“The UK the US the whole world decided to abandon a whole nation to thugs, to thieves, to killers, to gangsters…..without any witness from the international communities Rwandans took machetes and started to butcher each other for 100 days without any witness. On April 15th a week after the genocide started I saw the last journalist…a Newsweek journalist … being evacuated. Foreigners were evacuated – until that time even soldiers – so-called peacemakers, were evacuated. Without any witness we were slaughtered.” Paul Rusesabagina.
The poignancy of these words stirred my heart as I listened from the back of a crowded auditorium at the Colorado Convention center in Denver. Emotions were also palpable among the 5,000 school pupils listening intently to the speech of this outstanding individual. Had they ever in their short lives been in such close proximity to a person who has suffered and witnessed so much horror and terror, and who is actually truly deserving of the title hero? I certainly hadn’t and I felt in essence that I was in the company of true greatness.
I was even more privileged than most on that November day in 2005. Following the speech I had arranged for Paul Rusesabagina to join the host of the PBS show I produced, Global Agenda, for an exclusive one-on-one half hour interview where he would share his story and offer comparisons to present day African struggles.
My diligence over several weeks had paid off and I had been assured by the speech organizers, that I would be given time with Rusesabagina for my show. As he finished speaking I escorted him to one of the dressing rooms where we had created a makeshift set. We were soon accosted by members of the press, newspapers and other television stations who were all clamoring for an interview. Because of the rapport I had built beforehand I was allotted thirty out of the meager forty five minutes he had to spare before having to leave for the airport. I could feel just a little resentment among the ‘real’ TV stations when they found that a trifling little PBS affiliate had more or less exclusive access!
Paul Rusesabagina is the real-life hotelier portrayed by Don Cheadle in the movie, Hotel Rwanda. When the country plummeted into genocide in 1994 and ethnic Hutus began killing their Tutsi neighbors, Rusesabagina – a Hutu married to a Tutsi woman turned his hotel into an impromptu refugee camp for more than twelve hundred terrified Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Deserted by international peacekeepers, Rusesabagain began cashing in every favor he had ever earned, bribing the Rwandan Hutu soldiers and keeping the bloodthirsty militia outside the gates during the hundred days of slaughter. In the end he survived along with his family as did most of the refugees he sheltered. The Genocide claimed an estimated 800,000 lives however, most of them were Tutsis but many moderate Hutus were also targeted and killed.
You may have seen the movie and if not please do so. You will never forget it believe me. The whole world stood by while monsters butchered children, men, women, the elderly – anyone and everyone who was of Tutsi heritage. How can ethnic hatred fester this much and manifest itself in such violence? But this is an age old question is it not. History is full of such incidents but we have to question why it is allowed to occur today. The whole of Africa is a disaster ….a killing field” said Rusesabagina, in the interview, as his wife Tatiana sat nearby nursing a bad cold, trying desperately to suppress a cough. In 94 the whole world stood by and watched people killing people and this is exactly what is going on in Darfur.
Those of us averse to the situation that has been allowed to escalate in Iraq where there was no clear objective to intervene other than some weak premise of self-preservation, have to question the priorities of our nation’s foreign policy and self-proclaimed status as the world’s policeman. The same goes for the UK, other European nations, and the UN itself. Where were we all then? And where are we now when genocide is occurring right in front of our eyes – situations that could be averted or at least alleviated. Rwanda could have been saved back in ’94 there’s no question about it.
The fact is that the world decided not to intervene. Bottom line. “What we need from a strong country”, claims Rusesabagina “from the leaders of the world like the US is for them to stand up and say no to the killings. Wherever there’s a will there’s always a way – and the US can make it if you really want.” And he goes on to say: “You made it in South Africa – Apartheid was the worst virus in South Africa now what is it? The whole world said no to apartheid – why don’t you say no to the killing fields in Rwanda? Why don’t you say no to the killing fields in the Ivory Coast? Darfur? In Somalia? You can make it if you really want.”
Rusesabagina, who days before this interview was the deserving recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, (the only non-American to receive the award) explains what it was like to live through those hundred days when the whole country fell into chaos, the roads littered with the bodies of butchered neighbors and friends; when cruel predators hunted the streets for more victims. The only thing I was sure of during the Rwandan genocide was to be killed. The only questions I was asking myself were: When? Where? How? Who would do it? At what time? To die was the only thing I was sure of.”
Paul Rusesabagina, is the author of “An Ordinary Man – An Autobiography” and told us that his objective with this book, just like with Hotel Rwanda, is “to make a classic, a book which will be read by young generations – a message to young generations.
I was humbled beyond words in the presence of Paul Rusesabagina and his wife Tatiana.
As the thirteenth anniversary of this horrific tragedy approaches lets take a moment of our time not only to remember those who were slaughtered so unmercifully, but also the brave men and women who survived and helped others survive. Amid the present horrors of today’s war torn world lets not forget what happened in April 1994 in Rwanda. And let’s also not forget the meaning of true heroism and not be so quick to exalt the undeserving.
