“Paul Rusesabagina was never the most idealistic man,” so when, what would later become the Rwanda Genocide, began in 1994, his first instinct was to help. As a manager of the Milles Collines, a local hotel, in Kigali,Rwanda (the country’s capital) Rusesabagina was right in the middle of all the fighting.
When fighting began on April 7 between the Hutu tribe and their neighbors, the Tutsi tribe, all hell broke lose. People looked for shelter in the Milles Collines and Rusesabagina, he himself being a Hutu and his wife being a Tutsi, could offer it. Unfortunately, the hotels defenses were weak and they need support to hold off the “machete wielding Hutu extremists” looking to kill the Tutsi’s and the moderate Hutu’s. Despite killing almost 800,000 Tutsi’s and moderate Hutu’s in a mere hundred days, Rusesabagina saved somewhere around 1,268 people of both tribes. Finally, with the reinforced help of some Rwandan National Police and later the fact that the hotel became a “symbol of the fear and anguish suffered by the Tutsi and others during these weeks,” Rusesabagina successfully saved his people.
Throughout the hundred days of the genocide, many threats filled the hotel and literally, at any moment, all the refugees could have died if the hotel was attacked. For example, on April 23, a lieutenant of the Department of Military Intelligence came to the hotel at around six in the morning telling Rusesabagina to abandon the sheltering effort and tell everyone to leave. With only a mere half an hour to complete this task, he had to pull some strings, and quick, as the hotel was surrounded by Hutu military and militia. With the help of some foreign authorities and sheer god luck, Rusesabagina and the National Police helped call the lieutenant off and abandon the evacuation. Then again on May 13, a captain came to the hotel warning Paul and his refuges there would be a Hutu attack around 4 P.M. that day. Also on that day, the French Foreign Ministry received a fax saying “that the Rwandan government forces plan to massacre all the occupants of the hotel in the next few hours.” Fortunately for all the refugees and Paul, the attack never happened and those some thousand lives were spared.
Amazingly enough, none of the people that took refuge in Rusesabagina’s hotel were killed and Rusesabagina himself would later become known as a hero. When asked about his being a hero, he simply replied, “That was nothing special. I was a hotel manager. I just kept on being a hotel manager. If to be a hero is to remain who you are, everyone would be a hero.”
Hotel Rwanda Trailer
A movie based on Rusesabagina's story during the genocide.
