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Jan. 13, 2006
He's still fighting for justice
Reluctant hero pleads for more intervention in conflicts.
KATHARINE HAMER EDITOR
As world leaders remembered Holocaust victims in Auschwitz last
January, 60 years after the end of the Second World War, "the
two most abused words were 'never' and 'again,' " according
to human rights activist Paul Rusesabagina.
Rusesabagina, best known as the real-life inspiration behind the
movie Hotel Rwanda, believes little has changed in the way
the international community responds to humanitarian crises such
as the 1994 Rwandan genocide. After the United Nations pulled its
soldiers out of the region, close to a million Rwandans were massacred
– almost all of them ethnically Tutsis.
"Anyone who would be abandoned as we were [would hold anger
towards the UN]," Rusesabagina told reporters prior to a speaking
engagement at the Chan Centre last Sunday. "You imagine the
United Nations abandoning a whole nation to thugs and thieves. This
is what they did for us, we can never forget that. We can never
tell you that we do not have any grudge. That is human."
As a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali in 1994, Rusesabagina
helped save the lives of thousands of refugees – including
his own Tutsi wife and their children. He reached out to contacts
in Europe and Washington and to prominent generals in Kigali and
the Rwandan countryside. He bartered money, cigars and pricey bottles
of wine from the hotel's cellars in exchange for the lives of his
charges.
Everyone, no matter how aggressive, can somehow be bought, he said.
"What I learned is that in each and every hard hat, there's
always a soft corner you can touch – and squeeze a little bit."
During the conflict, Rusesabagina was witness to the slaughter of
close relatives. His 15-year-old son refused to come out of his
room for four days after seeing the mutilated bodies of a neighborhood
friend and his family. His wife, injured after the UN convoy in
which she was travelling came under attack, couldn't get out of
bed for weeks.
Speaking to a capacity crowd at the Chan, Rusesabagina noted that
European colonizers began the process of delineation between the
Tutsis and the other most significant ethnic group in Rwanda, the
Hutus, in the 1930s. Despite years of intermarriage between the
two groups, aggressive rumors were spread that the Tutsis were more
intelligent – even that their noses were two centimetres longer
than their Hutu counterparts.
More than 2,000 United Nations troops showed up in Rwanda as the
country was on the verge of civil war in 1994 – with political
leaders and media commentators inciting violence between neighbors;
even between members of the same family.
"We trusted the international community," Rusesabagina
recalled. "We put our hope in their hands." When a handful
of Belgian soldiers were killed, UN forces withdrew en masse, leaving
their emissary, Canadian Gen. Roméo Dallaire, with virtually
no resources.
"He is a very good humanitarian, he is a very good guy. He
loves people - but he had actually his hands tied, because he did
not have men," Rusesabagina said of Dallaire, whose 2004 memoir
Shake Hands With the Devil recounted the general's feeling
of helplessness. Dallaire remains haunted by his experience in Rwanda.
"I'm sure every person who would be in General Dallaire's place
will be traumatized," Rusesabagina said. "We are all traumatized.
I believe that each and every Rwandese needs a doctor, because we
are all traumatized.
"If he [Dallaire] had had 5,000 UN soldiers, he would have
stopped the genocide. People killing people with machetes, with
clubs and spears. Stopping them was not complicated. Those guys
didn't have nuclear weapons. They were not fighting with guns. To
stop that genocide was very simple. In Rwandan tradition, we never
like to show what we are doing wrong. So a Rwandan, just by seeing
a foreigner around, was not going to kill his or her neighbor."
It is only by putting bitter regional conflict under the international
microscope that it will be stopped, Rusesabagina insisted. Last
year, he travelled to the Sudanese region of Darfur – where
tens of thousands of people have been killed by the Janjaweed
– the government-sponsored militia. Millions more have been
displaced from their homes.
"What I saw in Darfur is what I saw in Rwanda between 1990-1994,"
said Rusesabagina. "What has the international community done?
Nothing at all. So what we expect from the international community
as a whole is to join words with actions, because otherwise history
will always keep on repeating itself and it will never teach us
anything. This is what is going on with Darfur, with northern Uganda,
with Somalia, with the Ivory Coast, with many African countries."
The Canadian Jewish community has been on the forefront of raising
awareness about Darfur. Vancouver Hillel and National Jewish Campus
Life were key organizers of Rusesabagina's appearance.
"We have a responsibility as Jews – and as human beings
– to educate others about our own history and to raise awareness
about other people who have also experienced genocide and ethnic
cleansing," said Alexis Pavlich, director of Israel Affairs
for Vancouver Hillel. "In bringing Paul Rusesabagina to Vancouver
to share his story, we hope that people will realize that horrendous
conflicts are still prevalent around the globe – some more
newsworthy than others – and that we all need to work much
harder in promoting tolerance, coexistence and mutual understanding."
For his part, Rusesabagina has established the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina
Foundation – dedicated to providing education to Rwandan youth
otherwise at risk of being co-opted as soldiers and to providing
resources to rape victims and children left orphaned by the conflict.
Now living with his family in Belgium, he said he is a very different
man since the genocide.
"My life has changed tremendously," he observed. "Before
the genocide, I used to be a very cheerful guy. I could come out
of my office, I could pop into a bar in my neighborhood. I could
pay a round, treating every person. Everybody knew me as someone
who would come and all the people would eat. But afterwards, I changed
completely my politics
because I was very much disappointed in human beings. I no more
went to any bars.
"Whenever I'm not at home at seven in the evening, my family
worries, they wonder where I am, because they know that from my
job, from my work, I go straight home. So I'm completely changed.
I don't no more trust anyone. I suspect all."
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