Former Rwandan hotel manager speaks at museum

In front of a crowd of more than 500 people at the Virginia Holocaust Museum on Sunday, Paul Rusesabagina recounted his days as acting manager of the Mille Collines, a Belgium-owned hotel in Rwanda’s capital of Kigali, during a nationwide genocide.

Along with the rest of the world, the United Nations peacekeepers failed to intervene as they watched the atrocities committed by the Hutu militia, Paul Rusesabagina said at the Richmond stop of his cross-country lecture tour.

“We saw them leaving, simply … running away,” he said of the U.N. peacekeepers. “When the whole world abandoned us, they never looked behind.”

In a period of 100 days, nearly 1 million Rwandans were killed because of their ethnicity.

The Hutu militia, whose members belonged to the ethnic majority, targeted moderate Hutus and the Tutsis, who for years had been dubbed the superior ethnic group. The sudden death of the Rwandan president, a Hutu, was blamed on Tutsi rebels.

Fueled by decades of resentment, the Hutu militia killed the Tutsi business and political elite and then targeted ordinary citizens.

Hutus saw their Tutsi neighbors slaughtered on their front lawns. Roads became grave sites filled with decapitated bodies and gutted corpses.

While history books tell of past genocides such as the Holocaust in World War II, many may be surprised to learn that this Rwandan genocide occurred in 1994.

Amid the killing, foreigners were evacuated from Rusesabagina’s hotel, and 1,200 Rwandans sought refuge. Rusesabagina, whose story inspired the Academy Award-nominated film “Hotel Rwanda,” bribed the Hutu militia with champagne and money to keep the refugees alive. He relied on a fax machine and a telephone to contact international authorities.

Still, only the Rwandan national police intervened when the Hutu militia threatened to harm the refugees.

“Life in the Mille Collines was very much complicated without any hope of surviving,” Rusesabagina told the audience. “We, all of us, were sure we were going to die.”

The genocide ended when the Rwandese Patriotic Front, a Tutsi-led rebel movement, overthrew the Hutu government and seized power.

Born to a Tutsi mother, Rusesabagina said his life was spared during the genocide because his father was a Hutu. His wife, however, is a Tutsi, and she stayed at the hotel with Rusesabagina and their three children.

Rusesabagina said he had little time to panic during those turbulent months. Determined to keep the refugees safe, he told himself, “If I happen to leave and these people are killed, I will … be a prisoner of myself.”

He and his family now live in Belgium, and he devotes his life to raising awareness about the genocide. By talking about his experiences, Rusesabagina said he hopes it will prevent other countries from suffering the same fate.

“I was very moved that something like that can happen and the whole world kept quiet.” – Simona Schwartz

Rwanda, he said, is still in turmoil as “yesterday’s victims have become today’s killers.” Thousands of Hutus and Tutsis took over abandoned homes and shops once the genocide ended. The displaced are without food and medicine.

What the country needs is a frank, honest dialogue among its citizens, Rusesabagina said.

The former hotel manager also criticized the United Nations for its handling of the genocide. The U.N. peacekeepers at Rwanda were forbidden from combating the Hutu militia and discharging their weapons.

The international community, who turned a deaf ear, has a duty to help the developed world, Rusesabagina said.

“I sometimes think of Rwanda as a wakeup call to the international community,” he told the audience. “What’s happening to our neighbors might happen to us tomorrow.”

Simona Schwarz, 77, said she attended the lecture because she experienced genocide firsthand. Schwarz, an immigrant from eastern Poland, spent four years living in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

For more information, visit the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation at http://www.hrrfoundation.org/

“I was very moved,” she said of the lecture. “I was very moved that something like that can happen and the whole world kept quiet.”

Cynthia Brown, 29, said Rusesabagina has inspired her to help displaced Rwandans.

“I thought it was amazing to be in the presence of someone who survived that and retained so much integrity and courage,” she said.