By Ann Garrison
Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life protagonist whose heroic story is the basis of the film “Hotel Rwanda,” is now imprisoned and on trial in Rwanda for a long list of preposterous “terrorism” charges. Rwandan operatives kidnapped him in Dubai at the beginning of September and forcibly extradited him to Rwanda on the orders of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has for many years been celebrated as Rwanda’s savior, the general who stopped the genocide. A long list of investigative works, most recently Judi Rever’s “In Praise of Blood, Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front,” and decades of UN reports detailing the Rwandan army’s atrocities in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have belied that tale, but US and other NATO nations’ support for the Rwandan president continues.
Paul Rusesabagina is a longtime critic of Kagame’s regime and its catastrophic war on the Congolese people and the Rwandan refugee population who crossed the Rwandan/Congolese border to escape his advancing army in 1994. I’ve spoken to him several times for Pacifica’s KPFA Radio and the San Francisco Bay View Newspaper about Rwanda and DRC, and for Counterpunch “On Invoking Rwanda to Attack Syria.” I read his book “An Ordinary Man,” and I’ve followed his activism on behalf of peace in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the wider African Great Lakes Region for over ten years I hope to see him released.
That said, I first reacted negatively to “Hotel Rwanda,” the Hollywood movie based on Rusesabagina’s heroism in protecting more than a thousand people who took shelter in the hotel he managed during the 100 days of massacres that began on April 6, 1994. That was because it was already being used as propaganda for US wars. Paul himself has said that he was happy with the movie as the story of a man taking a moral stand amidst a bloodbath and near complete collapse of social order, but that the movie is at the same time a simplification with a Hollywood ending.
Unfortunately that simplification has been used to try to justify the destruction of the Libyan State in 2011 and the relentless bombing of Syria that began in response to a false flag chemical weapons attack. In both cases, the US claimed that it was compelled to “stop genocide” as it had failed to do in Rwanda, even though Bill Clinton’s Administration actually stepped in to prevent a UN intervention during the Rwandan Genocide because they wanted to see then General now President Paul Kagame win the four year civil war that preceded the final 100 days of massacres and seize power.
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, published a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to demand a fair trial for Paul. The George and Amal Clooney Foundation and the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights have said they’re sending an observer to make sure he gets a fair trial.
However, no one who knows much about Rwanda could imagine that a fair trial is possible. And, even if it were, his kidnapping and rendition to Rwanda broke international law, including the Covenant on Human and Civil Rights, which both the US and Rwanda have signed, and violated his Constitutional rights as a permanent resident of the US. The US needs to demand that he be returned. And if Rwanda wants to extradite and try him in Rwanda, they need to go into court and make their case to do it legally.
There’s more on this in my several reports on Paul’s situation in Black Agenda Report, including my interview with University of Pittsburgh Law Professor Dan Kovalik about legal possibilities for getting him back to the US. As he said, “You can’t just go around kidnapping people.”
Paul Rusesabagina, not Paul Kagame, is Rwanda’s real hero. He’s also a hero to the Congolese for speaking out against Kagame’s catastrophic war and occupation of Congo, which has cost millions of Black lives.
Thanks to Voices with Vision for giving me a chance to share his case.