The hypocrisy of western media on ‘Hotel Rwanda hero’

It has been two months since Paul Rusesabagina, the infamous ‘Hotel Rwanda hero’ was sentenced to 25 years in prison on terrorism related charges. The entire court proceedings in the case that involved 19 other suspects was streamlined live on YouTube – both at first instance and on appeal.

However, despite the crystal-clear evidence provided to court from different witnesses and countries, including the FBI and the Belgian police, western media still clings on his Hollywood-inspired heroism.

Perhaps, one would give Western media the benefit of doubt had they been denied access to the judicial process in the case of Rusesabagina. However, the media were allowed to follow court proceedings at will.

On the contrary, what we realize today is a bizarre trend where Rusesabagina’s trial on terrorism charges that he himself admitted to, at least during the first days of the case, has turned into a political tool against President Paul Kagame and the government of Rwanda.

To further demonstrate hypocrisy, the same media completely ignored the victims of Rusesabagina’s criminal enterprise, or at worst the other 19 co-accused, whom he has never disassociated from.

In his article published by the Washington Post on May 31, Bobby Ghosh calls for the UK to censure Rwanda over the handling of “Hotel Rwanda Hero”.

In his piece, Ghosh failed to mask up his double standardd when he started his analysis by quoting the Biden administration’s declaration that Rusesabagina was “wrongly detained” in Rwanda.

With such a subjective sentence, he missed an opportunity to project the impartiality that every journalist worth their salt is called to exhibit. But then, Rwandans are used to this.

He also displayed his total indifference to African lives that are lost through terror acts such as the attacks in Nyabimata and Nyungwe forest that killed dozens of people and injured several others – all masterminded by Rusesabagina. Had Ghosh had an objective mind when he set out to write his article, he should not have missed the opportunity to draw parallels between Rusesabagina and his cronies with Osama Bin Laden because both men are avowed terrorists with a track record. He should have therefore, instead, best used his time to analyze how the US administration, at the time President Biden was Vice President, dealt with Osama Bin Laden, a terrorist just like Rusesabagina but who unlike the latter, never had his day in court.

Bin Laden was summarily executed without having a chance to defend himself before a competent court of law against terror charges.

It is equally important that western journalists and analysts note these details on Rusesabagina fictions. It all starts with a Hollywood movie that portrays him as the savior of the Tutsi refugees who were at Hotel des Milles Collines during the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Survivors from the hotel have come out strongly to refute the claims that they survived because of Rusesabagina. They instead testified to how he profited from their unfortunate situation by charging them money.

It must be noted that this hotel was under the protection of UNAMIR, the peacekeeping mission in Rwanda that time, and was therefore protected by blue helmets and not Rusesabagina, who had imposed himself as the hotel manager, after the office bearers were evacuated.

More so, the FBI and other American authorities knew about Rusesabagine working with terror groups but instead opted to do nothing, a repeat of the 1994 scenario. This time, they were protecting their own ‘hero’ and recipient of presidential medal, irrespective of the fact that a Rwandan prosecutor travelled to the US and presented all the evidence pinning their ‘hero’ on terrorism.

They themselves corroborated this with what their investigators later found out through a paper trail of his fund transfers to DRC and other countries in the region to fund terror activities.

 If this is not at best condoning, or at worst, abetting terrorism, then what is it?

Connecting his case with the UK can only display the intent to disrupt the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and, strictly qualifies as absurd.