Rusesabagina, a paradoxical opportunist

Author: Yousuf Rwaka

• 2023-07-14 04:27:00

Thanks to his Western backers, Paul Rusesabagina rose to fame as a ‘Hollywood hero’ due to the fictional film Hotel Rwanda.

But his opportunism is traced back in 1994 when the staff of Sabena, the group that owned the Hôtel des Mille Collines, fled the country and Rusesabagina became the hotel manager.

As a hotel manager, Rusesabagina turned into a business master during the Genocide against the Tutsi. He commenced with charging for phone calls, eliminating the provision of food and water to the Tutsi who sought refuge at the hotel, and establishing a monetary charge for individuals seeking sanctuary inside the hotel. In those very difficult times when the Tutsi were targeted for extermination, he threatened to throw out those who failed to pay.

Contrary to what really happened at Hôtel des Mille Collines, Rusesabagina fooled Westerners and they believed – as portrayed in the fiction movie Hotel Rwanda – that he saved more than 1,000 Tutsi in the hotel.

That is where the naïve ambition to portray him as an exceptional man began. Fiction is fiction. And it is normal in movies. But riding on it to make the world believe that what is portrayed in the movie is the real thing is what irks the people who were in the hotel during the Genocide and those who actually know Rusesabagina and his Western backers’ calculations.

Apart from being deceitful for personal gains, he founded and used a terror group, FLN, claiming that he aims at ‘liberating’ Rwandans. These terrorists plotted attacks in southwestern Rwanda which claimed innocent people’s lives between 2018 and 2019.

Rusesabagina confessed, among other things, that he provided Euros 20,000 to the FLN. So, how would this ‘Hollywood hero’ liberate Rwandans while killing them, burning public transport buses and looting people’s properties?

Before he was pardoned and allowed to return to the US, earlier during his trial, Rusesabagina denied his Rwandan citizenship. Rwandans were shocked when he declared that he is ‘a Belgian orphan.’  He still continues to distance himself – preferring to be considered a Belgian or an American resident – from Rwandan citizenship yet wants to be seen as a man who has Rwanda and its people at heart.

How he plots to ‘change leadership’ in Rwanda while claiming not to be Rwandan citizen often remains a puzzle.

The 69-year-old was convicted of terrorist crimes and sentenced to 25 years in jail. He was released on presidential clemency on March 25 after he promised to abandon his political shenanigans.

Unsurprisingly, he later contradicted his parole terms. In an interview with the New York Times on July 1, 2023, he said: “I know pressure worked. It is not because of kindness that I am out.”

Despite overwhelming evidence presented by Rwandan prosecution in the trial which was streamed live online for everyone to follow and understand, Rusesabagina told the New York Times that he fought for ‘human rights’ and especially of Rwandans and ‘democracy in the country’.

No Rwandan can imagine that killings and terror attacks will establish ‘democracy’ in any country, especially theirs.

In a statement made during his release, the Rwandan government explained that despite the presidential pardon, Rusesabagina’s release does not absolve him from the previously imposed penalty and that it can still be reinstated if he commits similar offenses again.

Rusesabagina is behaving carelessly but, unfortunately for him, he is being used by Westerners.