What terror convict Paul Rusesabagina has in common with Holocaust impostor Enric Marco

Paul Rusesabagina is not Rwanda’s Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, as claimed by few individuals. Those who promote this narrative are people who closely worked with Rusesabagina as he conned unsuspecting audiences for more than 15 years.

In reality, Rusesabagina is the Enric Marco of Rwanda.

Born April 12, 1921 in Barcelona, Marco is an impostor who claimed to have been a prisoner in Nazi German concentration camps Mauthausen and Flossenbürg during the World War II. He was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi by the Catalan government in 2001 and wrote a book on his supposed experience. In 2005, Marco would admit his claims were false and returned his medal after his deception was exposed by historian Benito Bermejo, an expert on Spain's deportees.

Bermejo became interested in Marco after meeting him at a conference in 2002. The University researcher found his story especially intriguing as Marco claimed to have been imprisoned in Flossenbuerg, a camp in Bavaria and an unusual destination for a Spanish deportee. Bermejo read all the versions he could find of Marco's past, starting with his claim that he had been an anarchist forced to flee to France from his home city of Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War had been lost.

The historian was curious but then became very perplexed especially a Marco's version of events changed each time he told it, both about the camp and how he had got there. Marco collaborated with Spanish writer Javier Cercas in a book entitled El Impostor (The Impostor), a book in which the writer suggests Marco was confronted at Mauthausen with Bermejo's findings by his Amical colleagues and admitted being a Third Reich volunteer worker.

“The Impostor,” a nonfiction, is the history of an ugly and wildly successful lie.  For three decades, Marco was a prominent public face of Spanish survivors of the Holocaust; president of a survivors’ association, and the recipient of a number of awards and distinctions. This Spanish Holocaust impostor, Marco, was exposed as a liar and con man back in 2005. Like Marco, Rusesabagina misled the world through his "Hotel Rwanda" project.

Like Marco, Rusesabagina was exposed as truth about his exact role at the Hotel des Mille Collines emerged.  When Cercas unmasked Marco, he condemned what he called ‘the misapprehension and cynical use of the past’, describing it as one of “the gravest threats to humanity”. “He who controls the past, controls the present and the future,” Cercas wrote in “The Impostor,” listed for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize.

The claim of being a survivor was just one of Marco’s most shocking falsehoods. Other lies included his name, birthdate, war wounds, and his role in the resistance. Similarly, depiction of Rusesabagina as a hero is a shocking falsehood. Sometimes, fact and fiction turned out to be elaborately pleached. Yes, Marco was in Germany during the war, but as part of a voluntary work programme established by General Francisco Franco of Spain and Adolph Hitler, the leader of Germany during the Second World War.

Yes, Rusesabagina was at the Hotel des Mille Collines during the Genocide against the Tutsi. He arrived at the hotel on April 13, 1994 after the genocidal government fled Hotel Diplomate which was under his management and headed to Murambi. His narrative of events at the hotel is a work of fiction. Rusesabagina himself initially hinted several times that “Hotel Rwanda” was a fiction.

For instance, after the screening of "Hotel Rwanda" in Berlin, 16 years ago, he was asked if the story in the movie was true and he said, “When a chef cooks a steak he has to add salt and pepper." But, surprisingly, he would be declared a hero and he himself went on to claim that status, picking up medals and awards as a result.

He traveled around the world defrauding people on his fake heroism platform, speaking at more than 450 conferences over 15 years by his own account. However, although there are similarities between Marco and Rusesabagina, there are also stark differences. Marco faked his survivor’s experience to get famous but it was later revealed that he actually had psychological problems linked to his background. But in Rusesabagina’s case, he invented the story of his heroism to get money, popularity and a platform on which to pursue his political ambitions.

Lying is one thing and this would probably not have landed him into trouble although people knew he was up to something. Something sinister. But then time came and he crossed the line. As he desperately pursued his political ambitions, Rusesabagina co-founded the MRCD political alliance and its subsequent armed wing, the FLN, which he publically pledged full support of despite its fatal attacks on Rwandan soil.

In a video, now re-posted on YouTube after it had been removed from the MRCD YouTube Channel following his arrest, Rusesabagina spoke about the creation of MRCD (Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change) during a virtual news conference on July 16, 2020. He declared: “We started MRCD in November 2016. It was a coalition of CNRD-Ubwiyunge led by Wilson Irategeka and PDR-Ihumure led by myself. After a long discussion, we set five pillars under one platform. The first pillar is what is being carried out by our soldiers. The second was diplomacy, the third was mobilisation, the fourth was communication, and the fifth was finance.

“We worked together and, toward the end of 2017, our brothers from Rwanda Revolutionary Movement (RRM) led by Callixte Nsabimana wanted to join us. “After a long discussion, RRM was accepted in March 2018 and we were successful in our actions, that’s when we started asking ourselves the name we will give our soldiers”.

These “solders” are the same that killed innocent people in Rwanda in attacks on villages and public transport in 2018 and 2019, attacks that both Rusesabagina and Nsabimana (also arrested) would claim responsibility for. The victims of these acts of terrorism will sleep soundly knowing that both Rusesabagina and Nsabimana and their accomplices in the fatal attacks have been brought to book.