Rusesabagina’s backer wants course of justice derailed

Since the arrest and trial of Paul Rusesabagina, the former hotelier accused of terrorism, his backers resorted to all sorts of pressure to have him released before the verdict in his case and 20 co-accused is pronounced. Rusesabagina faces 13 terrorism-related charges. Prosecutors requested a life sentence for him.

One of his staunchest allies, Tom Zoellner, publishes Op-Eds in The Washington Post vilifying the Rwandan government, and President Paul Kagame. Zoellner is a Professor at Wilkinson College of Arts, CA, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Department of English and co-author of Rusesabagina’s biography An Ordinary Man.

His latest bid to have his man released shows a troubling level of condescension and arrogance. He is also indifferent and cares less about the plight of the victims of the terrorist attacks Rusesabagina stands accused of masterminding.

In an Op-Ed titled “Why the Biden administration should help the hero of ‘Hotel Rwanda” published in The Washington Post on August 18, he does his best to paint his friend in a glossy and spotless light - as “a hero” who “had shielded at least 1,268 people from near-certain death during the Rwandan genocide.”

This Hollywood version of what happened at the Mille Collines Hotel was disputed. Genocide survivors who were there contest that Rusesabagina saved them. They tell the story of callous man, who was cosying up with architects of the genocide, including Col Theoneste Bagosora and Gen Augustin Bizimungu. Rusesabagina who allegedly saved more than 1,000 Tutsi during the genocide went to Arusha, Tanzania, to be a defence witness for the same genocidaires he used to wine and dine with in 1994.

Yet Zoellner incessantly lauds his man, and attacks Rwanda’s judiciary and the whole court process calling it “sham”. Another lie advanced by Zoellner is that “the judiciary in Rwanda is a servant to the will of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has nursed animosity for years against Rusesabagina.”

The assertation about President Kagame influencing the courts and that his leadership is threatened by the fame of Rusesabagina should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

For Zoellner, the Biden administration should use more than $100 billion in the aid given to Rwanda annually, for five years, to force Kigali to free the man the US once lauded and bestowed a Medal of Freedom.

He pushes for Rusesabagina to be set free on humanitarian grounds, alleging that “Rusesabagina is now 67, a cancer survivor with high blood pressure, and his time in solitary confinement — illegal by global justice standards — has taken a grave physical toll.”

Nowhere in the article does Zoellner show any empathy to the widows, orphans and other victims of the attacks carried out by Rusesabagina’s militias regrouped into the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) – National Front for Liberation (FLN). People who care now know the harrowing stories of the survivors of the terror attacks on vehicles in the outskirts of Nyungwe Forest; those of the attacks in Nyabimata sector, and those in Kitabi sector in southwestern Rwanda.

Zoellner brushes aside the testimonies of his friend’s co-accused, notably Callixte Nsabimana, calling them “shadowy figures that Rusesabagina had never met.” As for funding armed militias as Rusesabagina is accused, Zoellner prefers to ignore the records provided by the FBI and the Belgian Prosecution and calls them “small and ordinary disbursements to friends and family back home.”

Zoellner also willingly ignored the damning testimony of Dr Michelle Martin, a professor at California State University, Fullerton in the Department of Social Work, who worked as a volunteer at Rusesabagina Hotel Rwanda Foundation. This professor gave more than two hours of testimony about how she found out that Rusesabagina’s foundation had nothing humanitarian in its activities. It was a front for activities supporting Hutu Power ideologues and genocide denial.

In his desperate attempt to appear more credible, Zoellner cites another pro-Rusesabagina campaigner, Brian Endless, a political science professor at Loyola University Chicago. Zoellner’s plea for the Biden administration to prevent the course of justice is nothing new.

Almost one month away from the pronouncement of the verdict, there is panic in the ranks of Rusesabagina’s backers.  They have resorted to lies aimed at painting this alleged terror mastermind in a very good light, and to talk down Rwanda’s legal system.