Clooney Foundation cares less about victims of Rusesabagina's terrorism

The recent Clooney Foundation statement on Rwanda reflects Hollywood's script, which seeks to portray the Paul Rusesabagina trial as a case of a ‘hero’ being victimized by ‘villains’.

According to that script, it has been the authoritarian villains' choice of justice to pursue, abduct, prosecute, and punish that ‘hero’ who is exempted or forgiven for terrorism and murder. On the other hand, the villains oppressions are inexcusable and require the heroic figure to combat them.

The US-based Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ) made a statement on April 3, a day before the Court of Appeal's judgement in the FLN terror case, in an attempt to manipulate the Rusesabagina verdict. That statement appears to be typical Western liberal celebrity "humanitarianism," which consists in identifying and heroizing a person who they consider to be more like them and loyal to them, and thus it has been their decision to undertake to save him from the claws of an authoritarian African despot and his corrupt courts.

The Clooney Foundation statement, based on the TrialWatch report, recycled and regurgitated the same old Rusesabagina allegations about his arrest, as well as citing procedural irregularities and violations of fair trial requirements that were conclusively adjudicated or addressed. In other words, the TrialWatch report and the Clooney Foundation statement merely articulated in legal terms the same desperate pronouncements peddled by Rusesabagina's family and supporters since his arrest in Kigali in August 2020 following a flawless plan to lure him back to Rwanda.

TrialWatch is one of the programme of the Clooney Foundation in partnership with the American Bar Association and Columbia Law School to monitor trial proceedings of cases involving those they define or depict as “protesters, lawyers, judges, politicians, and activists who seek change, or to defend their countries and legal systems from corruption”.

In that light, the American Bar Association monitored the Rusesabagina trial as part of the TrialWatch joint initiative with the Clooney Foundation, in order to “expose and challenge the injustices” as an authoritarian regime is using its courts to silence a “hero”. The Rusesabagina trial was, understandably, monitored based on the assumption that he is a “victim”, a “democracy defender” and an “opposition politician fighting authoritarianism." Their point of view resulted in the expected outcome, and here is how.

To begin with, according to Geoffrey Robertson QC, the Clooney Foundation “expert” on the Rusesabagina case, the TrialWatch report “is not concerned with Paul Rusesabagina’s guilt or innocence, but whether his trial was fair”, and he gave the trial an overall grade of “D”. The Clooney Foundation's perspective on the Rusesabagina court case explains why the TrialWatch report is this condescending and indifferent about the lives of the FLN's victims.

The Clooney Foundation statement took up the false premise used by Kate Gibson, Rusesabagina’s American counsel, that “from the moment he was kidnaped, any eventual verdict was worthless.” Except that his kidnapping is fictional, as there is no proof that contradicts the UAE Government's assertion and the evidence presented in court proving that he came to Rwanda on his own.

Rusesabagina himself was asked how he got in Kigali, and said that it was a surprise.

According to the Clooney Foundation, an evaluation of the evidence presented in court to determine whether Rusesabagina is guilty or not should not have taken place, and Rusesabagina should not have been formally charged, because of a fictitious controversy surrounding his arrest.

The Clooney Foundation basically blames the Judges for not taking Rusesabagina's word for it, because, in the realm of Hollywood imagination, he is a "hero" who cannot lie or fabricate falsehoods, despite the fact that "Hotel Rwanda" falsehoods are the reason he became a Western "genocide hero" and an object of Hollywood fantasies.

With such cynicism and disregard for FLN terror victims, one has to wonder how they think Rwanda will care about Mr Robertson's opinion.

Perhaps sensing that their hypocrisy was becoming too obvious, the Clooney Foundation admitted that "the prosecution evidence against [Rusesabagina] was unveiled but not challenged.” Paradoxically, Mr Robertson concluded that “the Court fully accepted, and promoted, the government’s case against Paul Rusesabagina, without question or challenge,” though he failed to provide a rebuttal to the prosecution's evidence.

Obviously, Mr Robertson is no such genuine expert of criminal justice. He disparages Rwanda’s justice efforts before even taking time to understand why Rusesabagina was brought in court and if he is guilt or not based on the evidence.

The irony is that the Clooney Foundation describes the trial as a "sham" and "seriously flawed” without technically interrogating the prosecution's evidence, which includes incriminating materials handed over to Rwandan prosecutors by Belgian and American prosecution authorities.

The Clooney Foundation’s ill-conceived Western “celebrity humanitarianism” reproduced a simplistic duality of democracy and authoritarianism, free and oppressed, and savior and needy, because it lacks real life, lived experience of the issues they supposedly monitor, and instead chooses to display a moral superiority, without one kind word for the people killed by Paul Rusesabagina's militia!

If the Clooney Foundation had a candid knowledge of the issues they purport to monitor, they would reach a conclusion similar to U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s, who visited and met Rwandans, and returned to the United States to tell Congress that "Rusesabagina is accused of serious crimes of terrorism, which he was tried and convicted for."

Or the EU Commission which warned the EU Parliament "not to lose sight of the serious charges against Rusesabagina, which are partially established based on the body of evidence presented by the prosecution, much of which was provided through cooperation with prosecution authorities in EU Member States."

Advocating for impunity for Rusesabagina, a terrorist who confessed to having created and sponsored an armed militia which killed innocent Rwandan citizens, puts the Clooney Foundation’s credibility and integrity in serious question.

Michelle Rodriguez, star of Hollywood "The Fast and Furious" franchise, once said, “I enjoy vanity. But I can't stick to any of that lifestyle for too long because, when its true colors come out, it's empty and cold and soulless”, similarly, the Clooney Foundation's vanity may amaze the world. They can't, however, hold to any of its clownish, empty, cold, and soulless pronouncements on the Rusesabagina case for too long.

On April 4, Rwanda’s Court of Appeal upheld a 25-year prison term against Rusesabagina.

This is yet another victory over those who seek to establish a system in Rwanda in which charging decisions and verdicts are for the Clooney Foundation and Trial Watch, rather than the Rwandan prosecution and courts.