Paul Rusesabagina - Rwandan Genocide

Rwandan Genocide

The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 was not the first conflict between the two ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsi. In Rwanda the Hutu were considered the traditional farmers and the Tutsi were considered the ruling class of Rwanda.

During the Berlin Conference, Germany obtained Burundi and Rwanda between 1884 and 1885; the Tutsi remained the highest power because they already had power and they had lighter skin like other Europeans. It took a total of thirteen years to generate an administrative office for Rwanda.

After World War I Belgium gained Rwanda as a territory. The Belgians fueled the Hutu and Tutsi conflict when they took measurements of the noses of Rwandan citizens in 1933; this was to verify between Hutu and Tutsi. Tutsi were permitted an independent self-government by 1959, which was frowned upon by some Hutu because they were afraid that the Tutsi would try to further control them after the Belgians left. Rumors arose that the Belgians assassinated the king in 1959 from Hutu civilians due to their disgruntled opinion of the separation of power; this was further considered the Hutu revolution. Various expressions of extreme dislike for the Tutsi occurred after the Hutu Revolution of 1959.

Problems between these ethnic groups have started in the 1950's and around 1959 thousands of Tutsi where pushed out to other countries from the generation of the Hutu social revolution that overthrew the royal Tutsi government during that time. In the 1960’s the Tutsi guerilla warfare continued and after that ended in the mid 1960’s, anti-Tutsi programs were enforced in Rwanda and caused Tutsi people to flee in 1963 and 1964.

Due to recurring rapes and killings, Tutsi civilians fled to Uganda and there Paul Kagame developed the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1985 for Tutsi rights. This posed most controversial to the Hutu government and caused further civil war. By October 1, 1990 the Rwandan Patriotic Front began a civil war that consisted of the Tutsi refugees invading Rwanda from Uganda, which later resulted in hundreds of Tutsi arrests. In April 1991, the National Republican Movement of Democracy and Development approved a multiparty system and in November that same year it generated a youth wing known as the Interahamwe, which developed into a militia group. In March 1992, three hundred Tutsi were massacred outside Kigali. In 1993, the Arusha Accords were signed between the Rwandan government and the RPF. This agreement reduced Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana’s powers and promised to install a transitional government to continue to move Rwanda toward democracy. Hutu nationalism increased due to these conflicts and in October 1993, UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda) was generated. However conflict arose again on October 21, 1993 when Tutsi soldiers in Burundi assassinated Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu ever elected President in Burundi. Rwandan Hutus reacted with more violence toward Tutsis, believing the that the assassination affirmed a perceived Tutsi desire to control the whole region.

In Rwanda, while Paul was receiving his extra education in Nairobi, Switzerland, and Brussels, the Hutu-dominated government of President Juvénal Habyarimana faced prejudices and pressure from a Tutsi-led rebel force as they tried to maintain their power. Machetes were ordered and brought to the capital and given to the Interahamwe; while Tutsi were being discriminated against, a rumor brought on by a radio station RTLM explained that the Tutsi wanted to kill all the Hutus.

On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down by surface-to-air missiles as it approached the Kigali airport for landing. On board the plane with Habyarimana were the President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Rwandan army chief of staff Déogratias Nsabimana, and Colonel Elie Sagatwa, the head of presidential security. The wreckage landed in the garden of the presidential palace and all on board were killed . The Rwandan Genocide started on April 6, 1994. On April 7, 1994 the Presidential Guard assassinated Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana along with many other ministers, namely those from political parties different from that of the assassinated Habyarimana and those slated to play important roles in the transitional government that had been planned for instatement on April 8th. Ten Belgian UN peacekeepers were also killed. Interhamwe hunted down Tutsi and began killing them at the start of the genocide. Rusesabagina was Hutu – his mother was a Tutsi and father was a Hutu. His wife Tatiana was a Tutsi, from this their children were considered mixed. Due to this, he was unable to escape the war zone with his family without outside help. On April 11 Belgium withdrew peacekeepers and by April 15 the UN security withdrew international forces and it went from 2500 troops to 270 troops. No foreign aid came from the United Nations or its more powerful Western member states, including the United States of America, until after over 800,000 Rwandans had been murdered. By July 4 Rwandan Patriotic Front seized control of the capital and by July 17 Rwandan armed forces were defeated.

When the violence broke out, Rusesabagina brought his family to the Hôtel des Mille Collines for safety. As other managers departed, Rusesabagina phoned the hotel's corporate owners, Sabena, and secured a letter appointing him the acting general manager of the Mille Collines. Despite some difficulty in getting the staff to accept his authority, he was able to use his position to shelter orphans and other refugees who came to the hotel. His neighbours had moved into his house for safety, though Rusesabagina did not even own a gun. For protection against bullets and grenades they put mattresses against the windows. He described the hardships they faced, which included having to drink the water from the hotel's swimming pool.

When a murderous Hutu militia threatened to enter the Mille Collines, Rusesabagina ensured that his wife and children fled safely in a truck past the militia's roadblocks. The truck set out for Kigali airport so they could flee to another country. He himself remained in the hotel because the refugees needed him. Rusesabagina and his wife discussed this decision for hours, because he had promised her he would never leave her in this situation. Rusesabagina wanted to stay, fearing the remaining refugees would be killed and feeling that he would never be able to forgive himself.

Tatiana was a specific target for the brutal attack because she was the wife of the manager of the Mille Collines, who was hiding and trying to protect over 1,200 people; the Hutu militia knew she and her children were in the truck owing to radio messages sent out by presenter Georges Ruggiu. Ruggiu was an Italian-Belgian who was part of the radio station conspiracy to incite ethnic tension and encourage the Hutu population to kill all the Tutsis. Ruggiu called Rusesabagina's family "cockroaches who were fleeing, but would return later to kill all the Hutus".

Tatiana's family faced extreme tragedy. Her mother, and 4 nieces and nephews, died in the genocide and her brother and sister-in-law are missing. Her father paid Hutu militia to be executed so he would not die a more painful death:

 We all knew we would die, no question. The only question was how. Would they chop us in pieces? With their machetes they would cut your left hand off. Then they would disappear and reappear a few hours later to cut off your right hand. A little later they would return for your left leg etc. They went on till you died. They wanted to make you suffer as long as possible. There was one alternative: you could pay soldiers so they would just shoot you. That's what her father did. — Paul Rusesabagina in Humo, nr. 3365, March 1, 2005

The Interhamwe left nearly 1 million corpses behind. Tutsi rebels pushed the Hutus into the Congo in July 1994, after over half of the Tutsis in Rwanda had been murdered. Rusesabagina took orphans from the camp behind Tutsi rebel lines with him to Tanzania, to keep them safe and away from Rwanda. By the end of the massacre, four of his eight siblings remained alive. He comments in his autobiography that “For a Rwandan family, this is a comparatively lucky outcome”

Rusesabagina, his wife and children, and the refugees eventually managed to escape to Tanzania, thanks to the Rwandan Patriotic Front. After staying in Rwanda for two more years, Rusesabagina applied for asylum in Belgium and moved to Brussels in 1996 after receiving credible threats on his life. He moved to Brussels, Belgium with his wife, children, and his two nieces.