the Hôtel des Mille Collines for safety. As other managers departed, Rusesabagina phoned the hotel's corporate owners, Sabena, and secured a letter appointing him the acting general manager of the Mille Collines.

When a murderous Hutu militia threatened to enter the Mille Collines, Rusesabagina ensured that his wife and children fled safely in a truck past the militia's roadblocks. The truck set out for Kigali airport so they could flee to another country. He himself remained in the hotel because the refugees needed him. Rusesabagina and his wife discussed this decision for hours, because he had promised her he would never leave her in this situation. Rusesabagina wanted to stay, fearing the remaining refugees would be killed and feeling that he would never be able to forgive himself.

Tatiana was a specific target for the brutal attack because she was the wife of the manager of the Mille Collines, who was hiding and trying to protect over 1,200 people; the Hutu militia knew she and her children were in the truck owing to radio messages sent out by presenter Georges Ruggiu. Ruggiu was an Italian-Belgian who was part of the radio station conspiracy to incite ethnic tension and encourage the Hutu population to kill all the Tutsis. Ruggiu called Rusesabagina's family "cockroaches who were fleeing, but would return later to kill all the Hutus".

Tatiana's family faced extreme tragedy. Her mother, and 4 nieces and nephews, died in the genocide and her brother and sister-in-law are missing. Her father paid Hutu militia to be executed so he would not die a more painful death:

 We all knew we would die, no question. The only question was how. Would they chop us in pieces? With their machetes they would cut your left hand off. Then they would disappear and reappear a few hours later to cut off your right hand. A little later they would return for your left leg etc. They went on till you died. They wanted to make you suffer as long as possible. There was one alternative: you could pay soldiers so they would just shoot you. That's what her [Tatiana's] father did.
— Paul Rusesabagina in Humo, nr. 3365, March 1, 2005

The Interhamwe left nearly 1 million corpses behind. Tutsi rebels pushed the Hutu militia into the Congo in July 1994, after over half of the Tutsis in Rwanda had been murdered. Rusesabagina took orphans from the camp behind Tutsi rebel lines with him to Tanzania, to keep them safe and away from Rwanda. By the end of the massacre, four of his eight siblings remained alive. He comments in his autobiography that "For a Rwandan family, this is a comparatively lucky outcome".

Rusesabagina, his wife and children, and the refugees eventually managed to escape to Tanzania, thanks to the Rwandan Patriotic Front. After staying in Rwanda for two more years, Rusesabagina applied for asylum in Belgium and moved to Brussels in 1996 after receiving credible threats on his life. He moved to Brussels, Belgium with his wife, children, and his two nieces.

Awards received

Media

Books

His story was first told in Philip Gourevitch's book "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families," which was published in 1998.

Autobiography

His autobiography entitled An Ordinary Man (written with Tom Zoellner ISBN 0-670-03752-4) was published by Zach Bell in April 2006.

Film

Paul's work is dramatized in the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda in which he is played by Don Cheadle. It is important to note that the film is a dramatization of real events and may not be entirely accurate.[4]Cheadle's performance was met with critical acclaim and the actor was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.

Feud with Paul Kagame

Rusesabagina and Rwandan president and former head of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Paul Kagame have become public enemies of each other. In his autobiography, Rusesabagina alleges, "Rwanda is today a nation governed by and for the benefit of a small group of elite Tutsis...Those few Hutus who have been elevated to high-ranking posts are usually empty suits without any real authority of their own. They are known locally as Hutus de service or Hutus for hire." He has also criticized Kagame's election to president.

On April 6, 2006, Kagame suggested, "[Rusesabagina] should try his talents elsewhere and not climb on the falsehood of being a hero, because it's totally false." Despite this, Rusesabagina stated in a public lecture at the University of Michigan on March 27, 2014 that he has chosen to forgive Kagame, as this is the only way that Rwanda can move past the genocide.[5] Francois Xavier Ngarambe, the president of Ibuka, the umbrella body of survivors' associations for the genocide, said of Rusesabagina, "he has hijacked heroism. He is trading with the genocide. He should be charged." Terry George, the director of Hotel Rwanda, characterized the comment as part of a smear campaign.[6]

In 2008, the book Hotel Rwanda or the Tutsi Genocide as seen by Hollywood, by Alfred Ndahiro, a public relations advisor to Kagame and journalist Privat Rutazibwa, was published.[7] It provides an alternative take to the portrayal of Rusesabagina's actions as seen in Hotel Rwanda.

Rusesabagina has consistently denied allegations put forward by the Rwandan government accusing Rusesabagina of helping the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a Rwandan rebel group. In a 2010 interview with CNN Rusesabagina said :"I have sent no money to terrorists ... He [the prosecutor] is not only lying, but lying with bad logic.....This is pure and simple fabrication from Kigali."[8]

Controversy

Some of those who survived the 1994 genocide in the Hôtel des Mille Collines, including Edouard Kayihura, a lawyer and former prosecutor for those accused of genocide in Rwanda, and Odette Nyiramilimo, a Rwandan doctor who later became a senator and minister within the Rwandan government, question Rusesabagina's humanitarian endeavours. In a letter to Terry George, the director of the film Hotel Rwanda, Odette wrote that "People thank [Rusesabagina] on how he was taking care of orphans in the hotel, and he agrees! Terry, there has never been orphans! Who would have brought them? Some people even call me or send nice messages to me thanking me to have been taking care of the orphans at that tragic period. Of course I explain it did not happen like that! But it has happened maybe somewhere else".[9] Kayihura's book "Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story and Why It Matters Today" (Benbella Books, 2014) illustrates conflicting statements made by Rusesabagina himself since the 1994 genocide, such as how he charged people for food and drink during the genocide [10] and threatened to kick out Christophe Shamukiga, an occupant of the Hôtel des Mille Collines, for distributing soft drinks, boiled water, and cookies to other hotel guests found in a basement cache without paying for them.[11] Rusesabagina denies these allegations.[12]

Rusesabagina has also claimed that the RPF rebels committed genocide during the conflict.[13] Such a claim contradicts work by historians such as Alison Des Forges (Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda), although according to other historians such as Gérard Prunier (Africa's World War), the RPF did, in coming to power, murder large numbers of both Hutus and Tutsis, for the most part indiscriminately, as an instrument of political control. See also Rwandan Genocide denial.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "'Hotel Rwanda' Manager: We've Failed To Learn From History". National Public Radio. April 5, 2014. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Melvern, Linda (2006). Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide. Verso.
  3. ↑ Rusesabagina, Paul (2006). An Ordinary Man. The Penguin Group.
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Public lecture at University of Michigan, March 27, 2014 4:30-6
  6. ↑ George, Terry (May 10, 2006). "Smearing a Hero". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  7. ↑ Movie sparks public feud
  8. ↑ Karimi, Faith. "'Hotel Rwanda' hero denies sending money to rebels." CNN. October 28, 2010. Retrieved on October 28, 2010.
  9. ↑ Kayihura, Edouard and Kerry Zukus. Inside the Hotel Rwanda. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2014. 171.
  10. ↑ Kayihura, Edouard and Kerry Zukus. Inside the Hotel Rwanda. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2014. 91.
  11. ↑ Kayihura, Edouard and Kerry Zukus. Inside the Hotel Rwanda. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2014. 92.
  12. ↑
  13. ↑

Further reading

External links

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