By MAX TANI and ALEX THOMPSON
PAUL RUSESABAGINA’s harrowing real-life story of survival during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 captured the public imagination and inspired the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda in 2004. But long after Hollywood toasted his heroism, Rusesabagina found himself at odds with increasingly autocratic President PAUL KAGAME, which ultimately landed him in jail, sentenced to life in prison for terrorism-related charges.
Now his daughters are talking to top foreign policy officials in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN and national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN, hoping the recent dark turn in the East African country will spur the president to act.
“We believe the administration and in particular Biden would want to use his leverage between Rwanda and the United States to bring my father back,” ANAISE KANIMBA said.
In a conversation with West Wing Playbook, Kanimba, one of Rusesabagina’s adopted daughters, said the U.S. needs to move with more urgency to save her father, whose actions during the Rwandan genocide are credited with saving over 1,000 Tutsis and Hutus. President GEORGE W. BUSH awarded him a presidential medal of freedom in 2005.
Rusesabagina has been held by the Rwandan government since 2020, when he was duped into boarding a chartered flight from Dubai to Rwanda, arrested, and eventually sentenced in 2021.
The trial has drawn international condemnation from many human rights activists, who said the charges were largely trumped up, and stem from Rusesabagina’s outspoken criticism of the abuses under Kagame.
While the Trump administration was mum on Rusesabagina’s imprisonment, the case has attracted the attention of the Biden White House.
Kanimba and a group of family members of other high-profile figures who have been detained overseas met with Blinken last February to brief him him on the various detainments. They also met with Sullivan in December, where Kanimba and others made the case for the U.S. to pressure the Rwandan government for Rusesabagina’s release.
Kanimba said the White House has been receptive to their plight: During their meeting, she said Sullivan agreed to a future one-on-one with Kanimba to discuss her father’s situation in more detail, though so far no meeting is on the books.
Asked for comment, a National Security Council spokesperson referred West Wing Playbook to the State Department. In a statement, a State Department spokesperson reiterated that the U.S. remains concerned by the conviction, saying it continues to engage with the Rwandan government “at the highest levels,” but the “lack of fair trial guarantees called into question the fairness of the verdict.”
The spokesperson also noted that the State Department was keeping an eye on the ongoing appeal of the case, saying the government remains “focused on the fairness of the process,” and hopes “all parties will take the opportunity to raise and address concerns related to the case during the current appeal.”
In addition to its regular contacts with the State Department, the family has also been in touch with the White House about other troubling issues they strongly believe are related to Rusesabagina’s imprisonment. The Guardian reported last year that Amnesty International found malware on the phone of one of Rusesabagina’s other daughters phone that suggested she had “been the victim of a near-constant surveillance campaign,” which she pinned on the Rwandan government (the government denied the allegation). Kanimba said the family promptly informed NSC officials about the incident.
Over the past several months, the family has been successfully raising awareness for the issue among top lawmakers in both parties. Earlier this month, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a bipartisan resolution calling on the Rwandan government to release Rusesabagina and urged the U.S. to raise his case in official interactions with the Rwandan government to increase pressure.
Despite it’s anti-democratic lurch, the U.S. has maintained close ties to Rwanda in recent years. Former President DONALD TRUMP met with Kagame in 2018, and praised the two countries’ close economic bonds.
Kanimba said she recognizes the challenge of extracting her father, including other looming international conflicts that are occupying much of the Biden administration’s current bandwidth on the foreign policy front.
While the family’s goal remains securing Rusesabagina’s return, Kanimba believes there are also incremental concessions the government could lobby for in the interim, including securing better facilities and care for her father, a 67-year-old cancer survivor, and preventing humiliating strip searches of her father’s attorney when he visits the jail.
She told West Wing Playbook her hope is for Biden to raise the issue during a future call with the Kagame.
“We want to encourage the government to do more. We’re going in the right direction, but I wish it could happen faster rather than slower,” she said. “And it’s happening a bit slowly, we don’t have time on our side.”